SOURCE: Bromiley, Geoffrey William. “Introduction—The Reformer,” “The Scholar,” and “Concluding Estimate.” In Thomas Cranmer: Theologian, pp. vii-xxviii, 1-11, and 97-103. London: Lutterworth Press, 1956.

[In the following excerpt, Bromiley outlines Cranmer's achievements as a religious reformer and a theological scholar.]

INTRODUCTION—THE REFORMER

By Shakespeare's classification Thomas Cranmer was one of those who have greatness thrust upon them. Neither by birth, training, connections, nor opportunity could he expect to play any great part in the affairs of church or nation. Born in 1489 at Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, the second son of a small squire he had little option but to seek a career in the ministry. His early education under a “marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster”¹ was not helpful, for as a result “he lost much of that benefit of memory and audacity in his youth that by nature was given to him, which he could never recover”.² But his natural ability could not be destroyed, and when he proceeded to Cambridge he graduated B.A. with sufficient distinction to be awarded a fellowship in Jesus College and to follow the more serious reading in divinity which this entailed.

From his election to a fellowship to his sudden translation from the university the story of Cranmer was the quiet one of progress in academic learning, status and reputation. An early marriage—he was not yet in orders—threatened to interrupt his career,³ for the statutes of the college did not allow married fellows. For a time Cranmer had to be content with a readership in Buckingham College (now Magdalene). But when his wife died in childbirth he was re-elected to his forfeited fellowship, and there were no further checks to his progress. He took his doctorate in divinity and for some years acted as examiner in the theological schools. He received and declined an invitation from Wolsey to serve in the newly founded Cardinal's College at Oxford. Already in the twenties he had that developed reputation as a scholar which would assure him of a minor eminence in his own sphere.

The years at Cambridge hardly prepared Cranmer for the onerous duties to which he was to be called, but they determined the use to which he would put his new opportunities. As the contemporary narrative has it, he had been “nozzled in the grossest kind of sophistry”,⁴ and he himself recalls “an ignorant reader, whose scholar I was in Cambridge some forty years passed, who, when he came to any hard chapter which he well understood not, he would find some pretty toy to shift it off, and to skip over unto another chapter, which he could better skill of”.⁵ But he quickly came under the influence of the new learning, and perhaps from Colet, or more likely from Erasmus, he acquired a new respect for the Bible,⁶ and a taste for plain and simple exposition. His pursuits kept him well-informed in theological matters, and while he did not plunge hastily into Lutheran teaching, he could not ignore the doctrines for which Luther contended. Like all educated churchmen, he was also alive to the ecclesiastical abuses which Colet castigated so freely, and he seems to have come early to the conviction that no real progress would be possible until the power of Rome was broken.⁷ Fundamentally, Cranmer had not moved very far from what we might call an enlightened orthodoxy, but he came to a wider sphere of ecclesiastical service with very definite views of the Bible and the Papacy, a general if not very decided sympathy with some of Luther's teaching, and the concern for an instructed faith.

By temperament, Cranmer would have been quite content to live out his days in the modest light of academic success. He had no desire for power or wealth. In reply to a later criticism of Cecil, he said quite honestly: “I am not so doted to set my mind upon things here, which neither I can carry away with me, nor tarry long with them.”⁸ Financially, indeed, a bishopric was no great attraction, for as he said in the same letter: “I took not half so much care for my living when I was a scholar of Cambridge, as I do at this present. For although I have now much more revenue, yet I have much more to do withal. … And if I knew any bishop that were covetous, I would surely admonish him; but I know none, but all beggars.”⁹ Again, Cranmer had no great taste or aptitude for the ecclesiastical and political administration in which he was later to be enmeshed. He must have foreseen that his entry into the King's service would involve preferment, but if he looked for a reward it was that of “some smaller living, that he might more quietly follow his book”.¹⁰ When he learned that the King had actually marked him out for the archbishopric, he felt “a great inability to such a promotion, and was very sorry to leave his study”.¹¹ At his examination he put it in this way: “There was never a man came more unwillingly to a bishoprick than I did to that,”¹² and there can be little or no doubt that he was telling the simple truth.

