Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)

The fundamental question Ethan Shagan's book seeks to answer is how a government without a bureaucracy, police force, or standing army managed to affect the English Reformation. Shagan answers that it was an act of negotiation between the people and the government, an "act not done to the people [but] done with them" (25). Shagan's book represents one of the first post-revisionist attempts to understand the English Reformation. He eschews the most common questions asked by revisionist historians: To what extent was the Reformation a process of national conversion? Was that national conversion rapid from below or slow from above? When did England become a Protestant country? Instead of chasing these "phantasmagoric" questions, Shagan reconceptualizes the Reformation as "a piecemeal process in which politics and spiritual change were irrevocably intertwined" (7).To get at this process, Shagan examines court records, royal proclamations and propaganda, sermons, and theological tracts. Divided into three parts, Shagan's book looks at the political and social processes of Reformation from the Act of Supremacy (1534) to the end of Edward VI's reign in 1553. "Popular politics" is a crucial term in Shagan's book because it identifies the locus where state and society negotiated Reformation. According to Shagan, revisionist historians have too often associated Reformation with theology, thereby leading them to discount the crucial process of politicization required for it to happen in the first place. Because the Reformation was an act of state, negotiated between it and the people, the concept of "resistance" is a problematic one. Instead, Shagan prefers to use the term "collaboration" to describe the interaction between the people and the government in making reform. However, just because it was central for the people to collaborate with the Tudor regime does not mean, according to Shagan, that the Reformation was popular. In fact, Part One, the Break with Rome and Crisis of Conservationism, goes to lengths to show that it was not. Chapter one, the most provocative of the three in this section focuses on debates over royal supremacy and argues that through its effective use of propaganda, the regime effectively politicized the Reformation making the prime issue not theology but loyalty. In doing this, the King divided opinion among between "conformist" and "non-conformist" Catholics, patronizing the former while making the latter traitors of the state. Part II, Points of Contact: the Henrician Reformation and the English People, is divided into three chapters and looks at anti-clericalism, the dissolution of the monasteries, and public religious debate. These well-worn themes of English Reformation historiography are reexamined by Shagan with the intention of "analyzing [them] within the context of popular politics" (133). In doing so, Shagan removes these questions from the theological framework in which they have traditionally been analyzed and examines them in terms of how the Reformation fundamentally reordered the assumptions, which guided social behavior. Here, the example of the dissolution and spoliation of the abbey of Hailes is instructive because he shows how the members of the once traditional community "internalized" the rhetoric of the Reformation and plundered a once sacred building. In part Three, Sites of Reformation: Collaboration and Popular Politics under Edward VI, Shagan looks at popular engagement with the Reformation during the Reign of Edward VI. In these two final chapters, Shagan most forcefully argues that the Reformation was brought about through a negotiation between people and state. He shows how the Edwardian government appealed to decidedly political and economic reasons in their quest for evangelical reform through the idiom of "commonwealth ideology." An especially interesting example, and one with which Shagan concludes his book, is the story of John Boller who was brought before the Star Chamber in 1550 for supposedly rejecting the king's authority to strip the parish altar at Highworth parish. However, according to a deposition made under oath, we find out that the real issue was not Boller's slandering of the King but the assertion of his right, as the farmer of the vicarage, to possess the recently dismantled altar stones. Shagan makes the point that in this case, the stripping of the altars does not represent all that was harmful and destructive in the English Reformation, as Eamon Duffy does, but shows how both individuals empowered themselves through co-opting the Reformation and how economic issues could be just as significant, if not more so, than confessional ones. Cover......Page 1 Half-title......Page 3 Series-title......Page 5 Title......Page 7 Copyright......Page 8 CONTENTS......Page 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS......Page 11 ABBREVIATIONS......Page 13 NOTE ON THE TEXT......Page 15 Introduction......Page 17 I......Page 18 II......Page 23 III......Page 28 IV......Page 34 PART I The break with Rome and the crisis of conservatism......Page 43 1 ‘Schismatics be now plain heretics’: debating the royal supremacy over the Church of England......Page 45 I......Page 48 II......Page 52 III......Page 60 IV......Page 67 V......Page 75 2 The anatomy of opposition in early Reformation England: the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent......Page 77 I......Page 80 II......Page 85 III......Page 90 IV......Page 96 V......Page 101 3 Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace