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by Frederica Harris Thompsett
from To be a priest, pp. 83-89,
edited by
Robert E. Terwilliger and Urban T. Holmes, Seabury Press, New York,
1975.
Republished on our website with the necessary permissions.
Frederica Thompsett is assistant professor of church history at
Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois. Her area of special
interest and research is the English Reformation
Church,
In
1551 the new Bishop of Gloucester, John Hooper—a powerful preacher and
zealous reformer eager to establish the reformed faith in his diocese—was
at best dismayed when visitation records of his parish clergy indicated that
out of 311 clergy, 168 were unable to repeat the Decalogue, 9 could not count
the Commandments, and 33 were unable to locate them in Scripture; moreover,
there were 10 clergy who could not repeat the Lord’s Prayer, 9 who could
not locate it in Scripture, and 34 who were unable to name its author. Such
statistics might appear incredulous given today’s general expectations
that a clergyman be a trained, educated professional. However, throughout
Christian history, models for ministry have evolved to suit the religious
intentions of various cultures.(1) The chronological focus for this essay is on
the early days of the English Reformation. In particular we will examine
expectations for the parish clergyman in the reign of the Protestant Josiah,
the child-king, Edward VI (1547-1553). In this hey day of religious reform and
liturgical achievement (e.g. the Prayer Books of 1549 and 1552), increased
attention was given to realigning and reinvigorating the functions and practice
of parochial ministry. In this essay a number of questions will be raised
concerning the process of changing expectations of ministry: not only what
model for ministry was suggested by mid-Tudor reformers and how it was to be
achieved, but also why Englishmen, among both the laity and the clergy, were
convinced of the need to reform parish clergy.
Certainly there was room for improvement of the mid-Tudor clerical
estate. Most of the parochial clergy (with the exception of clergy in London
and the university towns) were casually educated. They might have attended a
local ABC school, or one of the Latin grammar schools; or a neighboring
clergyman might have taught them to read. University graduates, seeking more
lucrative posts, were seldom resident in parochial livings. Few parsons
received any specific training in theology, and many were narrowly informed.
They tended to focus on local problems, to be comfortable with traditional
practices of worship, and to suspect innovation in general. Economically, the
value of their livings varied considerably, as did the sources of income
(tithes, fees, farming, etc.). It has been estimated that three-quarters of the
parochial incomes were inadequate. Moreover, the parson’s income, like
that of his parishioners, was threatened by inflation. Socially, many of the
parochial clergy came from the class they served. Once a clergyman was
fortunate enough to find a benefice (often after years of low-paid service as a
stipendiary curate) his social base as parson of the village was secure, though
social expectations of his position might severely tax his finances. Some
parsons were also in need of assistants to adequately serve their parishes, but
often they did not have the means to hire them. In sum, parochial clergy in the
early years of the Reformation were ill-equipped by training, resources, or
temperament to wean their parishes away from the familiar patterns of worship,
let alone attract them to Protestantism.(2)
Anticlerical attitudes, particularly indignation and resentment of
greedy clerics, were familiar components of English medieval thought. No doubt
there were some greedy and immoral Tudor parsons (although anticlerical
polemics tended to magnify such evidence), but certainly the early Reformation
clergy were not worse, spiritually, than their medieval predecessors. Yet
during the Reformation there was a more constructive dimension to anticlerical
thought which took the form of an intensified concern for the provision of an
adequate ministry. The laity were in part responsible for this transformation
as their expectations and standards for clerical performance perceptibly
increased. Many laymen seemed less willing to tolerate the conventional abuses
of pluralism, simony, and absenteeism. One central impetus for their changing
attitudes was that the invention of the printing press eventually led to a
general diffusion of education. Many Englishmen struggled to learn or improve
their reading skills and many developed a pronounced taste for religious
literature. Hugh Latimer, a popular preacher and experienced reformer, wryly
noted in a 1549 sermon before the Court that some of the laity were better
learned in Scripture than the clergy.(3) Although ignorance and superstition
were by no means arrested by accessibility to inexpensive books, standards of
lay education were increasing and some laymen began to set a higher premium on
an educated parochial clergy.
