Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation

By Vic Gill

The English Reformation has a history of its own and a very interesting one to. It is full of colourful characters, unusual, dramatic and often at times melodramatic events. It is also widely considered as the turning point for Christianity in England because it brought along reformed ideas, thoughts and ways of doing things, not only in the church, but also in England. A new spring was dawning upon England, or so it seemed, because it wasn’t all plain sailing and quite as picturesque. The English Reformation is also notoriously remembered for the political ambitions and struggles which juxtaposed side by side with the theological and spiritual issues of the time. There was hot debate, burnings at the stake, organised coups, charges of treason and heresy and divorces which polluted the air. The history of the English Reformation certainly doesn’t make for bedtime stories, nevertheless it is what it is and Christianity in England consequently took a dramatic turn of events. Out of the midst of all this arose the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556). Cranmer, amongst many is one of the iconic figures who helped shape Christian church history, often referred to as the ‘Architect of Church of England.’ In particular, Cranmer’s most noted contribution came to the surface during the English Reformation. His services were employed to bring reform to many of the facets of Church life, the relationship between the state and the Church and everyday Christian life for the common man. From years of being conjoined to Rome and Papal authority, English religion would never be the same again.

So what then was Thomas Cranmer’s main achievement? What did he have to go through to arrive there and what strategy did he employ to achieve his goals? Furthermore, did Cranmer’s contribution to the English Reformation prove to hold up against time? Clearly the questions are many. Therefore this essay will consider Cranmer’s reformation strategy with a particular focal point on four key areas: worship, doctrine, preaching and ministry.

Background to the English Reformation
Before any heads or tails can be made of the English Reformation and an appreciation for Cranmer’s achievements; it is intelligible to consider the context in which the Reformation in England arose in the first place. Church historian Shelley summarizes this quite well and begins to explain the English Reformation under the title, ‘The Curse upon the Crown.’ King Henry VIII (1509-1547) believed he was cursed after inheriting his dead brother Arthurs’s wife, Catherine of Aragon. Catherine bore King Henry five children, of whom only one survived beyond infancy, Mary. This fuelled King Henry’s suspicion that he was accursed. According to the book of Leviticus: “If a man shall take his brother’s wife, it is an unclean thing…they shall be childless.” However King Henry had other reasons to divorce Catherine, which were not so Biblical. It was his unattainable lust, his lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, who he passionately desired. However he could not marry her until his marriage to Catherine was voided and only Rome and the papal authority would allow such a thing. Shelley succinctly states it this way, “Putting it simply, Henry VIII, King of England, revolted against the pope because he passionately desired the dark-eyed Anne Boleyn…” Whilst this may not completely do justice to the entire English Reformation it formed one of the many hinges for reform. “For centuries the Church in England has been moving towards independence from Rome.” However what is interesting is that the English Reformation, unlike Luther’s reformation did not arise out of doctrinal, theological or spiritual matters, but rather marital and constitutional reasons. “Understandably, the schism in the church came over a royal problem – not over theological conflicts.” As subsequent events unfolded King Henry VIII secretly married Anne, had his eighteen years of marriage to Catherine voided and eventually overthrew papal authority in England. In 1535 the Act of Supremacy was issued which declared: “The king’s majesty justly and rightly is and ought to be and shall be reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia.”

It was done. England had now officially, after a storm of events sealed its independence from Rome and papal authority. England now had its own national church with a king at its realms. Now it was time to get the house in order and take care of matters pertaining to doctrine, faith and the ordination of the clergy. “The king looked to the archbishop of Canterbury, the highest office in the Church of England, to serve the purposes of the priesthood and secured the services of Thomas Cranmer…”

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
When Cranmer was drafted in by the king to bring reform to the church, it was made very clear to him from the onset that the reformation was not a break from the old faith. In fact, Henry considered himself a guardian of Catholic dogma and had even written a defense in 1521 against Luther’s attack upon the seven sacraments, called a ‘Defense of the Seven Sacraments.’ Therefore Cranmer was initially dealing with a church without papal supremacy, as the orthodox beliefs remained intact. It was upon Henry’s insistence that Catholic doctrine should remain within the realm. Upon this mandate, Cranmer set to work.

Reforming the Doctrine
The Church of England had just split with Rome and was in need of formulating its faith. In 1536 the Ten Articles was produced to deal with this. It had a “distinct Protestant formulary” but was a rather conservative document which emphasized three traditional sacraments of baptism, penance and the eucharist. It was seen by some as a compromise with the old and new and failed to clarify many of the issues which were demanding formulation and also missed out four of the seven fundamental sacraments which distinguished Catholicism from Protestantism.

Soon after, The Acts of the Six Articles (1539) was passed by parliament. This policy remained until Henry’s death and helped settle some of the “crucial points of divergence between Catholicism and Protestantism…” However it proved to be a disaster for Cranmer as the theological advice he had given to Henry had been rejected. Once The Six Articles was enshrined in statute, any “denial of transubstantiation was to be punished by burning without opportunity for recantation; denial of any of the other articles was to be punished by hanging or life imprisonment.” The English Reformation hadn’t got off to a good start and Cranmer still hadn’t been used to his full potential. The Six Articles remained the basic statement of doctrine for the Church of England until 1547, when of course, Henry VIII died, and England had a new King, Edward, the son of Henry.

