RELIGION, THE DISSOLUTION OF THE MONASTERIES AND THE PILGRIMAGE OF GRACE
Throughout the medieval period, the Catholic Church was the spiritual authority and the lives of the people revolved around it. Everyone attended mass faithfully, sought forgiveness when necessary, and prayed for the dead to hasten their time in purgatory. Each day was punctuated by prayers which marked the passage of the hours and those who were literate read from the Book of Hours, a collection of biblical texts and prayers and elements of the liturgy. The most important book was the Bible, the text of which was in Latin, the language of the church. It was the role of the clergy to act as intermediaries and to interpret God’s word for the masses, a position that gave great power to its priests and nuns.
Throughout Europe, there was no other religious alternative and any discontent with the authority of the church or attempt to reform its practices was silenced. The Church was immensely powerful with an established hierarchy. This hierarchy provided not only spiritual guidance, but became a political and financial empire with its own army; it negotiated peace and war, and bargained with the princes of Europe. Favours could be bought, wealth could be made, and corruption was rife.
The seeds of discontent with the church had been festering across Europe since the Middle Ages. In the late 14th century, Oxford scholar and church dissident John Wycliffe protested against indulgences and other practices which he regarded as the corruption of the Church. He argued that a layperson should be able to read God’s words in a bible of their own language and oversaw an English translation. In Wittenberg, Germany, Martin Luther, a professor of theology, composer, priest and monk, rejected several teachings and practices of the Church, particularly the sale of indulgences, and his Ninety-five Theses made Luther a prominent figure in the Protestant Reformation.
Throughout Mantel’s series, we catch glimpses of the men who steered the Reformation – John Calvin, Desiderius Erasmus, Huldrych Zwingli, Martin Bucer, Wycliffe and Luther. Cromwell read and owned their books – regarded as heretical by the church – but it is difficult to pinpoint his faith. Mantel’s Cromwell states simply: ‘I believe, but I do not believe enough’. Mantel is careful that her Cromwell does not identify with any particular religious philosophy, or in her words, ‘explain himself’, but two of the greatest influences on Cromwell’s spirituality were Erasmus and William Tyndale. Luther became a particular cause of Henry’s, for different reasons.
M
ARTIN
L
UTHER
Luther was born in 1483 in Eisleben, Saxony, and by 1507 had been ordained as a priest, but over the next ten years he rejected many of the church’s teachings. His key doctrine was that salvation or redemption was attainable only through faith in Christ, that is justification by faith alone. Aided by the Gutenberg printing press and woodcuts by Lucas Cranach, the controversies of matters such as church indulgences were made a matter for the general public. Pamphlets were widely dispersed in Germany one day and read in Paris the next.
A deeply conventional Catholic, in 1521 Henry took it upon himself to repudiate Luther in writing, accusing him of being ‘a venomous serpent, a pernicious plague, infernal wolf, an infectious soul, a detestable trumpeter of pride, calumnies and schism’. But a spiritual debate had been ignited in Europe to determine, among other issues, how people reached salvation, how and by whom the Bible should be interpreted, the presence of Christ in the sacrament of Holy Communion, and the Holy Trinity.
D
ESIDERIUS
E
RASMUS
Erasmus, a leading philosopher and humanist thinker, was invited to England in 1499, to meet the boy who he hoped would be England’s Renaissance prince.
Erasmus was sceptical of Luther’s assertions, and is described by many as a Christian humanist, with a philosophy of life that combined Christian thought with classical traditions. Neither Erasmus nor Luther wanted their works associated with the other – although Erasmus had been an early critic of the Church and it is believed that the reformation could not have happened without him. When he was accused of laying the egg that Luther hatched, he responded that he laid a hen’s egg, and Luther had hatched a chick of a very different feather. Erasmus was lauded for his Latin and Greek versions of the New Testament, which would become important texts throughout the Reformation and the Counter Reformation.
Cromwell may not have been a patron and friend of Erasmus like Thomas More or Thomas Boleyn, but we do know he held the scholar in high esteem. When Mantel’s Cromwell finds himself in the tower in 1540, it is Erasmus’ book, De praeparatione ad mortem, that he reads, the very work Thomas Boleyn had commissioned from Erasmus seven years previously.
W
ILLIAM
T
YNDALE
Cromwell was also connected to William Tyndale, an English scholar and priest, who had also been influenced by Erasmus’ Greek edition of the New Testament, but when he petitioned to be allowed to translate the Bible into English, he was censured and he left England for Germany. The first printing of William Tyndale’s English New Testament was completed in 1526 in Worms, Germany, while smaller editions were smuggled into England; in Wolf Hall, Liz Cromwell receives the secret package along with Cromwell’s longed-for Castilian soap. It was condemned by Henry, Wolsey and More. However, Henry would come to agree with Tyndale on some key issues, not because of any new-found faith, but rather because such arguments suited him, namely Tyndale’s Obedience of a Christian Man, which argued that authority belonged to kings in their own realm, rather than the Pope. Unfortunately for Henry, Tyndale also believed that his first marriage was valid and criticized his pursuit of an annulment.
Historically, Cromwell was at the forefront of attempts to entice Tyndale back to England to write in defence of Henry’s annulment, with his friend, Stephen Vaughan meeting with Tyndale in