The
impetus for reform of the clergy was further enhanced by the unrelenting social
and economic challenges to mid-Tudor society. A long inflationary spiral,
unstable patterns of landholding, repeated debasements in the value of the
coinage, expensive military campaigns, rebellions among the common people in
the summer of 1549, plus the insecurity of a period of minority rule —
these tensions propelled contemporary criticism and debate. Accordingly, as
there was little distinction in Tudor thought between secular and spiritual
issues, many of these complaints were quickly absorbed into religious
controversy where they served to refuel anticlerical diatribes. The new enemy
was envisioned as an even heartier brand of “Protestant” greed.
Contemporary critics argued that popish monks and priests had been replaced by
extortioners who fed off the spoils of the Reformation. They pointed to the
social and economic ills of society as evidence that the Church’s mission
was failing. Individual members of the laity were more reluctant, given the
rise in prices, to pay even traditional fees to clergy. Some argued that they
wanted better value for their money from their parsons.(4) Anticlerical
attitudes were exacerbated by social and economic dislocation and there was a
heightened demand for reform.
The
former model of ministry, suited to a culture in which religion was a ritual
method of living, was also proving less viable. Under the prolonged impact of
the Reformation, functions of ministry, as practiced by the medieval parson,
were becoming less distinct. According to an historian of religion and
magic:
Protestantism thus presented itself as a deliberate attempt to take
the magical elements out of religion, to eliminate the idea that rituals of the
Church had about them a mechanical efficacy, and to abandon the effort to endow
physical objects with supernatural qualities by special formulae of
consecration. . . . The reformers set out to eliminate theatricality from
church ritual and decoration, and to depreciate the status of the
priesthood.(5)
Only a
few theologically informed members of a parish might notice the lack of
emphasis on the sacrificial character of the priesthood in the 1549 and 1552
Prayer Books, but most parishioners paid attention only to changes within their
local church — removing the rood screen, defacing images of saints,
replacing the altar with a table, etc. Before their eyes much of the luster was
withdrawn from the drama of worship and thereby from the principal actors.
When, early in Edward VI’s reign, clergy were officially permitted to
marry, yet another barrier that set the parson apart from the laity was
removed. The clerical office itself was suffering a loss of
distinction.
The
central reason why there was concern for providing skilled ministry was that a
well-trained clergy could help meet the polemical needs of competing
professions of faith. It was abundantly clear to Bishop Hooper, even before his
diocesan visitation, and to other English clerics and statesmen engaged in
laying the foundations of Protestantism, that reform of the parochial clergy
was more than a familiar religious ideal it was a matter of necessity. The fate
of alterations in religious policy engraved in statutes, liturgies, and
injunctions, rested on the parish clergy of rural England. If these changes
were to be maintained, and the reformed faith was to prosper, then the
parochial base must be firm. English reformers also realized that traditional
functions of ministry must be realigned to suit the reformed Church. In sermons
and other polemical tracts, reformers resolutely began to discuss and define
ministerial functions that were in harmony with the intentions of
Protestantism.
Attention focused on preaching. English reformers of the 1530s, 40s
and early 50s concurred in defining ministry as exhortation of the word of God.
In his colorful sermons Hugh Latimer insisted that salvation was a preaching
and not a “massing” matter, and that preaching was necessary for a
spiritually starving people because it was “meat” not
“strawberries.”(6) In a more complicated analogy Thomas Becon—a
prolific preacher and homilist—described the preacher as the
“eye” who allows the “light” of Scripture to enliven the
“body” of the congregation. Becon added that if a parson could not
preach, this was evidence that he was sent by the devil, not by Christ.(7)
Other traditional functions of ministry extended from the preaching base, as in
Becon’s 1550 description of the ideal pastor:
The
spiritual minister is appointed of God to rule with “the sword of the
Spirit, which is the word of God,” to rebuke sinners with the law, yea,
and to excommunicate them if they be obstinate and will not repent, to comfort
and cherish the weak with the sweet promises of the holy scripture, to
encourage the strong, and to exhort them forward until they wax ancient, and be
perfect in Christ’s religion, to minister the sacraments, to make
collections for the poor, to maintain hospitality for the relief of the
needy.(8)
There
was also repeated insistence that the parson lead an exemplary life, mirroring
Christian virtues in his actions and words. If this was not done, more than one
layman noted, the doctrines preached by the parson would have no credence. In
England, as on the continent, reformed notions of ministry were emphatically
grounded on proclamation of the word.
