The Elizabethan Church: Books, Pulpits & Hourglasses

According to popular myth it was on the 31st of October 1517 that Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-five Theses disputing the Roman Catholic Church’s practice on indulgences to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral. Whether this act was true or not does not dispute the fact that soon after Luther produced his Theses, copies were made and spread quickly throughout Europe.

Indulgences were given if the individual performed a penance for their sin or may contribute towards a reduced period in Purgatory after death. By the late-medieval period the corrupt sale of indulgences as a commercial practice was becoming a serious problem.

The innovation of Guttenberg’s printing press by the late 15th C enabled the reforming zeal of the Protestant faith in the 16th C to spread across Northern Europe as books and pamphlets could be distributed.

In response to the religious divisions of the previous decades prior to Elizabeth I’s reign (1588-1603), and reaffirming the reformed religion of Edward VI’s reign, the passing in 1559 of the Acts of Uniformity and Supremacy established the ‘Elizabethan Settlement’.[i] The challenge for the Elizabethan church and state was to ensure that central policy became implemented at the parochial level.

In 1559 Elizabeth authorised a royal visitation of the English and Welsh parishes. In 1563 the church’s governing body established the Church of England’s statements of doctrines and practices, which would become known as the Thirty-Nine Articles, ‘for the Avoiding of Diversities of Opinions, and for the Establishing of Consent touching True Religion’.[ii] This rejected Roman Catholicism, as being contrary to the concepts of salvation and good works in the Protestant approach.

Those who opposed the reformed church found life difficult. Roger Martyn of Long Melford, Suffolk, was accused of being recusant (an individual who refuses to conform with authority and regulation), and faced heavy fines, along with periods of imprisonment. He did not attempt to hide his Catholicism as others did with an outward conformity to the new regime. His biography reveals that he had strong ancestral links to his local church and a family investment in terms of a chantry chapel and liturgical furnishings. He witnessed the destruction of sacred objects in the reign of Edward VI. In Elizabeth’s reign he salvaged and stored items from Mary I’s sovereignty with the hope of restoration by his descendants.[iii] He would have known very different church rituals and lamented the abolished festivals of the Catholic church.[iv]

Books, Homilies, Sermons, Hourglasses, Communion Tables & the Ten Commandment Tables

The new regime saw the interiors of the parish church completely changed in appearance. Items relating to the Catholic liturgical practices were removed, e.g., censers, tabernacles, reredoses, altars, roods, images, holy relics, statues, etc. Implemented were clear window glass, whitewashed walls, pulpits, and pews. The process of the state religion was to ensure the population conformed. People were required to turn up to church and listen to homilies and teachings from the pulpit.

Long sermons with doctrinal discourses were the flavour of the day. A useful device to measure time was an hour glass attached to the pulpit. This could be turned several times for a lengthy sermon. The Dance of Death (based on the late-medieval allegory of the Danse Macabre) is a series of images drawn by Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543) between 1523 and 1525, which were made into woodcuts. The woodcuts were put together in book form by the Trechsel brothers in 1538. They were drawn before England broke with Rome (1532-34). However, Holbein was working in Basel at the height of the Swiss reformation when he made his drawings. Iconoclasts there were whitewashing the walls of churches and removing images and sculptures.[v] Several of Holbein’s images have hourglasses in them. It is a symbol of the passing of time. There is one with a preacher giving a sermon to an enthusiastic congregation from a pulpit in a church. Behind him Death creeps up. There is an hourglass on his pulpit.

 

The Dance of Death by Holbein[vi]

In the Church of All Saints at Selworthy, west Somerset, the pulpit dates from the 17th C, and there is an hourglass still in place on it.

Stone altars had to be removed by law and replaced by wooden communion tables under the new religion. Below is a communion table from the early 17th C at St Michael’s Church, Minehead, Somerset. Probably Jacobean woodwork, a little later that Elizabeth I.

Books and homilies were a significant part of the roll-out of the Protestant liturgy, values, and belief. This included the English Bible, Erasmus’ Paraphrases on the Gospels, Foxe’s Actes and Monuments (or Book of Martyrs), boards with the Ten Commandments and the Royal Coat of Arms.[vii] The Book of Common Prayer was reintroduced in 1552 under Elizabeth I. It had been originally being published in 1549 in the reign of Edward VI.

Cockington Church, Devon still houses The Book of Homilies. Originally published in 1547, there were 2 books of 33 sermons developing the reformed doctrines of the Church of England. They were introduced for clergy to preach published sermons to their congregations. The text is of greater detail than in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion.[viii]

The pulpit at St George and St Mary at Cockington is a ‘wine glass stem’ design with Renaissance ornament. It dates from the late-16th C. One of the putti have elephant ears. It was said to have come from Torre Church.[ix]

The Protestant historian John Foxe’s (c. 1516-1587) book on Protestant history and martyrology, Actes and Monuments, was a comparatively slim volume when it was first published in 1563. It was reviewed and expanded in further editions. It was distributed to cathedrals, churches, guild halls, and Oxford & Cambridge. Readings from the text would be made from the pulpit. Foxe was determined to create a history of Protestant martyrs suffering under the Marian regime that would become indoctrinated at the parish and domestic level. Read to congregations from the pulpit and purchased by families that could afford it. Often bequeathed to daughters to encourage them to read it to their children. Foxe’s work had a significant impact in the creation of a ‘national’ church.[x]

Winsham church in Somerset still has its copy of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments.

