Reformation

   Abstract.  The change from a Catholic to an Anglican cathedral was chaotic and turbulent. The removal of Chad’s shrine, the end of pilgrimage, termination of chantries, new ways of worship and reverses in liturgy gave instability and loss of finance. The association with Coventry cathedral and Lichfield Friary was destroyed. Heretics were killed. In 30 years of turmoil it is remarkable the cathedral survived.

There are five ways Reformation, 1534‑c.1570, can be misunderstood.

1.     The break from Rome was wholly centred on Henry VIII’s wives and Reformation resulted from the rise of royal supremacy. In fact, the ‘king’s matter’ was a sideshow.[1] Henry’s desire for a son and heir led to the elevation of Thomas Cromwell, a lawyer known to Cardinal Wolsey. After resolving two marriages and gaining supreme power he changed the church fundamentally. Cromwell enforced the reformation of the church. Henry let much of it happen being more concerned with ensuring his primogeniture and his relationship with European monarchs. In addition, there are the reverses and excesses promulgated by Edward VI, Mary Tudor and Elizabeth I. Many died with Reformation and counter-Reformation.

2.     Reformation resulted from an earlier time of growing anti-clericalism, disaffection in the church, the rise of Lollardy and the publication of alternative bibles written in the vernacular.[2] Prior to 1534, the church was alarmingly unregulated with a dazzling array of devotional practices to secure salvation and avoid purgatory.[3] Despite this religion flourished right up to the break from Rome and there was no one event that started change (unlike in Germany with Luther’s 95 Theses, 1517) and no enduring change which could be marked as an endpoint. Reformation brought a chaotic series of changes based on a new interpretation of scripture. Described as “a long collective argument about what was truly involved in the imitation of Christ; about what people needed to do, or avoid doing, in order to achieve salvation.”[4]

3.     Reformation was a planned ‘cleansing’ of the church over a short time span of around 30 years.[5] No, it was a pattern of unfolding disparate events that mostly seemed fitful and strange to worshippers. There was no organised campaign or rebellious movement even though orthodox believers and schismatic heretics were killed. Thomas Cromwell from 1534, aided by Thomas Cranmer archbishop of Canterbury, discretely dismantled the old church in piecemeal fashion, though not always in harmony with Henry’s wishes.[6] Henry remained a Catholic, Cromwell was a secretive evangelical and Cranmer, a less vocal evangelical, wrote the new liturgy; but all were inconsistent.[7]

4.     The Dissolution of over 800 monasteries and religious houses with the sequestering of valuables by Thomas Cromwell for Henry VIII drove change.[8] True for a short time, but there was another side to the removal of religious houses based on the many accounts of supposedly poor behaviour. Monasteries had a culture of complacency with resistance to change and bishops found it difficult to make improvements. Friars thought bishops were too powerful and pompous. Many monasteries were major landholders employing significant numbers of local people and it was thought around 7% of monastic revenue was disbursed annually to the poor.[9] Consequently, they were rooted in the local community. They had become entrenched and bishops saw monks as recalcitrant and too powerful.

5.    Church courts dominated by a bishop or dean were unpopular, intrusive, oppressive and extortionate. It is now believed this has little evidence.[10] Secular lawyers wanted to assert common and statute law, but generally the church and state courts, each in their own way, provided acceptable justice. Clergy claimed they could not be tried or sentenced in a secular court and many thought, including Cromwell, this was elitist and had to change.

