The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability Before the Break with Rome

by G.W. Bernard

The later medieval English church is invariably viewed through the lens of the Reformation that transformed it. But in this bold and provocative book historian George Bernard examines it on its own terms, revealing a church with vibrant faith and great energy, but also with weaknesses that reforming bishops worked to overcome. Bernard emphasizes royal control over the church. He examines the challenges facing bishops and clergy, and assesses the depth of lay knowledge and understanding of the teachings of the church, highlighting the practice of pilgrimage. He reconsiders anti-clerical sentiment and the extent and significance of heresy. He shows that the Reformation was not the late medieval church was much too full of vitality. But Bernard also argues that alongside that vitality, and often closely linked to it, were vulnerabilities that made the break with Rome and the dissolution of the monasteries possible. The result is a thought-provoking study of a church and society in transformation.

Genres: History, Religion

304 pages, Hardcover

First published June 26, 2012

About the author

Professor George Bernard is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Southampton.

Reviews

[Dr G · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a most impressive history. Its achievement is not in terms of remarkable or surprising conclusions; indeed, I would say that just about every conclusion at which Bernard arrives is pretty much in accord with what I would have expected.
What impresses me about the work is the thoroughness with which Bernard examines vast numbers of diverse documents in order to arrive at a composite picture which has a good chance of showing the truth. These documents are often obscure and often pedestrian but when reams of them are taken together, they have a valuable insight to offer.
The question which Professor Bernard examines is, in essence, whether the Catholic church in England was so corrupt and/or incompetent that King Henry VIII virtually had to break from Rome in order to create a satisfactory institution.
We have, I suspect, all grown up with the notion that the system of indulgences and the pilgrimage circuit had reached a point of terminal malfeasance which demanded intervention. However, Bernard disputes this. He argues that Henry was pursuing an entirely self-interested goal (lust? Recovery of his immortal soul? Belief that Catherine was to blame for the absence of a male heir?) of replacing Catherine of Aragon with Anne Boleyn. Henry was determined to have his divorce and he was furious with the Pope for first, dissembling on the matter, then rejecting outright Henry’s application. The King merely rationalised his strategy of taking over the church with a quasi-Lutheran critique of the malfeasance. (This was a decidedly inconsistent step for him since his earlier writings against Luther had led to his being named Defender of the Faith by the Vatican.)
Bernard describes the relationship between the Crown and the Church in England, on the basis of what looks to be an exhaustive document-study:
• From Edward the Confessor, the coronation service granted the monarch significant divinely-conferred legitimacy; it also involved the monarch promising to protect the church, implicitly acknowledging the monarch’s superiority in the hierarchy.
• From the time of Edward I on, prayer services were held prior to wars. The Church willingly participated in these, sharing the glory of victory
• In practice, since the Conquest, kings had exercised a great deal of control of church matters;
• the Church depended on the patronage of the royal and aristocratic families whose conversion had led to the imposition of Christianity in England;
• From the 14th century, Popes usually appointed bishops nominated by the Crown. (The popes were mainly concerned with Italian politics, and wanted to retain the support of the English crown in their conflicts with other Italian states);
• 14th-15th century papal schisms enhanced secular power;
• Later popes had less involvement in detailed workings of national churches; Bishops were usually appointed as personal political rewards, or for their potential as diplomats or ambassadors, rather than for moral qualities or for theological learning.
• The Church often established – and sustained – help for the poor; improved cathedrals, and built schools; these benefited the Crown;
• Church and Crown courts tended to support each other;
• Few bishops were of aristocratic family – possibly accounting for their compliance with Henry;
• There is little evidence of widespread concern regarding the processes of indulgences and pilgrimages to churches with holy relics and images;
• Henry himself made payments to shrines and was reported as planning a pilgrimage to give thanks for his recovery from the plague. His vehement opposition to these elements of the faith coincide with his opposition to the Pope over his own divorce.
Professor Bernard has provided a marvellously clear picture of the church in England leading up to the Reformation and convincingly argues that the Reformation was necessary only in Henry’s mind, and only then when he could not convince the Pope to do as he wanted. He was furious that another leader was deciding what he, as King of England, could or could not do. His solution was to remove the Pope from the process.

[Ricky Balas · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent study on the late medieval church. Bernard provides some excellent insight into the monasteries and draws the reader's attention to the dual character of vitality and vulnerability in the English Church on the eve of its break from Rome.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernard contradicts some of the standing notions about the English church pre-Reformation. The King, he asserts, already had plenty of control over the church. There was not a growing disaffection with the church or a resentment of corruption. Both were there throughout:

“It is certainly very difficult to see a crescendo of hostility towards the church in the early sixteenth century. What there was then, as there had always been, was plenty of criticism of the church and of clerics: ‘dissatisfaction with the state of the church for one reason or another is as old as Christianity itself.”

Heresy was also not surging. He believes that later Protestants tried to build a line of descent by creating heresies where there were none. The persecutors (such as they were) created heretics to some extent.
Most of all, he concludes, it is the violent, the dissenters, and the corrupt that get the histories:

“At the end of this exploration, it may seem that it has been the vulnerability of the church as much as its vitality which has been emphasised throughout. That is no doubt a response, perhaps a salutary response, to what has become the dominant positive interpretation of the late medieval church. It also reflects the difficulty for historians of knowing just how much inspiring spiritual leadership and pastoral guidance churchmen at all levels gave. Disputes and delinquency leave a trail; the quietly effective does not.”

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

See my comments and review here: http://supremacyandsurvival.blogspot....