But although Cranmer was in every way fitted and prepared for a scholar's life, fate or circumstances or Henry VIII or the devil or providence—however we like to view it—had apparently decided otherwise. It all came about from a chance encounter in the summer of 1529. The plague had visited Cambridge as it so often did, and Cranmer retired with two of his pupils to their house at Waltham in Essex. While they were there, the King made a twofold visit to the house. It was just after the last and most vexatious delay in the so-called divorce, when on July 23 Henry had expected Campeggio to find in favour of a dispensation to annul the marriage, but a fresh turn in the complicated European situation had caused him instead to adjourn for the vacation. Cranmer did not see the King in person. There was no reason why he should. But he had a meal with his two Cambridge friends, Gardiner and Fox, who were both employed in the business. To these two he dropped his quiet but in its own way revolutionary suggestion, that since the legality or otherwise of the marriage with Katherine of Aragon was an academic question it should be decided by a majority opinion of the appropriate faculties of the Christian universities. Judgment could then be given accordingly in the English ecclesiastical courts without waiting for Rome. Gardiner and Foxe had some doubts as to how Henry would receive the suggestion, so they took good care to throw the responsibility for it on Cranmer. But in his mood of exasperated frustration the King welcomed it with enthusiasm,¹³ and it was only a matter of months before Cranmer was summoned to the court.¹⁴ He did not at once abandon his academic career, but his days of scholarly seclusion were undoubtedly at an end.

In the King's service, Cranmer's first employment was entirely in relation to the divorce. His initial task was congenial enough. He simply had to state his own views of the question in writing as a basis for discussion and persuasion in the English universities. Cranmer's approach was purely academic and not in any sense personal. He believed that the marriage had in fact been invalid from the start. Henry had been permitted to marry his deceased brother's wife, but the Papacy had no authority at all to dispense against a clear ruling of Scripture. He not only stated this view but also defended it against the wit and eloquence of Reginald Pole, of whose book he had to admit that “in many things he satisfieth me very well”.¹⁵ He was also committed with the task of arguing out the case in Cambridge, and in 1530 he was attached to an embassy to Rome with the particular duty of broaching the matter in foreign universities and discussing it with the Pope. Finally, in 1531 he became ambassador to the Imperial Court with the special task of making contact with the German Lutherans and if possible enlisting their support. The results of all this activity were very mixed. As concerns his mission he made no headway with either the Pope or the Emperor, but he had some success not only in Cambridge but also in several foreign universities, helped no doubt by royal pressure in the one case and appropriate rewards in the others. For himself, he received the archdeaconry of Taunton from Henry, the high-sounding office of Penitentiary for England from the Papacy, and a second wife, the niece of the reformer Osiander, from Lutheran Germany.

It was while Cranmer was still in Germany that Archibishop Warham died, and with unusual celerity Henry nominated his ambassador to the vacant office. Normally, of course, the revenues of vacant sees formed a useful addition for a while to the royal treasury. But in this case there was an obvious reason for haste. Henry had already carried through legislation which had brought his relation with the Papacy to snapping point. Before the break came, he wanted a properly recognized archbishop who could give definitive sentence in his matrimonial suit. The choice fell on Cranmer, partly because he had suggested the course of action which Henry was now following, partly because he was so transparently sincere in his advocacy of the cause, and partly because he was not the character to try to impose his own policies or ideas on his royal master. It was not a popular choice either with the contemporaries of Cranmer whom he had suddenly outstripped, or, as we have seen, with Cranmer himself. Gardiner in particular seems to have found it extremely unwelcome, no doubt because he would have fancied the archbishopric himself. His resistance to the later visitation of Cranmer makes it quite plain that he did not take at all kindly to the overlordship of his one-time inferior.¹⁶ But Cranmer himself did not want the office. He did everything in his power to avoid it, first prolonging his journey abroad, then trying to influence the King indirectly, and finally declaring quite plainly that he had scruples against the oath of loyalty to the Papacy.¹⁷ But Henry had made up his mind, and all the obstacles raised were quickly overcome. To deal with the conscientious objections Henry devised a legal proclamation of reservation, of which the most that can be said perhaps is that it is better than the more common concealed and mental reservation.¹⁸ Gardiner and others simply had to make the best of a situation which they could not alter. A judicious deployment of money ensured that the bulls came through with record expedition, and on March 30, 1533, Cranmer was installed in his new office.