Henrician and Edwardian reformers maintained that in addition to
establishing the true faith in England, preaching ministers would contain
sedition and promote social harmony. Well-trained preachers could convince
their parishioners, whether beggars or commoners, to remain content within
their vocations. In fact a few reformers, who in 1549 were anxious to absolve
themselves from any connection with social agitation, noted that one of the
causes of the recent rebellions was the lack of good preaching, and they
threatened that brutality might continue if able preachers were not
provided.(9) They extended their arguments to suggest that preaching parsons
could become the linchpins of social harmony by awakening parishioners to the
dangers of oppression within society and encouraging charity and stewardship to
the poor. Robert Crowley, a Tudor pamphleteer who was remarkably sensitive to
the plight of the poor, envisioned the ideal parson as a custodian of the
social, as well as the spiritual, welfare of his communicants. Throughout their
discussions of need for preaching clergymen, the reformers were persuaded that
the English Church would be invigorated when its ministers learned to deal
directly with the central issues of their society.
To
achieve their objective of a preacher in every parish, the reformers advocated
sending aspiring ministers to the universities, and then providing parsons with
decent livings. The first provision was problematical for two reasons. The
reformers had to insist—to counter those who suggested that a good
preacher was the handiwork of God and not of man—that while men should
trust in divine inspiration, they should not presume upon or tempt God.(10)
Hugh Latimer and Thomas Lever, a young preacher who was particularly sensitive
to the need for training parochial clergy, were also worried about the decay of
universities and other schools and the dearth of divinity students. Latimer
noted that there were 10,000 fewer students than twenty years earlier, and that
unless immediate attention was given to reviving schools and universities,
there would be very little divinity in England.(11) He and Lever urged that
schools and scholars should be supported by generous charitable giving. Lever
addressed the need for adequate livings in an ingenious sermon on Christ’s
feeding of the five thousand. He implored the king to gather together all
benefices and other spiritual offices and fees (which had supported only a
privileged few) and then to redistribute them to honest preachers, thereby
feeding the multitude. His plea was: For the love of God give your servants
wages."(12) Bishop Hooper, with customary zeal for the welfare of the laity,
noted that the maintenance of an educated, well-paid parish clergy would
eventually lead to a better educated, less superstitious laity. The
reformers’ hope was that by reviving educational opportunities for clergy
and by paying parsons well, the new religion could be zealously and ably
promoted.
Further local and regional research on the impact of Reformation
Policies is needed before we can estimate whether the reformers’ ambitions
were realized. Various local studies of the village parson in Queen
Elizabeth’s reign (1559-1603), suggest that the standard of living and of
education (judging by the larger libraries of the late Elizabethan parson) had
improved. But the model of the ideal parish clergyman advocated by Henrician
and Edwardian reformers did not have enough time to be implemented. Advancement
of Protestant policies came to an abrupt halt with the death of the king in
1553 and the reversion to Roman Catholicism under Mary Tudor
(1553-1559).
England’s evolution toward Protestantism was a long and complex
process. Historians may have underestimated the difficulties of effecting
Reformation policies at the local level. Even Bishop Hooper, with all his haste
for founding the reformed Church in Gloucester, had to combat ignorance (in
itself a conservative force) among the clergy and laity. Religious indifference
too was an enemy of reform. Latimer frankly acknowledged that there were lots
of people who preferred to hear stories of Robin Hood rather than a sermon. One
parson ingeniously saved money on books, and avoided changing services, by
simply crossing out references to King Edward in his copy of the 1552 Prayer
Book and substituting Queen Mary’s name.(13) Presumably he used this
Prayer Book during Mary’s reign. Many rural parochial clergy were neither
hot nor cold, nor perhaps even exposed to Reformation policies and
ideals.