 

Pre-Reformation Lichfield Cathedral

Before Reformation, c. 1534,[11] the Cathedral was essentially an organised and stable church loyal to the king, in contrast with some cathedrals and abbeys where order had deteriorated, priests disorganised or despised and allegiance fixated on the pope. Some, now thought to have been a minority, held the churches were too occupied with superstition or accumulating wealth. Lichfield was neither wealthy or poor compared with other medieval cathedrals. There were many churches in the huge diocese which extended into Cheshire and Lancashire [12] and only 4 parishes out of 650 in the diocese in 1530 failed to provide the correct tithes. It was a double cathedral with Lichfield twinned with Coventry’s Benedictine Abbey and cathedral, but by the 15th-century, unlike the previous century, it seems neither church interfered too much with the other. The current view is the nine secular cathedrals, including Lichfield, had developed stable administrative systems which did not require the presence of large numbers of canons to function and in the fifteenth century were well administered[13] and apparently functioned with relative peace and harmony.[14] Chapter kept a small number of resident clergy and prevented the rampant absenteeism seen in other cathedrals. A small staff did not drain the very modest common fund. The Wars of the Roses, 1455–87, despite much battle in and near the Midlands, with the accession of Henry Tudor do not appear to have impacted much on the cathedral. The cathedral had a stable residential priesthood; with the Dean, James Denton, 1522‑33, being chaplain to Henry VIII. Nationally, over 90% of priests were routinely maintaining chaste lives[15] and the Lichfield diocese appeared to be similar. Consequently, an audit of late medieval clergy would have concluded laypeople were broadly content and priests were doing a good job.[16]

This perception is hard to corroborate for Lichfield since there was a dearth of prime documentary evidence. Lichfield was one of the worst documented of English dioceses in the later Middle Ages. There were no Chapter Act books between 1439 and 1480,[17] and no fabric accounts in the late 15th-century.[18] The only significant source is the Chapter Acts book IV from 1521. This record is desultory and Savage wondered whether it was because the recorder was disgusted with all that happened with Reformation.[19] Thomas Cromwell’s great survey, 1535, of the wealth of the English Church, revealed Lichfield as seventh poorest of the 9 secular cathedrals with an annual revenue of £1.408 8s 4d.[20] By Reformation, 1538 for Lichfield, and the visit of king’s commissioners to remove valuables,[21] there must have been minimal records to show the cathedral’s dwindling assets.

 

Between 1420 and 1539, four bishops (Booth 1447–1452, Hales 1459–1490, Smyth 1493–1496 and Arundel 1496–1502) graduated from Oxford University and two bishops (Blythe 1503–1531, Lee 1534–1539) from Cambridge University. Two cannot be placed, but since they were early (Heyworth 1420–1447, Boulers 1453–1459) it is most likely they were educated at Oxford. If so, Oxford scholars dominated the episcopacy for 80 years and then gave way to Cambridge in the 16th-century.[22] The very successful bishops were usually prebends or canons in churches with royal connection, especially St Stephen’s chapel, Westminster and St Pauls. The overall structure appears to be a long line of intellectual bishops who were mostly absent from Lichfield due to royal obligations or papal business. Canons always had a university education.[23] These and non-resident priests usually had numerous benefices for distant churches, often ambiguous and contradictory, and so gaining financially with little effort. This pluralism was extensive and a major source of criticism. Prebends and chantry chaplains were more likely to have had a local education and depended on local funds. At any one time a small number of canons looked after the cathedral, but all knew their position was temporary and they would later go elsewhere.[24] Many non-residentiary prebends and chaplains with low stipends were absentees, but periodically they were threatened to fulfil their duties. Thus, a close-knit group of residentiaries, around five notables[25] by the end of the century, together with the Dean conducted Chapter business and administered the diocese using an effective, inherited bureaucracy[26] which they amended to suit themselves; consequently, any radical change of statutes[27] was unnecessary. Organisation was hierarchical and based on status. Common issues concerned the forms of worship, orders of service, who should officiate and what must be their appearance[28] and behaviour. Visitations were to be seven years apart and only of the Chapter, not of other cathedral clergy or of the churches of the common fund.[29] The Chapter was also preoccupied by the houses in the Close and many minor changes to buildings occurred to ensure priests and choristers were always living close to the cathedral. The bishop’s office, palace and secretariat kept separated from the cathedral.

          It is likely the cathedral had a rood screen before the Lady Chapel on which would have been a crucified Christ. The gruesome depiction of a tortured Christ would be a reminder of possible salvation and a sign of hope. Today such an icon hangs above the nave altar.