His first duty as archbishop was to conclude the matrimonial suit which had first brought him into the royal service. This did not take long. In accordance with the majority judgments of the universities the marriage was declared void in the archiepiscopal court. This was on April 23. Five days later the marriage between the King and Ann Boleyn was officially recognized and on September 10 Cranmer acted as sponsor for the baby Elizabeth. But the matrimonial difficulties of the King were not yet at an end and on three occasions the archbishop had to intervene again on Henry's behalf; first, to dissolve the marriage with Ann, then to break the unwelcome union with Anne of Cleves, and finally to report the infidelities of Katherine Howard.¹⁹ For his activities in this sphere he had ample justification in law and precedent, but Cranmer himself obviously felt the distastefulness of his work, especially in relation to Ann Boleyn.²⁰ Not even his warmest advocate can enthuse over this side of his activity. Perhaps the chief point in his favour is that he was always pressing for a reform of the canon law which made this type of adventure possible. But not unnaturally he could never overcome the innate hostility of the civil rulers, who had no great desire for a stricter ecclesiastical discipline.

In the wider sphere of ecclesiastical affairs, Cranmer succeeded to a situation which had changed vastly since his first encounter with Henry. Acting conjointly, the King and Parliament had not only broken the various links with Rome, but brought the church at home under closer political control. Willingly or unwillingly, Warham himself, supported by Convocation, had “given the supremacy to Henry VIII, and said that he ought to have it before the bishop of Rome, and that God's word would bear him”.²¹ Temporarily the rejection of papal supremacy enhanced greatly the authority of Canterbury, but it was not long before Henry appointed an ecclesiastical vicegerent, and as concerns the larger administration of the church Cranmer had for the most part only an indirect and not a direct voice. Such measures as the suspension of annates and the ratification of Henry's lordship were carried through quite irrespective of the archbishop, although in matters of this kind Cranmer himself had no objections. Indeed, he did a good deal to state the case for the royal as opposed to the papal supremacy. As distinct from Warham he had the advantage of sincerely believing it to be scriptural and therefore right. The dissolution of the monasteries was also outside the sphere of Cranmer's initiation or control. He had no great love for the monasteries, which had outlived their day and were centres of papal opposition. But he could not approve, although neither he nor anyone else could arrest, the shameless spoliation of church property, which he himself would have applied exclusively to the endowment of new bishoprics, and works of scholarship and charity.²² These matters, however, came under the more capable if more ruthless hands of Thomas Cromwell.

All the same, Cranmer was not by any means a spectator during these early years under Henry. His main work was done in much less striking ways, but in the long run it was no less influential. Not only did he argue against the papal supremacy, but he improved the occasion by attacking such specifically papal practices and doctrines as private masses and purgatory. He also initiated discussions with a view to a new doctrinal statement, and in the Ten Articles of 1536 and the more extended exposition usually known as the Bishops' Book there is a distinct if limited tendency in the direction of Lutheranism. At this time external events and the foreign policy of Cromwell favoured a Lutheran approximation, and Cranmer exploited the situation to the best of his ability. The injunctions of 1536 insisted on instruction in the Creed, the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Commandments, and in the years immediately following many famous shrines were dismantled, the number of saints' days was drastically reduced, and Lutheran “orators” were brought over with a view to political and theological alliance.²³

But Cranmer's greatest achievement in this period was his successful introduction into the churches of an English Bible. Already in 1534 he had initiated the project of an officially revised version, but those bishops who were hostile to the project delayed it by obstruction. As a stop-gap, a licence was procured for Coverdale's translation, but this was recognized to be only second-hand and inferior. Eventually, in August 1537, Cranmer came across a copy of the so-called Matthew's Bible, which consisted of all the work done by Tyndale completed by Coverdale. Whether or not Cranmer recognized Tyndale's hand it is difficult to say, but he certainly liked the version and sent it to Cromwell with a request to submit it to the King and if possible have it licensed for public reading.²⁴ When this was successfully done he wrote to Cromwell: “You have showed me more pleasure herein, than if you had given me a thousand pounds”; and he described Cromwell's part in the success as an action which would be remembered at the last day.²⁵ Rather typically, Cromwell took a financial interest in the publication. He had an eye for the earthly as well as the eternal treasure. It was soon realized, of course, that certain corrections would be necessary in the new version, but in its amended form Cromwell ordered that it should be set up in all parish churches. There was some delay in the carrying out of this order, for the printing was done in Paris and probably at the instigation of English bishops the work was interrupted by the Paris Inquisition. However, the Bible came out at last, and several editions were printed and circulated. Cranmer himself contributed a preface,²⁶ and for that reason it is often known as Cranmer's Bible. The title is a just one, for although many others had contributed to this notable reform, the interest of Cranmer was decisive. Of all his achievements in the earlier period, the introduction of the English Bible was perhaps the most far-reaching and influential.

