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Piety & Practice. Religion and Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558. Inevitability: a Problem. Traditional accounts of the Reformation A.G. Dickens Caricature of late-medieval Church : Corrupt, only concerned with enrichment Poor levels of piety, inept priesthood.
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Piety & Practice Religion and Religious Change in England, c.1470-1558
Inevitability: a Problem • Traditional accounts of the Reformation • A.G. Dickens • Caricature of late-medieval Church : • Corrupt, only concerned with enrichment • Poor levels of piety, inept priesthood. • England’s anti-Catholic heritage. • Whig History legacy – England meant two things: • ‘Protestantism’ &‘Parliamentary sovereignity’ • Reformation beginning of both, HAD to happen! • Teleology • Beginning with the end and projecting backwards • Examining late-medieval Catholicism solely for evidence of ‘what came next’ skewers its reality • Edward Muir: historians’ obligation to ‘respect the dead, to honour how different they were from us rather than to celebrate their ability to anticipate us or our ability to surpass them’. • History for whom, and to what end?
Revisionist historiography • Late medieval Church characterised by a religious culture which was: • Vibrant • vital • Evidence for this: • No evidence of a swelling tide of discontent • Laity investing in the Church – time, money, energy – more than ever before at the Reformation. • See the work of: • Christopher Haigh, Jack Scarisbrick, R.B. Manning, Ralph Houlbrooke, Robert Whiting, • Eamon Duffy • Essentially 2 thesis: • 1) How attached people were to the liturgy • 2) That liturgy was flexible enough to allow them to adapt the Church’s practices to a variety of activities, needs and spiritual requirements. • That Church was not ‘top down’, ‘institutionalised’ and ‘rigid’ • actually a marriage between clergy and laity – moulded to local/individual needs.
Revisionists: a caveat • Focus on liturgy, practice and piety • What the laity do, how they do it, and to what extent. • What is missing? • Clergy? • Where are they in Duffy? • Surely pivotal to assess the role of them in this society? • And people’s views towards them? • Structure of the Church • An institution. • Did it conflict with other areas of this society? • Crown • Nobles • Social organisations?
Religion: Now & Then NOW THEN Mandatory Public Shared Peter Marshall: ‘where faith met community’ Corporate souls, members of the body of Christ which had visible expression in local structures. • Voluntary • Private • Individual
The ‘work’ of traditional religion • Biggest landowner in Europe • Major provider of charity incl. schools, hospitals • Monopolisers of orthodox access to the sacred – via the (seven) sacraments – in partic. Baptism, Eucharist and Extreme Unction (but also penance, the Orders, matrimony & confirmation) • Providers of afterlife ‘fire insurance’ (also for your kin) • Promoter of social cohesion/peace via ‘mechanisms’ of confession & communion • Providers of entertainment (e.g. Church Ales & election of Boy Bishops; May Queens)
How do we know about the pre-modern world? CHURCH RECORDS Visual & material culture Art Sculpture Prints & book illustrations Investment/wealth The Church building itself Buildings Bodies Household goods • ‘Official’ records • Courts • Domestic disputes • Crimes against the Church/society • Wills • Tax records • Bede rolls • Churchwarden’s accounts • Registers of: • Birth • Marriage • Death
What do Churchwarden’s accounts tell us? • Scale of investment in the Church • 2/3 of Church buildings in England re-furbished C15th/ early C16th • Pride • Lavish church with the material culture of religion • Cloths • Vestments • Chalices • Candles • Imagery • Carvings • How is this paid for? • Tithe • And from additional sources of revenue. • May include: • Sheep – sell wool pay for candles to saints • Church ales • Plays • Hock-tide • Key: • a communal religion, not separate from the world (like monastery) but shaped by it.
Time: The ritual year • Cyclical time: • Liturgical calendar’s re-enactment of life of Christ: • Advent • Christmas • Epiphany • Easter • Ascension • Pentecost. • Agricultural rhythms of the year: • Carnival preceding Lent: • licensed sin and disorder. • Holy Week/Easter: • imaginative engagement with sufferings of Christ. • performative • Easter communion: individual and collective rite. • Community as ‘the body of Christ’. • Year end – Easter (not Christmas)
Marking the seasons • February/March – Carnival vs Lent • March/April – Easter – time of annual confession followed by communion/eucharist • May: Ascension/Pentecost/Whitsun – rogation processions (Feast of Corpus Christi) • June:Feast of St John the Baptist – midsummer’s eve 24/6 • November – All Hallows/All Saints’ day 1/11 • November – Martinmas/St Martin’s day – 11/11 • November – Advent (30/11) – beginning of liturgical year (feast of St Andrew)
saints • Different conception of sanctity: • Not just exemplar of holy living • Portal to the supernatural • Major part of the practice of religion • Veneration of images/ prayers/ candles • Localism: • Each parish a patron saint • Acted as a guardian • Saint’s Day & communal celebration/ definition • Beyond the parish: • Shrines & aspects of the landscape • Travel to see/touch relics • Pilgrimages • Receive and indulgence • Specialities • ‘Problem solving’? • Plague/ disease • Infant mortality • Death in childbirth • Capricious and precarious existence • Weather • Harvest • Mary – a special case? • Most intense cult • Why? • Vengeful God – role of caring, sympathetic protector open. • Example of meek submission to divine will • In the works of some theologians – notably Gabriel Biel – she is almost the co-redeemer of mankind.
