Chapter 3 - Early reformers and Humanists

Question 1

What was Lollardy a term for?

Answer 1

Term of abuse for John Wycliffe’s followers - suggests talking rubbish, as if their tongues were too big for their mouths.

Question 2

Overview of John Wycliffe

Answer 2

John Wycliffe - educated in Oxford.

Greatest work: ‘Summa Theologiae’ explored issues of religious beliefs and attacked both monasticism and the Pope.

Undertook a translation of the Bible into English.

Although he was called to account by the Church authorities for his views on the Church Courts, he was not declared a heretic.

Question 3

What type of movement was Lollardy?

Answer 3

Underground movement by the 16th century.

Question 4

Supporters of Lollardy?

Answer 4

Majority of Lollards were craftsmen and merchants; most were literate.

Question 5

Where Lollards considered heretics?

Answer 5

Lollards were regarded as heretics because of their beliefs.

Question 6

Lollardy beliefs?

Answer 6

Beliefs:

• Christianity should be based on the Bible and not on the interpretation of priests
• Everyone should have their own English Bible (not Latin), and should be allowed to interpret it for themselves
• Emphasis on the individual and the individual relation with God
• Rejected the idea that a priest was a needed go-between with God
• A man could confess his sins directly to God, not to a priest
• God would forgive them directly
• Didn’t believe in transubstantiation (when the bread and wine became the body and blood of Jesus Christ when the priest prayed over them) - [this was heresy]
• Predestination - believed that it had been decided before Adam and Eve had been banished from the Garden of Eden who would go to heaven and these were ‘the elect’. (Catholics believed that a man could go to heaven if he did sufficient ‘good works’).
• Only those who rejected the beliefs of the Catholic Church could be considered one of the elect and go to heaven (but they continued to go to church and showed outward obedience)

Question 7

What was the punishment for heresy?

Answer 7

Death

Question 8

What happened once it was established that Lollardy would be viewed as heresy?

Answer 8

Support for the movement from those in the nobility and gentry (particularly) melted away.

Question 9

What were people who might privately have held radical religious views were advised to do to place themselves above suspicion?

Answer 9

Attend services in the parish church.

Question 10

Where were the small surviving groups of Lollards identified?

Answer 10

Possible to identify small surviving groups of Lollards in areas of the country that provided opportunities for secret meetings e.g. a particular group has been identified around High Wycombe, many of whom were employed in the wood turning industry.

Historians e.g. Richard Hex dispute the continuation of an identifiable group of Lollards.

Question 11

Where was it possible to identify a continuation of radical ideas and what did they believe? (In reference to Lollardy)

Answer 11

Possible to identify a continuation of radical ideas amongst groups of artisans; many of these could read and their trade links gave them the opportunity to access ideas which were being discussed on the continent.

These groups certainly questioned the role of the priest and may have had copies of the handwritten English Bible which Wycliffe had translated.

Question 12

What impact were Martin Luther and his followers having on English radical groups?

Answer 12

English radical religious groups were absorbing the views and approaches which were articulated by Martin Luther and his followers from 1517.

Question 13

What did Martin Luther believe?

Answer 13

Martin Luther believed that the soul was benefitted from faith alone, rather than by the good works encouraged by the Catholic Church.

Question 14

Mark of the arrival of Lutheranism in England?

Answer 14

Arrival of Lutheranism in England - an Oxford book seller recorded the sale of 12 books by Luther in 1520 and at the end of that year a public burning of Lutheran books was held in Cambridge.

Question 15

Which scholars took up the views of Luther?

Answer 15

English scholar William Tyndale and Simon Fish.

Question 16

What did William Tyndale do?

Answer 16

William Tyndale - translated the Bible into English as Wycliffe had done 150 years earlier. He produced his Bible in secret; where radical views were expressed such as those stated by John Pykas, the only response was a trial for heresy and execution.

Question 17

What did Lutherans believe in relation to the priest?

Answer 17

Questioning the beliefs of the Church in relation to the role of the priest.

Question 18

What did thinkers such as Luther and Tyndale begin to question?

Answer 18

Thinkers such as Luther and Tyndale began to question the relationship between the Church and the monarch

Question 19

What calls did Lutherans make?

Answer 19

Calls were made for the King to become Head of the Church to bring about religious change

Question 20

What did supporters of the controversial idea of Royal Supremacy believe?

Answer 20

Tyndale and other supporters of the controversial idea of Royal Supremacy believed that if the monarch, rather than the Pope, was responsible for the Church in his own land , then religious change could occur

Question 21

What kind of monarch did Luther want?

Answer 21

Luther sought a monarch that would serve true religion. He argued that power should come from the people, and although they might act on wishes of the king they would not accept religious power coming from him.

Question 22

What kind of monarch did William Tyndale want?

Answer 22

William Tyndale was optimistic that religious change would come through a godly prince to whom subjects owed allegiance both in body and soul.

Question 23

What did Tyndale argue in his book ‘Obedience of a Christian man’ in 1528?

Answer 23

Writing in 1528 in his book ‘Obedience of a Christian Man’, Tyndale argued, based on the law of Moses, that God required people to obey their ruler. The alternative to this, Tyndale stated, was damnation.

Adding to this, the English lawyer and writer Christopher St Germain (1460-1540) argued that real authority over the Church in England came not from the Pope, but from the king.

Question 24

What did writer Christopher St Germain (1460-1540) argue in relation to the king and the Pope?

Answer 24

The English lawyer and writer Christopher St Germain (1460-1540) argued that real authority over the Church in England came not from the Pope, but from the king.