So far conditions had been favourable to the archbishop, and if he looked back in 1539 he must have been astonished at the ground which had been traversed during the ten years since he had left Cambridge. Ecclesiastical control had passed out of the hands of the Papacy. Abuses due to the papal supremacy had been remedied. Ancient foundations and shrines were in process of dissolution.²⁷ The pattern of religious life and activity was changing. A beginning had been made not only with doctrinal revision but also with the dogmatic and ethical instruction of the people. The English Bible had been introduced into the churches and to some extent the homes and hearts of the nation. Cranmer himself could not claim credit or responsibility for all these changes. But it can hardly be denied that he had made skilful use of the situation to add the less tangible but no less important theological and religious renovation to the process of administrative and financial reform.

Nor was he without hope of even better things to come. Negotiations with the Lutherans were well under way. A matrimonial alliance with the reforming duchy of Cleves had been arranged. There was the possibility of further reform in both the doctrinal and ceremonial spheres, and Cranmer may even have hoped that he would soon be able to add to the English Bible an English Prayer Book.

As it turned out, however, Cranmer's main task during the rest of Henry's reign was to be one of defence rather than attack. For just at this juncture a variety of circumstances combined to bring about a complete reversal in religious policy. Perhaps the ultimate reason was the political, that the friendship of the Emperor had become more important than that of the Lutherans. But Henry's innate conservatism and his dislike for the dogma and dogmatism of the German orators made a change of this nature welcome to him. Again, he no doubt sensed the hostility of many of the people to too drastic reforms, and he could hardly ignore the very powerful resistance to Cromwell amongst the older nobility, both inside and outside the council. The final spur came with the arrival of Anne of Cleves, who unfortunately did not fulfil the high hopes held out by a flattering portrait. The more potent charms of Katherine Howard were only enhanced by comparison.

The first change came on the theological front with the adoption of six articles: transubstantiation, the vow of chastity, the private mass, auricular confession, the celibacy of the clergy, and the denial of the cup to the laity. Both in Parliament and Convocation Cranmer resisted this act to the very last,²⁸ but he was overborne by the King and the lay peers, and he had no option but to submit. At first the act was not applied with any rigour and Cranmer himself had little to fear from it so long as he kept his more heterodox opinions to himself and concealed his wife. The attainder and execution of Cromwell had more serious consequences, for it deprived Cranmer of his main supporter, reversed the policy with which he had been identified, brought his most active opponents to power, and threatened ruin and disgrace to Cranmer himself. Indeed, the odds in London were ten to one that Cranmer would share the fate of his lay colleague.²⁹ At the very least it was expected that a hostile vicegerent would be appointed, thus depriving him of all genuine power or influence. The hopes of Cranmer's enemies were all falsified by events, but with the fall of Cromwell the archbishop entered on a bitter and at first not very hopeful defensive.

Had he been more politically minded, Cranmer might easily have consumed these years in attempts at sheer self-preservation. On at least three occasions he was exposed to damaging attacks which had as their final end his downfall. The first time he was accused by his own prebendaries. The second, he was attacked in Parliament by a certain Gostwicke. The third, he was actually summoned by his fellow-members of the Council who intended to commit him to the Tower. Cranmer was not much more than a child when it came to this kind of warfare. He had the guileless nature which does not easily make plots or counter or unravel them. He had an implicit faith in the truth which in that turbulent age only the long-range perspective of history can justify, not the short-term perspective of immediate advantage. If he survived the attacks, it was not due to precautions taken or his power of counter-attack, but to the powerful protection of the King, who valued his loyalty and scholarship and seemed to have a strange affection for the man who was in almost all things his opposite.³⁰ At any rate, Henry quickly saw through the conspiracy of the prebendaries and turned it against its authors.³¹ When he heard of Gostwicke's attack he threatened that if he did not apologize to the archbishop he would soon make him a poor gosling—he had profited greatly by the dissolution.³² He even gave Cranmer a ring which brought confusion to the Council, and rated his advisers for their unjustifiable and discourteous treatment of his most trusted servant.³³ Without this patronage, the outlook for the archbishop would have been black indeed.