 

 Reformation 1534

Reformation meant the cathedral became Anglican and Protestant[30] with the monarch its supreme head. The break from Rome gave the king and Cromwell power to administer the English Church, tax it, appoint its officials and control its laws. Other consequences included the abolition of the Catholic Mass,[31] the use of English language in services[32] and for both English[33] and Latin  Bibles to be available.

 

Title page of the 1539 Great Bible held in the cathedral library. The King is handing out the gift of the bible to the people and they all reply ‘Vivat Rex.

’Title page of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Wikimedia Commons.

 

Communion took place without any elevation of the consecrated bread and wine. Stone altars were replaced with communion tables, chantry chapels were closed by 1547, shrines and relics were destroyed and, 1548, removal of the showy elements[34] of Catholicism, especially images and the rood screen. The termination of pilgrimage with prayers by relics was an injunction from Cromwell in January 1538.[35] Perhaps, the greatest loss was the destruction of libraries and any pre-Reformation text. The reference to the pope and veneration of saints was expunged from liturgical books. Collection of ‘Peter’s Pence’ for use in Rome stopped. Procession on Rogation and St Chad’s Day was forbidden and instead became an excuse for feasting and drinking.[36] Harvest festival and Chad’s death day became a normal day of work. All clergy were made to pay heavier taxes (10% of income for a new post). Papal privileges and Pluralism had to stop which caused some clergy to move away whilst others had to receive local benefits to survive. Prebendal arrangements were disposed of in the 1540s and 50s. Valuables were confiscated for the Crown.[37] Land and property were sold to the gentry and nobility. On Whit Sunday 9 June 1549 the First English Prayer Book came into use.  In 1552 a commission from Edward VI instructed all money, plate and jewels should be removed from any church.[38]

 

It seems change was achieved at Lichfield with relatively little ruction compared with the destruction of Coventry cathedral and Lichfield Friary. This was even more remarkable with having an absentee dean. Henry Williams, Canon of Windsor, was appointed Dean by the king in 1536 and did not appear until 1548.[39] Early Reformation changes occurred under Bishop Roland Lee or Leigh, 1534‑43. He gained the see by officiating at Henry’s secret marriage to Anne Boleyn, 1533, and maintaining it was legal. He also supported the suppression of the monasteries and in 1539 his title changed from bishop of Coventry and Lichfield to simply Lichfield. It is recorded the bishop tried to prevent the destruction of the ‘Great Priory of Coventry’, but to no avail. He also watched on as the Friary was demolished. On his watch the cathedral lost Chad’s shrine and much that was valuable. He was disliked by many and probably feared in the cathedral. It did not improve with the next bishop, Richard Sampson. He was the Dean, 1533-36, but never once appeared in the cathedral. Later he became the bishop, 1543­‑54. Sampson became a chief agent for Henry VIII in his divorce proceedings and later accepted his bishopric without reference to the pope. In 1540, he was arrested on the orders of Cromwell for supposedly corresponding with the pope. He narrowly escaped death because a few weeks later Cromwell was arrested and taken to the Tower and executed. Sampson was a conservative reformer and oversaw the many later changes in the cathedral. Savage expressed it as he was responsible during ‘the whole of his tenure for a discreditable traffic (loss) in every king of Church property.’[40] It is thought he was deprived of his episcopacy when he expressed regret for having been disloyal to the pope. The next bishop, Ralph Baines 1554‑9, was the last Roman Catholic bishop in the time of Mary Tudor, 1553‑8.

Early in the reign of Elizabeth I, 1558‑1603, visitations to 6 areas of the country were arranged to see if her reversals of church custom set up in Mary’s reign were being followed. Thomas Bentham became the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, 1560‑79, and he complained to the visiting commissioners, images were taken from the churches and secretly stored ‘hoping and looking for a new day’. In 1565, he ordered churchwardens to note and mark any parishioners who wore beads; a belt of beads was used as a rosary in Mary Tudor’s time. It is thought most clergy adhered to the ‘Elizabethan Settlement’, but there were pockets of resistance. In 1559, Elizabeth proclaimed her subjects should ‘forbear all vain and contentious disputations in matters of religion.’ It did not last.