Question 25

Support for Martin Luther’s ideas?

Answer 25

There were few in England who were attracted to the ideas of Martin Luther; certainly none of the nobility were supporters.

However, both Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell, Henry VIII’s key advisers in the 1530s, were influenced by the ideas of Martin Luther.

Question 26

Which of Henry VIII’s key advisers in the 1530s were influenced by the ideas of Martin Luther?

Answer 26

Both Thomas Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell.

Question 27

What did the growth of the printing press mean? (In relation to Humanism)

Answer 27

Growth of printing press –> books being more available and affordable –> support for the new learning which was known as Humanism

Question 28

Origin of Humanism?

Answer 28

Origin - development of the Renaissance of the late 14th and 15th century

Question 29

What did Humanism affect?

Answer 29

Affected not only religion but also politics and economics

Question 30

What texts was Humanism based on?

Answer 30

Based on rediscovery of Latin and Greek texts

The development of Humanist ideas was based on published texts rather than religious beliefs, which were conveyed though an oral tradition and were accepted without question

Question 31

Humanist beliefs?

Answer 31

Beliefs = basic principles of the Catholic faith, particularly in the notion of free will.

Question 32

Humanist aims?

Answer 32

Aim = purify the ideas of religion from errors which had developed through translations

They were not backward looking nor simply attempting to restore a lost world.

Question 33

Humanist hope?

Answer 33

Hope = that more direct knowledge of the wisdom of antiquity, including the writings of the Church fathers, the earliest known Greek texts of the Christian Gospels (the record of Christ’s life and teaching in the first four books of the New Testament), would initiate a harmonious new era of universal agreement.

Question 34

What did Renaissance Church authorities afford Humanists?

Answer 34

With this end in view, Renaissance Church authorities afforded Humanists what in retrospect appears a remarkable degree of freedom of thought.

Question 35

How did Humanists see themselves?

Answer 35

Humanists saw themselves as forward thinking and were rigorous in their search for knowledge. Their idea of progress depended on demystifying primary texts and restoring them to their original state.

Question 36

What did Humanists want to do within the Catholic Church?

Answer 36

Humanists did not challenge the beliefs of Catholicism but its practices. They sought to reform the Church from within.

Question 37

Key Humanists in the reign of Henry VIII

Answer 37

The Dutchman Erasmus, and Englishmen Thomas More and John Colet.

Question 38

John Colet overview

Answer 38

John Colet: leading theologian and Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London.

Studied Greek and Latin texts as well as the writings of the early Fathers of the Church.

Highly critical of many of the practices of the Church but was a firm believer advocating that scripture should provide a guide for life.

Question 39

Desiderius Erasmus overview?

Answer 39

Desiderius Erasmus: Dutch Humanist and theologian.

Using Humanist techniques he prepared important new Latin and Greek editions of the New Testament.

Critical of some Catholic practices but remained intellectually committed throughout his life to a Catholic notion of Church and to papal authority.

Question 40

Thomas More overview?

Answer 40

Thomas More: lawyer, author, advisor to Henry VIII and statesman.

Earned a reputation as a leading Humanist scholar and a fervent Catholic.

Occupied many public offices, including that of Lord Chancellor from 1529 to 1532.

Henry VIII had chosen him because of his great knowledge of the law.

Resigned his position as Chancellor when he failed to convince Henry VIII not to challenge the doctrinal authority of the papacy.

Thomas More was executed as he refused to accept that Parliament had the power to make Henry the Head of the Church.

Question 41

What did Erasmus write?

Answer 41

Erasmus wrote a series of discourses on biblical texts to demonstrate how the word of God, written in the Bible, should be interpreted in the actions of Christians.

Question 42

Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon and Humanism

Answer 42

Both Henry and his wife, Catherine of Aragon, considered themselves Humanists.

Question 43

Humanist ideals of Henry VIII?

Answer 43

The Humanist ideals of Henry VIII were to purify the Church and remove superstition: increasingly, Henry became dismissive of pilgrimages.

Question 44

What was Henry supportive of in terms of the Bible?

Answer 44

Henry was also supportive of the rewriting of the Bible in Latin, but based on the original Greek texts.

Question 45

What did Thomas More assist Henry VIII in writing?

Answer 45

Thomas More assisted Henry VIII with the writing of the ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’ as a response to Luther’s treatise attacking the Church entitled ‘On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church’.

When Luther replied with his ‘Against Henry, King of the English’, which accused Henry of simply being a stooge for the Church and not having written the defence himself, More was given the task of constructing a response. More’s ‘Reply to Luther’ was described by Erasmus as ‘imperious’; it was an extremely strong attack on Luther arguing that Luther was a heretic and a pervert who was corrupting the morals of those who listened to him.

Question 46

What was the ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’ in response to?

Answer 46

Luther’s treatise attacking the Church entitled ‘On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church’.

Question 47

What did Luther’s ‘Against Henry, King of the English’ say?

Answer 47

It accused Henry of simply being a stooge for the Church and not having written the defence himself.

Question 48

What did More’s ‘Reply to Luther’ say?

Answer 48

It was an extremely strong attack on Luther arguing that Luther was a heretic and a pervert who was corrupting the morals of those who listened to him.

Question 49

What was the result of Henry VIII’s attack on Martin Luther?

Answer 49

As a result of his attack on Martin Luther through the ‘Defence of the Seven Sacraments’, Henry VIII was rewarded by the Pope with the title ‘Defender of the Faith’. English monarchs still use this title and it can be seen on all English coins.