As it was, his survival was important, for now that there was no vicegerent the archbishop had a greater influence in religious matters, and he could use his power to ward off the various counter-attacks and even to make one or two advances. He was not uniformly successful. The revision of the Bishops' Book took a reactionary direction which Cranmer could not resist, in spite of one or two minor victories. And this time the book came out not merely with the approval of Convocation but with the sanction of Parliament and the Crown. Again, he could not prevent a progressive restriction of the English Bible. New editions of the Great Bible ceased after 1541, and in 1543 the Tyndale version was proscribed and various classes were forbidden to read the Bible at all.³⁴ On the other hand, Cranmer thwarted a very serious attempt to revise the Great Bible, which would probably have resulted in its complete withdrawal. The matter was taken out of the hands of a committee appointed by Convocation and remitted to the universities, who seem quietly to have done nothing. It was not unimportant that the Great Bible did at least remain even if it was no longer widely circulated or read.

Again, Cranmer enjoyed one or two lesser triumphs, especially in the liturgical sphere. He successfully resisted a legalization of all existing uses. In this way the principle of uniformity was safeguarded and many customs and ceremonies remained unauthorized. He even made an attempt to “purge the antiphoners and mass-books of all apocryphas, feigned legends, superstitions, ovations, collects, versicles and responses”, together with references to the bishop of Rome and nonauthenticated saints.³⁵ In the same field, Cranmer even had the opportunity to introduce a little English. Special litanies were ordered in view of the bad harvest of 1543 and the French War of 1544,³⁶ but they were not very well attended, and to stimulate interest Henry ordered an English translation.³⁷ At first, the Latin was translated directly, but Cranmer himself attempted a very free rendering³⁸ which was published the following year and by royal proclamation replaced all existing litanies. In this way the first part of the English Prayer Book came out even during the period of reaction, and already Cranmer displayed to the full those qualities of liturgical craftsmanship which he would reveal on an even greater scale in the completed work. The Litany is not used to-day as it still deserves to be used, but no one can easily deny either the comprehensiveness of its petitions, the balance of its structure, or the terseness and yet also the majesty and cadence of its phrasing.

The French War had rather curious effects on the ecclesiastical situation. On the one hand, Henry needed money, so he began to plunder the chantries. On the other hand, he needed the friendship of the Emperor, so he maintained the various ceremonies which Cranmer was trying to abolish.³⁹ In the autumn of 1546, the situation took a sudden turn in the archbishop's favour, for the religious war in Germany brought England and France together and there was talk of a thorough-going reformation in both countries in opposition to the Papacy and the Empire. Whether this project would have been realized it is difficult to say. Hooper thought it at least a possibility,⁴⁰ and Cranmer was certain of it. The matter was obviously discussed, and there is no doubt that the traditionalists, and especially Gardiner and the Howards, were all under a cloud. But the new development was not destined to come under Henry, for in January 1547 his turbulent life came to an end. In his last hours it was to his trusted friend the archbishop that he turned for spiritual comfort.

The death of Henry opened up a new era for Cranmer and his work, although he himself did not view it in that light.⁴¹ By his will, Henry had appointed a council of regency, on which the reforming party had a clear majority. The weakness as Cranmer saw it was the lack of a strong and securely acknowledged leader, and the consequent danger of faction. But he could hardly have found a more sympathetic ruler than the Protector Somerset, who for all his faults and the weakness of his economic policy had generous ideas and sincere reforming convictions. Under Somerset Cranmer had a fairly free hand in more specifically religious and theological matters, and he used the opportunity to go forward with slow but penetrating changes. By temperament Cranmer was cautious and conservative. He came slowly to his own convictions, and he did not attempt to press them hastily on others. He was content to wait both for favourable circumstances on the one hand and a leaven of instruction on the other. His aim was not to sectionalize the church and nation, but if possible to carry them with him, reforming not merely by edict from without but by renewal from within. In this policy he had the enthusiastic support of the Protector.