 

Removal of idols from churches in a woodcut from Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, 1563. ‘Papists are packing away their paltry’ including sending abroad. Many thought they would later return.

 

Conclusions

Savage expressed Reformation at Lichfield as, ‘through all these distresses the old normal life of the cathedral was, as far as possible, maintained.’[41] Maybe having two very strong bishops with formidable reputations and being close to Henry VIII meant any objection was futile. Maybe the small and hierarchical Chapter left little room for ignoring change. Accepting fully the royal supremacy could have covered over misgivings of the reformed services and church customs. Losing the funding from pilgrimage would have had financial implications, but a small cathedral away from the turmoil in other parts of the country would have let the cathedral continue in a pared down way. Morris has questioned whether cathedrals after the Reformation had the means to survive,[42] but clearly, they did. He conjectured that had Edward VI lived longer and Cranmer’s programme of reform (Cromwell had been beheaded) had gone much further whether cathedrals would have withered. He said that at this time there was little sentimentality about the architectural or cultural importance of the buildings. The loss of many buildings showed little regard for the historical fabric. Surprisingly, the cathedral survived with minimal disruption, but it was now poor and struggling. It had lost its major asset; the cult of St Chad, and this did not return until 1860.

          A long view is Christianity has from its beginnings faced turmoil, upheaval and revision. Christians have never agreed on the best way to worship in the imitation of Christ and there have been minor reformations affecting how to express the faith. Today there is a sizable list of churches who undertake an Anglo-Catholic litany and claim Reformation never proscribed this way of worship. It can be argued the Church is passing through another reformation in order to be inclusive and pluralistic. Reformation is, perhaps, a work in progress.

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[1] The king fell out of love for Catherine of Aragon around 1522 and secretly married Anne Boleyn 10 years later. In this time the king’s court considered the divorce and second marriage with many consequences, but it did not impact much on ordinary Christians and reformation of the church.

[2] Lollardy was the name given to heretics who denied transubstantiation, the dominion of clergy and had objections to many aspects of orthodox Christianity. Early in the 15th-century it was prevalent in Bristol, Essex, Kent, and along the valley of the river Waveney. It then spread to towns in the Chilterns and the cities of London and Coventry. In 1511­‑2, the bishops of London, Lincoln, Canterbury and Coventry with Lichfield sought out heretics. Most Lollards were well read citizens and some had positions in the church. When charged with heresy many abjured and gave penance, but were then watched to see if they relapsed. Consequently, Lollardy was secretive and its extent is unknown.

[3] P. Marshall, Heretics and Believers. A history of the English Reformation. ((New Haven and London: 2018), 22.

[4] Ibid 5.

[5] J. Morris, A people’s church. A history of the Church of England. (London: 2022).

[6] D. MacCulloch, A history of Christianity. (London: 2009), 626.

[7] In August 1546, Henry pondered submitting to Rome and within 3 weeks was planning a pan-European evangelical Reformation. See P. Marshall, (2018), 299, note 3.

[8] The reality was the king through subtle and sometimes hidden ways taxed or forced loans from the church. Between 1504 and 1508, over £38,000 in cash and bonds was taken from churchmen. There was also a levy to pay Rome. See P. Marshall, (2018), 76‑9, note 3.

[9] P. Marshall, (2018), 62, See note 3.

[10] P. Marshall, (2018), 83. See note 3.

[11] The English Reformation Parliament, 3 November 1529–14 April 1536, passed the major pieces of legislation leading to the Break with Rome and establishment of the Church of England.

[12] Lichfield was one of nine secular cathedrals; Salisbury, Lincoln, York, London, Exeter, Hereford, Chichester and Wells. The priests were not bound by a monastic Rule.

[13] C. M. Southworth, The Canon of Lichfield Cathedral in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. (2012). Master’s thesis, University of Birmingham.4.

