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HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH FROM THE RENAISSANCE REV. JAMES MACCAFFREY Nihil Obstat:
Thomas O'Donnell C.M.
Censor Theol. Deput.
Imprimi Potest:
Guilielmus
Archiep. Dublinen.
Hiberni? Primas.
Dublini 16 Decembris 1914.
HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
From the Renaissance to the
French Revolution
CHAPTER I
RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF ENGLAND BEFORE THE REFORMATION
Wilkins /Concilia Magnae Britanniae/ iii. 1737. /Historia Regis
Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea Thosolate/ (Andr? of Toulouse)
edited by J. Gairdner 1858. Capella-Sneyd /A Relation or True
Account of the Isle of England ... under Henry VII./ (written by
Capella the Venetian Ambassador 1496-1502 and edited by C. A.
Sneyd 1847). /A London Chronicle during the reigns of Henry VII.
and Henry VIII./ (Camden Miscellany vol. iv. 1859). Sir Thomas
More's /Utopia/ (written 1516 edited by E. Arber 1869). More's
English works edited by William Rastell 1557. Bridgett /Life
and Writings of Sir Thomas More/ 1891. Busch-Todd /England under
the Tudors/ 1892-95. Gasquet /The Eve of the Reformation/ 1900;
/Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries/ 1888; /The Old English
Bible/ etc. 1897; /The Great Pestilence/ 1893; /Parish Life in
Mediaeval England/ 1906; /English Monastic Life/ 1904. Capes /A
History of the English Church in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries/ 1909. Seebohm /Oxford Reformers/ (3rd edition) 1877.
Stone /Reformation and Renaissance Studies/ 1904. Gairdner
/Lollardy and the Reformation/ vol. i. 1908. Lilly /Renaissance
Types/ 1901. Bridgett /History of the Holy Eucharist in Great
Britain/ (new edition 1908). Rivington /Rome and England/ 1897.
Lingard /History of England/ 10 vols. 1849. Hunt-Poole
/Political History of England/ v. 1910. /Cambridge Modern
History/ vol. i. 1902.
With the advent of Henry VII. to the throne (1485) a new era opened in
the history of England. The English nation weakened by the Wars of
the Roses and tired of a contest that possessed little interest for
the masses was not unwilling to submit itself without reserve to the
guidance of a strong ruler provided he could guarantee peace both at
home and abroad. Practically speaking hitherto absolutism had been
unknown. The rights that had been won by the barons on the plains of
Runnymede were guarded jealously by their descendants and as a result
the power of the king more especially in regard to taxation was
hedged round by several restrictions. But during the long struggle
between the houses of Lancaster and York many of the great feudal
barons had fallen on the field of battle or by the hands of the
executioner and the power of the nobles as a body had been
undermined. While the Lords could muster their own retainers under
their standard and put into the field a strong army almost at a
moment's notice it was impossible for the sovereign to rule as an
absolute monarch. It was because he recognised this fact that Henry
VII. took steps to enforce the Statute of Liveries passed by one of
his predecessors and to provide that armies could be levied only in
the king's name.
The day of government by the aristocracy had passed for ever to be
succeeded by the rule of the people but in the interval between the
sinking of one and the rise of the other Tudor absolutism was
established firmly in England. In selecting his ministers Henry VII.
passed over the nobles in favour of the middle classes which were
gaining ground rapidly in the country but which had not yet realised
their strength as they did later in the days of the Stuarts. He
obtained grants of tonnage and poundage enjoyed by some of his Yorkist
predecessors had recourse to the system of forced grants known as
benevolences set up the Star Chamber nominally to preserve order but
in reality to repress his most dangerous opponents and treated
Parliament as a mere machine whose only work was to register the
wishes of the sovereign. In brief Henry VII. acting according to the
spirit of the age removed the elements that might make for national
disunion consolidated his own power at the expense of the nobility
won over to his side the middle and lower classes whose interests were
promoted and from whom no danger was to be feared and laid the
foundations of that absolute government which was carried to its
logical conclusions by his son and successor Henry VIII.