A first task was to restrain the more revolutionary elements, who took advantage of Henry's death to initiate violent propaganda and even to invade churches and manhandle priests. All the same, in his own way Cranmer encouraged a progressive policy. A special course was selected for the Paul's Cross sermons. The Paraphrase of Erasmus was published in English, and the first book of Homilies was circulated. The injunctions of 1547 encouraged this tendency. It was insisted that once at least in each quarter there should be a sermon and that the rudiments of the faith should be definitely taught in English. The Bible and the Paraphrase had to be made available, and at the mass the Epistle and Gospel were to be read in the vernacular.⁴² In Convocation the cup was at last conceded to the laity,⁴³ and Parliament opened up a period of freer discussion with its repeal of the six articles and the heresy laws. A new chantries bill was opposed by Cranmer, who disapproved although he could not prevent the misappropriation of church endowments by the rapacious nobility.

The granting of the cup to the laity made an opening for the reconsideration of the whole communion office, and Cranmer would have liked a fairly large-scale revision in accordance with his changing doctrine. For the moment, however, he was foiled by the other bishops and could only add to the existing mass a definite communion and some concluding prayers in English. In 1548 various ceremonies were ended by proclamation, and in the spring Westminster and St. Paul's took the lead by substituting an English communion for the Latin mass. To further the instructional side of the work Cranmer issued a translation of the Latin catechism of Justus Jonas. This Lutheran work was a disappointment to some of the more advanced reformers, who did not notice, perhaps, that Cranmer had made some careful alterations to avoid a doctrine of consubstantiation. The eucharistic controversy was becoming so violent and unseemly at this time that temporarily even licensed preachers were allowed only to read the official homilies.⁴⁴ But Cranmer himself was now coming to a definite mind on this issue on which he had hesitated for so many years. The main impetus to a Reformed view seems to have come from Ridley, who convinced him that the medieval interpretation of the real presence was an illegitimate development of the biblical and patristic teaching.⁴⁵ But he was finally helped by the continental scholars who had now accepted his offer not only of refuge but of useful employment in England. Peter Martyr especially had many conversations with him on this issue,⁴⁶ and in Martyr he found a scholar whose training, outlook and interests were wholly congenial.

The wider contacts of Cranmer are almost a subject in themselves, and he emerges as one of the genuinely ecumenical figures of the century. From his early visit to Nuremberg he had maintained sympathetic contact with the German Lutherans, and he made it his business to keep in touch with all the writings of contemporary scholars. When the victories of Charles V and the imposition of the Interim made conditions extremely difficult for many continental reformers he invited them to England and found for them strategic posts where they could influence the present and future course of events. Fagius, Bucer, Martyr, Tremellius, Ochino, John a Lasco and others were indebted to this hospitality. But beyond that Cranmer had the idea of a full-scale protestant synod where the various reforming churches could come to a common mind and issue a common confession of faith. With a view to convening some such synod he wrote letters to Melanchthon, Bullinger and Calvin,⁴⁷ but Melanchthon seemed very reluctant to do anything and practical difficulties prevented the realization of the project. The failure was not due to any lack of enthusiasm or effort on the part of Cranmer. If his plan had been adopted, it might have had very beneficial consequences for the evangelical cause both in England and elsewhere.

With the introduction of an English communion service, the demand for liturgical revision became more insistent, and the way opened up for perhaps the greatest of all the creative achievements of Cranmer, his English Prayer Book. He seems to have presented a first draft of the first book to two meetings of bishops at the end of 1548. It was, of course, a compromise. As far as possible the medieval order and ceremonies were retained, but there was a good deal of simplification, a more prominent place was given to edification, and the grosser doctrinal implications were avoided although not perhaps deliberately negated. Effectively sponsored by Cranmer and Ridley,⁴⁸ the proposals were carried in Convocation and the Lords, but before the bill became law there had to be modifications in a more conservative direction.⁴⁹ Still, Cranmer had attained his main objective. He had given to the nation a worthy instrument of public worship in the language of the people.

Rather surprisingly, perhaps, the book did not have too good a reception. The extremists disliked it because it was too conservative,⁵⁰ the traditionalists because it was too advanced, and the ordinary people because it was new. The Prayer Book was a definite contributory factor to the south-western revolt of the same year, and although the main grievances were certainly economic, the religious aspect cannot be ignored. Of course, many of the Cornish did not understand English anyway, so that the book was of no great value to them, but the main resistance was simply to change. Cranmer did not find it very difficult to expose the ignorance and illogicality and even irreligion of some of the objections,⁵¹ but the fact remained that time would be needed before his work would establish itself in the minds and hearts of the people.