[14] H. E. Savage, Dean Thomas Heywode, Dean. Unpub. article in Cathedral Library (1925) emphasised the peace and harmony of the cathedral under the leadership of Dean Heywood, 1457–92, but gave no references.

[15] P. Marshall, (2018), 45. See note 3.

[16] Ibid. 46.

[17] M W Greenslade and R B Pugh (ed), House of secular canons - Lichfield cathedral: To the Reformation', in A History of the County of Stafford: Volume 3, The Later Middle Ages. (London, 1970), 159.

[18] There were some ancillary records, but it was still a time difficult to assess.

[19] H. E. Savage, The Cathedral and the Chapter 1530–1553. Unpub. articled in the cathedral library, (1927), 3.

[20] Valor ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII. Auctoritate regia institutus. Vol. I-VI. Volume III (London 1817).

[21] Bishop Langton’s sumptuous shrine to Chad in the retroquire appears to have been the main target of the commissioners.

[22] This virtually self-appointing system was a concern for some.

[23] Most in Canon and Civil Law. See note 3, 82.

[24] In the last quarter of the 15th-century at least 70 canons were recorded.

[25] Almost certainly chosen by the bishop. Some had filial connections to priests or notable families. Often the administrators were kinsmen. The residentiaries were principally royal or episcopal servants, or retired ecclesiastics or university scholars. There were no large changes in the group from 1433 to 1500.

[26] Included a precentor, sacrist, chancellor, treasurer, archdeacons and clerks.

[27] There were no new statutes from 1465 to 1526, see note 5, 160.

[28] Lichfield appears to have had a plentiful supply of vestments, though sometimes they were shabby. There was also criticism of hair styles.

[29] See note 13, Southworth, (2012), 24.

[30] The word Protestant came from Germany in 1529 when 6 princes and a number of towns protested (protestatio) against the removal of concessions for Lutherans. It took a long time to be accepted in England and instead early reformers called themselves ‘brethren’ or ‘Evangelicals’. Orthodox Catholics were labelled ‘papists.’ Despite these labels there was no organised movement.

[31] The Mass founded on a priest consecrating bread and wine to become the body and blood of Christ through transubstantiation. The priest offered to God the same sacrifice of Christ on the cross that provided atonement for the sins of humanity. It also offered a prayer by which the living could help souls in purgatory. 

[32] The changeover from Latin to English in services must have caused some turmoil. A writer in 1554 remarked ‘who could twenty years ago say the Lord’s Prayer (Pater Noster) in English.

[33] The Matthew’s Bible was available by 1537 and Henry’s Great Bible in 1539. The King ordered copies of the Great Bible to be placed in all churches; failure to comply would result in a £2 fine.

[34] Included Church processions, the use of holy water, lighting votive candles before saints' images,  displaying images on the rood loft and reciting the rosary.

[35] The shrine to Thomas Becket at Canterbury was dismantled early in September 1538. The Royal Commissioners dismantled the shrine, removed cartloads of treasure and burnt the bones. Chad’s shrine must have disappeared around this time, but inexplicably the bones were left. The shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was destroyed in the same year and the image of Mary taken to London and burnt. Cuthbert’s shrine at Durham was dismantled the following year. Many relics and roods were burnt with some ceremony.

[36] Feast days were still allowed to commemorate the Apostles, the Virgin Mary and St George.

[37] Seizure of monastic wealth was not unprecedented; it had happened before in 1295, 1337 and 1369.

[38] Precisely all manner of 'goodes, plate, juells, vestyments, bells and other ornyments within every paryshe belonging or in any wyse apperteying to any churche, chapell, brotherhed, gylde or fraternytye within this our realme of Englond'. By 28/29 April 1552, this, known as churchbreaking, was followed in the cathedral. See endnote below, 21. Savage stated the rapine was pitilessly thorough.

[39] Ibid, 17. Dean Williams finished in 1554.

[40] H. E. Savage, (1927), 9. See note 19.

[41] Ibid, 11.

[42] J. Morris, A people’s church. A history of the Church of England. (London: 2022), 132.