However, what is regarded as one of Cranmer’s highest achievements and contributions to the English Reformation is the Thirty-Nine Articles which were established in 1563. Cranmer still felt the church needed an authorized definition of faith and thus he penned the highly Calvinistic Forty-Two Articles. “The Forty-Two Articles of Religion of 1553, for which Cranmer must bear the chief responsibility, were reshaped, with some omissions and additions, in 1571, as the Thirty-nine Articles.” The final revised articles helped shape the Anglican positions with regards to Catholicism, Anabaptist thought, personal religion, corporate religion and various other doctrines. It gave the church a formulated set of beliefs and was made a legal requirement by the English Parliament in 1571. One scholar writes “the Thirty-Nine Articles happened to represent the end of an extraordinarily complex struggle to establish a confession of faith.” Cranmer, under the rule of Edward VI had brought some order to the years of doctrinal crisis and chaos which ensued under Henry.

Reforming the Preaching
What is interesting to note is that Cranmer’s main achievements came to the forefront not under Henry’s rule but Edward’s. In the same year that King Henry VIII died, Cranmer published his First Book of the Homilies (1547). This was Cranmer’s attempt to reform the preaching of the Bible which was traditionally preached or taught in Latin. Cranmer wrote “The service in this Church of England these many years hath been read in Latin to the people, which they understand not…”  In this work Cranmer encourages the preaching and teaching of Christian theology. Cranmer appeals to the doctrines of God and Justification by Faith in the form of twelve homilies. The archbishop considered the Word of God as the only food for the soul and that most excellent light which the Christian must walk by. He desired that through the preaching of the Word individuals may learn how to invoke and call upon the name of God for themselves. However this could only happen if there was a reform in the preaching and teaching. Therefore Cranmer developed further the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion and gave an in-depth commentary on scripture and the reformed doctrines in the two-part title Book of Homilies.

Reforming the Ministry
In January 1550 Cranmer prepared a draft called The Ordinal which was approved and published in March of the same year. According to Haigh a “committee was appointed to devise an English ordination service…” The Ordinal was Cranmer’s attempt of breaking from the past in ordination of ministers and the way ministry was conducted and referred to in the church. Altars were replaced with communion tables, church images were pulled down, Latin rites were replaced by the Protestant Book of Common Prayer, clergy were permitted to marry and the new ordinal even provided Protestant pastors rather than Catholic priests.

Reforming the Worship
It would not be an understatement to argue that the religious life of the English people has been far more influenced by their familiarity with the Book of Common Prayer than by any other articles or works by Cranmer. It could even be argued that this was Cranmer’s greatest and highest achievement for its lasting legacy. Cranmer has even been seen by some as architect of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. The Book of Common Prayer came at time when church services were going through the motions of ritual order. In an essay titled ‘Concerning the Service of the Church’ and ‘Of Ceremonies, Why Some be Abolished and Some Retained’ Cranmer wrote of the importance of worship in Church and the priorities. Cranmer believed Church services and worship needed to be reformed from the core. In particular two medieval books which caught Cranmer’s attention were ‘The Breviary’ and ‘The Missal.’ The old, dry and ritualistic Latin services led by Priests needed to be Bible-centered, edifying to the congregation, simple, ordered and doctrinally true. Cranmer wrote “Though it be appointed, that all things shall be read and sung in the Church in the English tongue, to the end that the congregation may be thereby edified…”

The first prayer book which was published in 1549 met with little favor. Many Protestants felt that it did not go far enough in its reforms. Further, those who leaned toward Roman Catholicism claimed that the book still taught the old doctrines of the Mass. In consequence Cranmer produced a second prayer book in 1552 in which the Protestant position was much more clearly adopted.

The Church of England was now in motion. The political situation seemed fairly stable and Cranmer had the assistance of other Protestant thinkers such as Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli to give the church theological direction. However events took a dramatic turn when Edward died in 1553. McGrath writes “Edward died in 1553, leaving the nation in a state of religious flux.” Edward was replaced by Mary Tudor who was strongly Catholic. Her reign brought about much suppression of Protestantism and restored Catholicism. Cranmer was burned at the stake in Oxford in 1556 under her rule.

Conclusion
Thomas Cranmer’s main achievement is that he helped bring the church out of medieval darkness through various reforms in the life of religious England. Whilst there were many disappointments at the beginning, Cranmer flourished under the rule of King Edward VI. King Henry’s decision to appoint him as Archbishop of Canterbury led to a strong Protestant influence on the English church in the following years from the split with Rome. As a result Cranmer’s ambitions, ideas and influence touched almost every part of religious life from worship, doctrine, preaching, church order to the ordination of ministers. Whilst some of these reforms today have been updated and further revised, the Church of England has a lot to owe to the efforts of Thomas Cranmer. One could barely imagine the Church of England today without the Book of Common Prayer. This alone bears witness to Cranmer’s achievements.

Bibliography

• Archbishop Thomas Cranmer., Concerning the Service of the Church (1549)
• Elton. G.R., (1977) Reform and Reformation (London: Edward Arnold Publishers)
• Haigh, C., (1993) English Reformations (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
• Heal, F., (2003) Reformation in Britain and Ireland (Oxford: Clarendon Press)
• Hutchinson, F.E., (1951) Cranmer and the English Reformation (London: English University Press)
• McGrath, .E.A., (2007) Christian Theology: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing)
• Shelly, B.L., (1995) Church History in plain language (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers) 2nd Edition

Tags: English Reformation, Henry VIII, Thomas Cranmer

Category: Theological Reflections