Chapter 12 Flashcards
Influence of Renaissance ideas during Henry VIII’s reign compared to his father’s
Renaissance ideas in intellectual life and culture had made a tentative appearance in England during the reign of Henry VII. However, it was during the reign of Henry VIII that Renaissance ideas began to flourish at least among some of the elite groups within English society. To some extent this can be attributed to the king himself. He certainly encouraged thinkers such as More and Erasmus and some of his cultural patronage, particularly the commissioning of the effigies on his parents’ tomb, showed the influence of fashionable artistic trends which had arrived in England from Italy.
Work of Colet in education
The most significant humanist voice in English education was John Colet.
In his refoundation of St Paul’s School, London, Colet showed his initiative in two respects. Firstly, he appointed as the school’s governors members drawn from a city guild rather than choosing clergymen. Secondly, the school’s statutes laid down a curriculum, including some works by Erasmus, and teaching methods derived from humanist principles. Colet reinforced the type of school he envisaged by appointing as head, William Lily, a humanist.
Influence of Platonism
Schools like St Paul’s and Magdalen College School in Oxford were at the forefront of educational reform, and firmly adopted Platonist educational principles, teaching many boys who would later become prominent in the religion and politics of Tudor England. Their influence steadily grew.
Similar concepts influenced the foundation of Corpus Christi and Cardinal colleges in Oxford and St John’s College in Cambridge.
Work of Wolsey in education
No less a figure than Cardinal Wolsey, much praised by Erasmus, gave his personal commitment to educational improvement by founding his college and also a school in his home town of Ipswich, as well as endowing a professorship in Greek at Oxford. By the end of Henry VIlI’s reign, humanist influences had gained a lasting hold on university curricula.
Influence of Erasmus
Erasmus visited England four times; his most important visit was that from 1509 to 1514 when he was appointed to a professorship at Cambridge University and was also a well-known figure in and around Henry VIII’s court. In 1516 he published a Greek New Testament complete with a new Latin translation.
Erasmus was received with enthusiasm in English intellectual circles. He was a friend of Fisher and More and he had some influence on a younger generation of English humanists. More demonstrated his support for Erasmus in 1518 when controversy over the Greek New Testament at Oxford University had led some dons to condemn the study of Greek.
It is important, however, not to exaggerate the importance of Erasmian humanism. Its scope was quite limited and much of the change that took place stemmed from the influence of new religious thinking rather than simply scholarly Renaissance humanism.
What was Platonism?
Platonism refers to the ideas of the Greek philosopher Plato. Interest in Plato’s ideas had been revived in fifteenth-century Florence and had then spread round much of Europe. Plato held that the main function of education was to produce philosopher kings: what this meant in practice was that pupils should have the ideal of public service instilled into them.
What was Erasmianism?
the body of ideas
associated with Erasmus and his followers
Who were the Oxford reformers?
men such as
Grocyn, Linacre and Colet who were amongst the first English scholars to adopt humanist ideas and approaches
Why did Renaissance ideas grow in influence under Henry VIII? (4)
•knowledge of classical learning increased amongst the elite groups in society
• a growing number of schools became influenced by humanist approaches to education
• Henry VIII saw himself as a promoter of new ideas and of humanism
•the Crown needed well-educated diplomats who could communicate with their counterparts in other countries in a fashionably elegant style.
The most important English humanist writer was Thomas More, who combined his intellectual interests with his work as a lawyer and statesman. A number of other writers also demonstrated humanist influences, for example, Thomas upset and Thomas Starkey.
Influence of Renaissance ideas on architecture
Renaissance ideas also had an increasing influence on visual culture.
Henry VIII commissioned the Italian sculptor Pietro Torrigiano to produce the tombs of his parents and of his grandmother, Lady Margaret Beaufort. Both tombs were produced in the Renaissance style and are situated in the Lady Chapel of Westminster which Henry VII had commisioned. The contrate h fteenths cerat. The lady Chapel is one Ofthe finest examples of late fifteenth-century perpendicular Gothic ichitecture; the tombs are influenced by the classical concerns of the Renaissance. Another example of Renaissance style within a famous perpendicular setting is the rood screen erected in the early 15305 in he chapel of King’s College, Cambridge. It celebrates the marriage of Henry VIlI and Anne Boleyn. However, it should not be assumed that Renaissance influences predominated during the reign. Richard Marks has argued that Gothic remained the predominant cultural form.
Influence of Renaissance ideas on painting
The same is true of painting. The dominant painters at Henry VIlI’s court were from the northern Renaissance, which owed far more to Gothic influences than it did to the Italian Renaissance. The best-known painter at the court was the German Hans Holbein, though the best paid was the Fleming Lucas Horenbout. Much more esteemed at the time than paintings were tapestries, most of which were Flemish in origin and often displayed chivalric themes from medieval culture.
Evidence Henry was more conservative in his cultural tastes than Wolsey
It is also evident that Henry was more conservative in his building tastes than was Cardinal Wolsey. Little remains of the massive building programme, for example Nonsuch Palace, which Henry instituted, but surviving evidence does show a continuing taste for the Gothic, whereas Wolsey’s palace at Hampton Court clearly exhibited more classical influence. Henry was also a generous patron of music and musicians and was himself an amateur composer of some skill. Cardinal Wolsey too was noted as a musical patron. Again, however, the most distinctive influence, certainly on the church music heard in the Chapel Royal and in cathedrals, was Flemish.
Overall how influential were Renaissance ideas?
What is evident across the cultural range was that while Italian Renaissance influences were becoming more fashionable, England’s main cultural links reflected the close commercial ties which existed between England and the Low Countries.
Overall reform of Church 1532-1540
Between 1532 and 1540 Henry VIII, assisted by Thomas Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer, withdrew the English Church from the jurisdiction of the papacy, established the king as supreme head of the Church, dissolved the monasteries and began to alter the Church’s doctrine and practices. This was a hugely significant process which could not have been foreseen in the earlier years of Henry’s reign, when the Church appeared broadly popular and effective, albeit with weaknesses.
List of areas of weakness of the Church
-Corruption
-Anticlericalism
-Decline of monasticism
Info about Church corruption
A range of offences involving corruption was associated with the Church.
These included pluralism (receiving the profits of more than one post), simony (the purchase of Church office) and non-residence (receiving the profits of a post but not being present to perform the duties associated with it). The best example of a corrupt clergyman was Cardinal Wolsey, but many other dergymen were guilty, especially as the Crown used Church ofices as a way of rewarding those of its officials who were clergymen.