Its originally position was captured in an image – date 1844. The write up below the drawing is as follows:

Fox was a person of indefatigable labour and industry an exile for religion in Queen Mary’s days he spent all his time abroad in compiling the acts and monuments which were published first in Latin and afterwards when he returned to his native land in English. He took vast pains in collecting material and searching records for his work and such was the esteem in which it was held that it was ordered to be set up in all parish Churches and chained to the lecterns.

Bishop John Jewel (1522-1571), Bishop of Salisbury from 1559, wrote his statement of faith and put forward his argument of the legitimacy of the Church of England. In 1562 the Apology of the Church of England was published. This was another book ordered for the churches of England and Wales for the instruction of parishioners. Selworthy Church in west Somerset still has their copy of the book.

SUMMARY

Theology began to turn into politics and ensuring a national conformity. Political policy was dressed up in preaching, citing religious and classical sources such as Bishop Jewel’s An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion (1571), which pronounced it was a sin against God’s purpose to engage in rebellion against the sovereign.[1]

Creating a new religious identity at the parochial level appears to be the practical implementation of Elizabethan policy. The physical environment of the parish church and its written works, liturgical practice and community identity sought to wash away a Roman Catholic identity, even though entities such as the church hierarchy and architecture reflected its roots. For the majority of people, it was difficult to question a regime caught up in establishing a national identity entwined in religious practice, particularly as parish priests were increasingly part of the educated class and preaching became common practice. Those individuals, such as Roger Martyn who refused to change their beliefs, faced a life of objection and the associated consequences.

NOTES: 

[1] John Jewel, ‘An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion (1571), Internet Shakespeare Editions[online], (Victoria: University of Victoria, 2019) http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Homilies_2-21_M/section/The+First+Part/ [accessed: 2 March 2019].

[i] John Craig, ‘Parish Religion’, in The Elizabethan World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), p. 227.

[ii] Brett Usher, ‘New Wine into Old Bottles: The doctrine and structure of the Elizabethan church’, in The Elizabethan World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), pp. 207-8.

[iii] David Dymond, ‘Martin, Roger (1526/7-1615)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2019; online edn., Jan 2008, <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/75473> [accessed: 26 February 2019].

[iv] Sir William Parker, The History of Long Melford (London: Wyman & Sons, 1873), pp. 72-3, https://archive.org/stream/historylongmelf00parkgoog#page/n88/mode/2up [accessed: 26 February 2019].

[v] Nicholas Lezard, ‘The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein review – capering skeletons and ruined churches’, The Guardian (2016) < https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/25/dance-of-death-hans-holbein-skeletons-reformation-review> [accessed 18 Dec 2021].

[vi] ‘Holbein Danse Macabre 21’, Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Holbein_Danse_Macabre_21.jpg#filelinks[accessed 22 Dec 21].

[vii] Craig, pp. 227-8.

[viii] Lee Gatiss, ‘The First Book of Homilies in Modern English’, Church Society, (2021) < https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/the-first-book-of-homilies-in-modern-english/> [accessed 22 Dec 21].

[ix] ‘Church of St George and St Mary, Cockington Park’, Historic England List Entry 1208547, (1952), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1208547?section=official-listing> [accessed 22 Dec 21].

[x] Usher, pp. 208-9.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

‘Church of St George and St Mary, Cockington Park’, Historic England List Entry 1208547, (1952), <https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1208547?section=official-listing> [accessed 22 Dec 21]

Craig, John, ‘Parish Religion’, in The Elizabethan World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), pp. 222-237

Dymond, David, ‘Martin, Roger (1526/7-1615)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2019; online edn., Jan 2008, <https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/75473> [accessed: 26 February 2019]

Gatiss, Lee, ‘The First Book of Homilies in Modern English’, Church Society, (2021) < https://www.churchsociety.org/resource/the-first-book-of-homilies-in-modern-english/> [accessed 22 Dec 21]

Jewel, John, ‘An Homily Against Disobedience and Willful Rebellion (1571), Internet Shakespeare Editions[online], (Victoria: University of Victoria, 2019) http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/doc/Homilies_2-21_M/section/The+First+Part/ [accessed: 2 March 2019]

Lezard, Nicholas, ‘The Dance of Death by Hans Holbein review – capering skeletons and ruined churches’, The Guardian (2016) < https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/oct/25/dance-of-death-hans-holbein-skeletons-reformation-review> [accessed 18 Dec 2021]

Parker, Sir William, The History of Long Melford (London: Wyman & Sons, 1873), pp. 72-3, https://archive.org/stream/historylongmelf00parkgoog#page/n88/mode/2up [accessed: 26 February 2019]

Usher, Brett, ‘New Wine into Old Bottles: The doctrine and structure of the Elizabethan church’, in The Elizabethan World (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014)