revisited......Page 105 I......Page 107 II......Page 114 III......Page 122 IV......Page 127 V......Page 134 VI......Page 140 PART II Points of contact: the Henrician Reformation and the English people......Page 145 4 Anticlericalism, popular politics and the Henrician Reformation......Page 147 I......Page 149 II......Page 156 III......Page 160 IV......Page 163 V......Page 168 VI......Page 175 5 Selling the sacred: Reformation and dissolution at the Abbey of Hailes......Page 178 I......Page 180 II......Page 184 III......Page 188 IV......Page 192 V......Page 197 VI......Page 203 VII......Page 205 VIII......Page 209 6 ‘Open disputation was in alehouses’: religious debate in the diocese of Canterbury, c. 1543......Page 213 I......Page 215 Salvation and the sacrifice of Christ......Page 221 The Bible and ‘unwritten verities’......Page 225 Images and idolatry......Page 231 III......Page 235 IV......Page 243 PART III Sites of Reformation: collaboration and popular politics under Edward VI......Page 249 7 Resistance and collaboration in the dissolution of the chantries......Page 251 I......Page 253 II......Page 257 III......Page 263 IV......Page 269 V......Page 273 VI......Page 278 VII......Page 282 8 The English people and the Edwardian Reformation......Page 286 I......Page 289 II......Page 296 III......Page 302 IV......Page 307 V......Page 311 VI......Page 315 VII......Page 319 Conclusion......Page 321 MANUSCRIPT SOURCES......Page 327 PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES......Page 329 SECONDARY SOURCES......Page 332 UNPUBLISHED THESES......Page 342 INDEX......Page 343 Cover 1 Half-title 3 Series-title 5 Title 7 Copyright 8 CONTENTS 9 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 11 ABBREVIATIONS 13 NOTE ON THE TEXT 15 Introduction 17 I 18 II 23 III 28 IV 34 PART I The break with Rome and the crisis of conservatism 43 1 ‘Schismatics be now plain heretics’: debating the royal supremacy over the Church of England 45 I 48 II 52 III 60 IV 67 V 75 2 The anatomy of opposition in early Reformation England: the case of Elizabeth Barton, the holy maid of Kent 77 I 80 II 85 III 90 IV 96 V 101 3 Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace revisited 105 I 107 II 114 III 122 IV 127 V 134 VI 140 PART II Points of contact: the Henrician Reformation and the English people 145 4 Anticlericalism, popular politics and the Henrician Reformation 147 I 149 II 156 III 160 IV 163 V 168 VI 175 5 Selling the sacred: Reformation and dissolution at the Abbey of Hailes 178 I 180 II 184 III 188 IV 192 V 197 VI 203 VII 205 VIII 209 6 ‘Open disputation was in alehouses’: religious debate in the diocese of Canterbury, c. 1543 213 I 215 II 221 Salvation and the sacrifice of Christ 221 The Bible and ‘unwritten verities’ 225 Images and idolatry 231 III 235 IV 243 PART III Sites of Reformation: collaboration and popular politics under Edward VI 249 7 Resistance and collaboration in the dissolution of the chantries 251 I 253 II 257 III 263 IV 269 V 273 VI 278 VII 282 8 The English people and the Edwardian Reformation 286 I 289 II 296 III 302 IV 307 V 311 VI 315 VII 319 Conclusion 321 BIBLIOGRAPHY 327 MANUSCRIPT SOURCES 327 PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES 329 SECONDARY SOURCES 332 UNPUBLISHED THESES 342 INDEX 343 This book is a study of popular responses to the English Reformation. It takes as its subject not the conversion of English subjects to a new religion but rather their political responses to a Reformation perceived as an act of state and hence, like all early modern acts of state, negotiated between government and people. These responses included not only resistance but also significant levels of accommodation, co-operation and collaboration as people attempted to co-opt state power for their own purposes. This study argues, then, that the English Reformation was not done to people, it was done with them in a dynamic process of engagement between government and people. As such, it answers the twenty-year-old scholarly dilemma of how the English Reformation could have succeeded despite the inherent conservatism of the English people, and it presents a genuinely post-revisionist account of one of the central events of English history.

This study of popular responses to the English Reformation analyzes how ordinary people received, interpreted, debated, and responded to religious change. It differs from other studies by arguing that the subject cannot be understood simply by asking theological questions about people's beliefs, but must be understood by asking political questions about how they negotiated with state power. Therefore, it concerns political as well as religious history, since it asserts that, even at the popular level, political and theological processes were inseparable in the sixteenth century.

"This book is a study of popular responses to the English Reformation. It takes as its subject not the conversion of English subjects to a new religion but rather their political responses to a Reformation perceived as an act of state and hence, like all early modern acts of state, negotiated between government and people."--Jacket This is a study of popular responses to the English Reformation, analysing how ordinary people received, interpreted, debated, and responded to religious change. It differs from other studies by arguing that even at the popular level, political and theological processes were inseparable in the sixteenth century Ethan H. Shagan. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 311-326) And Index.