Pickering, Yorkshire St. Peter & Paul St. Sebastian
Lay involvement • Fraternities • Voluntary associations of laymen • Usually a devotion to the host, the Trinity or the Virgin Mary. • 30,000 in LC15th. • Very high – almost improbable • Own patron saint and therefore own rounds of religious practices • Maintain own light/candles/chapel for patron • Own altars in church – richest support own priest to tend to their needs • Burial of members • Other forms of support – religious and non-religious. • Tensions • Complement or supplement ‘official’ religion • In competition with the Church? • Did it withdraw from the body? • Within and without the parish: • Needs and demands which may not have been for the village or parish as a whole • Members may come from other parishes. • Yearning? • Counter Reformation respond to Protestantism in Europe by extending confraternities.
Sacramental Religion • Mediation • Clergy’s pivotal role in society: to assist people en route to salvation. • Not necessarily about belief in the modern sense • Remember verb vsnoun: Sacramental religion: • God’s grace channelled through particular ritual actions, material objects and sacred places. • Salvation: a problem. • Adam & Eve and Original Sin • God, in his mercy, offered the opportunity to be saved – salvation. • Saving work of Jesus Christ on the Cross – crucified for the sins of humanity – was mediated through the sacrificial and sacramental ministry by the priests of the Catholic Church. • The rituals and sacraments of Catholic Church was the route through which that opportunity could be realised. • No salvation outside of it. • Overly material? • Scholasticism • Role of God and humanity in the process • Catholics – rites of the Church afforded some leverage • Protestants – God alone decided • Sacraments a visible role in life of the average Christian • Punctuated their journey from cradle to grave: • Baptism • Confirmation • Confession • Marriage • The Mass • Extreme Unction
The mass • Temporal centre of the world: • Collapse time • Sacrifice • Ritual re-enactment of the Last Supper • Transubstantiation: • Piety & pity • Efficacious: • See God • Not a singular practice: • Powerful – variety of uses: • Masses for the dead • Corpus Christi procession • Mysticism • Unofficial – curses • Bossy – ‘social institution’ • Marshall – ‘where faith met community’.
Does ‘communal’ = ‘uniform’ • Uniformity: • No space for individual to approach God? • Christian? • Keith Thomas, Religion & the Decline of Magic • Division of ‘elite’ and ‘popular’ religion. • Most ‘Christianity’ before the Reformation not ‘Christian’ in any meaningful sense. • Overstatement to see as semi-magical or solely ritual based • Religious books: • Handbooks for priests • Catechisms • Work through the basics before confession: • 10 Commandments • Seven deadly sins • Works of mercy • Five bodily senses • Asked parishioner how their behaviour accorded with • A move to education/ instrospection/ piety? • Eamon Duffy • ‘Popular’ & ‘Elite’? Or ‘traditional’?
Books of hours • Primer of religious instruction/ text-book of essentials o faith • Poor Caitiff – didactic and devotional works • Dives and Pauper – systematic exposition of the Commandments • Prayers to meditate on – especially the Passion. • Thousands printed in the later-fifteenth century • Extensive readership by the standards of the time (if not our own). • Division of ‘popular’ and ‘elite’? • Peter Burke • 1500-1800: move to a divide between solemn ‘high’ and a vibrant ‘low’ culture • Social stratification determines cultural stratification • Access to culture • Ability to read • Duffy – ‘traditional’ • Shared/common culture • Oral and written not as demarcated as we would see it.
Divisions? • Were the gentry withdrawing? • Develop own chapels • Moves to build own pews in Church • Reading = withdrawl? • Group reading, not private. • Criticisms of the ‘material’ aspect of late medieval Christianity: • shrines/ pilgrimages criticised • Yearning, or debate? • Individual examples, rather than the system?
Concluding thoughts • Vibrant and vital • Fulfil needs in many different facets of life • Clearly not waiting for Reformation • But were there fissures in the bedrock of this Church? • Was that vibrancy actually a weakness as much of a strength? • Ability to be pulled in lots of different ways – as communal as historians suggest? • Later lecture – see that early Protestantism had much to do with Reform movement within the Church • Perhaps ‘Ref’ not a juncture, but a continuation of what was already present.