By nature Henry VII. was neither overbearing nor devoid of tact and
from the doubtful character of his title to the throne he was obliged
to be circumspect in his dealings with the nation. It was not so
however with Henry VIII. He was a young impulsive self-willed
ruler freed from nearly all the dangers that had acted as a restraint
upon his father surrounded for the most part by upstarts who had no
will except to please their master and intensely popular with the
merchants farmers and labourers whose welfare was consulted and
who were removed so far from court that they knew little of royal
policy or royal oppression. The House of Lords comprising as it did
representatives of the clergy and nobles felt itself entirely at the
mercy of the king and its members alarmed by the fate of all those
who had ventured to oppose his wishes would have decreed the
abolition of their privileges rather than incur his displeasure had
they been called upon to do so. The House of Commons was composed to a
great extent of the nominees of the Crown whose names were forwarded
to the sheriffs for formal confirmation. The Parliament of 1523 did
show some resistance to the financial demands necessitated by the war
with France but the king's answer was to dissolve it and to govern
England by royal decrees for a space of six years. Fearing for the
results of the divorce proceedings and anxious to carry the country
with him in his campaign against the Pope Henry VIII. convoked
another Parliament (1529) but he took careful measures to ensure that
the new House of Commons would not run counter to his wishes. Lists of
persons who were known to be jealous of the powers of the Church and
to be sympathetic towards any movement that might limit the
pretensions of the clergy were forwarded to the sheriffs and in due
course reliable men were returned. That the majority of the members of
the lower House were hostile to the privileges of the Church is clear
enough but there is no evidence that any important section desired a
reformation which would involve a change of doctrine or separation
from Rome. The legislation directed against the rights of the Pope
sanctioned by this Parliament was accepted solely through the
influence of royal threats and blandishments and because the
Parliament had no will of its own. Were the members free to speak and
act according to their own sentiments it is impossible to believe that
they would have confirmed and annulled the successive marriages of the
king altered and realtered the succession to meet every new
matrimonial fancy of his and proved themselves such negligent
guardians of the rights of the English nation as to allow him to
dispose of the crown of England by will as he might dispose of his
private possessions. Henry VIII. was undisputed master of England of
its nobles clergy and people of its Convocation and Parliament.
His will was the law. Unless this outstanding fact royal absolutism
and dictatorship be realised it is impossible to understand how a
whole nation which till that time had accepted the Pope as the Head
of the Church could have been torn against its will from the centre
of unity separated from the rest of the Catholic world and subjected
to the spiritual jurisdiction of a sovereign whose primary motive in
effecting such a revolution was the gratification of his own unbridled
passions.
It is not true to assert as some writers have asserted that before
the Reformation England was a land shrouded in the mists of ignorance;
that there were no schools or colleges for imparting secular education
till the days of Edward VI.; that apart from practices such as
pilgrimages indulgences and invocation of the saints there was no
real religion among the masses; that both secular and regular clergy
lived after a manner more likely to scandalise than to edify the
faithful; that the people were up in arms against the exactions and
privileges of the clergy and that all parties only awaited the advent
of a strong leader to throw off the yoke of Rome. These are sweeping
generalisations based upon isolated abuses put forward merely to
discredit the English mediaeval Church but wholly unacceptable to
those who are best acquainted with the history of the period. On the
other side it would be equally wrong to state that everything was so
perfect in England that no reforms were required. Many abuses
undoubtedly had arisen in various departments of religious life but
these abuses were of such a kind that they might have been removed had
the Convocations of the clergy been free to pursue their course nor
do they justify an indiscriminate condemnation of the entire
ecclesiastical body.
It is true that the Renaissance movement had made great progress on
the other side of the Alps before its influence could be felt even in
educated circles in England but once the attention of the English
scholars was drawn to the revival of classical studies many of them
made their way to the great masters of Italy and returned to utilise
the knowledge they had acquired for the improvement of the educational
system of their country. Selling and Hadley both monks Linacre one
of the leaders of medical science in his own time Dean Colet of
Westminster whose direction of St. Paul's College did so much to
improve the curriculum of the schools[1] Bishop Fisher of Rochester
described by Erasmus as "a man without equal at this time both as to
integrity of life learning or broadminded sympathies" with the
possible exception of Archbishop Warham of Canterbury[2] and Sir
Thomas More Lord Chancellor of England and one of the earliest
martyrs for the faith in the reign of Henry VIII. were but a few of
the prominent men in a movement that made itself felt throughout the
entire country. Nowhere did Erasmus find a more enthusiastic welcome
or more generous patrons and nowhere were his writings more thoroughly
appreciated than in England.
Nor is it true to say that the advocates of classical learning were
animated by hostility to the Catholic Church in their demand for an
improvement in educational methods. Some murmurs were indeed heard
in certain quarters and charges of unorthodoxy were formulated
vaguely against Colet and others of his party but these were but the
criticisms levelled in all ages against those who are in advance of
their time nor do they require serious refutation. The English
Humanists had nothing in common with the neo-pagan writers of the
Italian Renaissance as regards religion and they gave no indication
of hostility to Rome. Whatever other influences may have contributed
to bring about the religious revolution in England it was certainly
not due to the Renaissance for to a man its disciples were as loyal
to the Catholic Church as were their two greatest leaders Fisher and
More who laid down their lives rather than prove disloyal to the
successor of St. Peter.
Nor was education generally neglected in the country. The lists of
students attending Oxford and Cambridge[3] in so far as they have been
preserved point to the fact that in the days immediately preceding the
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