Latimer, Hooper, Lever, Becon, and a number of other inspired
preachers and reformers were in part responsible for laying the foundations of
English Protestantism in Edward VI’s reign. Their repeated public advocacy
of the need for preaching parsons may not have been appreciated by most of the
mid-Tudor parochial clergy, but their exhortations did not fall entirely on
deaf ears. Bishop Hooper, as we have seen, had reason to despair over his
parish clergy, but he had great confidence in the laity of his diocese. Hooper
was hopeful that the laity would expect and eventually demand well-educated,
preaching parsons. He thanked God:
For
that he hath mercifully inclined the hearts of the people to wish and hunger
for the word of God as they do. ... there lacketh nothing among the people but
sober, learned and wise men.(14)
Notes
1.
Urban T. Holmes, III, The Future Shape of Ministry (New York: The
Seabury Press, 1971); see especially Part 1, “The Evolving Function of
Ministry.”
2. Two
recent books proved particularly helpful to this discussion of the Tudor parish
clergy: Peter Heath, The English Parish Clergy on the Eve of the
Reformation (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969); and Christopher
Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge: At the
University Press, 1975). One of the most useful surveys of the Reformation in
England is A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York: Schocken
Books, 1964).
3.
Hugh Latimer, The Works of Hugh Latimer, ed. G. E. Corrie for the Parker
Society, 2 vols. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1844-45), I. 122. The
spelling and punctuation in all sixteenth-century quotations has been
modernized. On the popular appetite for religious literature, see H. S.
Bennett, English Books and Readers, 1457-1557 (Cambridge: At the
University Press, 1952).
4.
A Discourse of the Common Weal of this Realm of England (1549), ed. E.
Lamond (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1893), p. 134. This text is now
thought to have been written by the Tudor statesman, Thomas Smith.
5.
Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs
in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London: Weidenfeld &
Nicholson, 1971), p. 87.
6.
Latimer, Works, I, 178 & 62. Latimer’s justly famous
“Sermon on the Plough” (1548) is well worth reading as an example of
Tudor homiletics; ibid., pp. 59-78.
7.
Thomas Becon, Works, ed. J. Ayre for the Parker Society, 2 vols.
(Cambridge: At the University Press, 1843-44), II, 421 & 320.
8.
Ibid., p. 616. A similar description of a minister was stated in 1550 by Thomas
Lever, Sermons, ed. E. Arber (London; n.p., 1871), p. 74.
9.
Latimer, Works, I, 269; and Becon, Works, II, 595-96.
10.
Latimer, Works, I, 269. The same issue was discussed by the Christian humanist,
Thomas Starkey, in A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset
(1538), ed. K. M. Burton (London: Chatto & Windus, 1948), p.
187.
11.
Ibid. A recent analysis of Tudor education suggests that Latimer may have
overestimated the decline in university students; Joan Simon, Education and
Society in Tudor England (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1966), pp.
220, 248.
12.
Lever, Sermons, p. 74. Lever delivered his sermon on feeding the
multitude in 1550; ibid., pp. 53-90.
13.
The Boke of Common Praier, and Administracion of the Sacramentes, and Other
Rites and Ceremonies in the Churche of England (London: Richard Grafton,
1552). This extremely rare copy of the 1552 Prayer Book is in the library of
Seabury-Western Theological Seminary. There are other interesting alterations
in the text including crossing out the phrase in the Litany which asks for
deliverance “from the tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his
detestable enormities,” ibid., sig. B iiii.
14. This quote is
from a letter written by Hooper in 1552 and is cited in an informative article
by F. Douglas Price, “Gloucester Diocese under Bishop Hooper,”
Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society,
LX (1939). p. 112.
Contents of “To be a Priest
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