More galling, however, than all the criticism was the claim of Stephen Gardiner that he could find his doctrine of the real presence in the new communion office. This, perhaps, more than any other factor made revision inevitable and determined its character. It had the more immediate consequence of plunging the archbishop into the controversial writing and disputation which in fair weather and foul occupied him for the remaining years of his life. To his True and Catholic Doctrine of the Lord's Supper Gardiner and Smith made rejoinders which Cranmer had to refute in his Answer, and when Gardiner replied again he spent his last months in prison composing a fresh defence which has not survived.⁵² These writings on the eucharist are Cranmer's only detailed and systematic contribution to technical theology.

Doctrinally, the south-western rebellion was of no serious consequence, but economically and politically it had critical results. There were similar risings in other parts of the country and attention was focused on the gross mismanagement of the régime. Somerset's attempts at redress only alienated his fellow-nobles. In addition, troops had to be withdrawn from Scotland and France to crush the insurgents at home, and this led to reverses which further discredited the government. The Duke of Northumberland, who largely put down the revolts, profited by the situation to combine all the discontented elements against Somerset, and the latter had no option but to accept the mediation of Cranmer and surrender to his opponent. Cranmer has been blamed sometimes for his part in the coup d'état, but he was assured that Somerset would not suffer in person, property or dignity, and he could not foresee his later imprisonment, attainder and execution.

All the same, Cranmer must have had serious misgivings when Somerset was succeeded by Northumberland. He had worked well with the former, but he had no liking for the latter, whose ruthlessness and rapacity he clearly discerned.⁵³ Indeed, at first, he did not even know that Northumberland would favour the Reformation.⁵⁴ Like many plotters, Northumberland had held out conflicting promises to different factions. He did not declare his hand until he had first secured his own position. The choice then fell on the reforming side, but it was a choice of self-interest and not of conviction. Cranmer for one saw this clearly. He could never think of Northumberland as “a most holy and fearless instrument of the Word of God”⁵⁵ as did some of the extremists whom the Duke encouraged.⁵⁶ In consequence, the short period of Northumberland's supremacy was for Cranmer an uneasy and unhappy time when he was continually in opposition and had to shape hostile forces and circumstances to a pattern of ultimate spiritual enrichment.

One of the first acts of the new government was the appointment of a commission to draw up a new ordinal. Cranmer seems to have played a leading part in the revision, which completed the first instalment of liturgical reform. The ancient service was drastically purged and simplified. Only the three main orders were now recognized. Episcopal ordination remained, but there was a new insistence on divine calling, popular assent and the ministry of word and sacrament. Sacerdotal ideas were carefully excluded, and the service was not based on the presupposition that orders are themselves a sacrament. To the reactionaries the new ordinal was thoroughly distasteful, but the retention of vestments and the oath by the saints proved a stumbling-block to radicals like Hooper.⁵⁷ In fact, it was from the ordinal that the Puritan controversies had their first beginning, for at Easter, 1550, Hooper was appointed to the vacant bishopric of Gloucester,⁵⁸ and he tried to persuade the King and Council to waive the authorized forms in his case.⁵⁹ But Cranmer and Ridley,⁶⁰ assisted by Bucer and Martyr,⁶¹ insisted upon proper obedience in a matter essentially indifferent, and they carried their point, although it was only after a short spell in the Fleet prison that Hooper submitted. The issue was trifling enough, like those which provoked the later controversies, but a great principle was ultimately at stake. Is the church committed in every detail to the precept and precedent of Scripture, or is there an area of things indifferent in which it is free to take order so long as it does not legislate against Scripture? Cranmer and Ridley were both of the latter view, which found its expression in the article (34), and its final defence in the detailed arguments of Whitgift and the masterly theses of Hooker.

In relation to the Hooper episode Cranmer carried his point, but when it came to the continued spoliation of church property his protests were unavailing against the greed of the nobility.⁶² There were many ways of plundering the church. Benefices could be left unfilled, or supplied by servants, and the temporalities appropriated by patrons. Valuable ornaments could be removed on the pretence of reformation. Scholarships could be claimed for the wealthy. On an even bigger scale, the remaining chantry endowments were a rich prize. Manors could be extorted on the appointment of bishops. Bishoprics could be suppressed or their endowments taken over in return for a fixed stipend. Against all these abuses Cranmer and Ridley and Latimer and later Knox and Hooper maintained a constant opposition. Where genuine reform made necessary a re-application of endowments, as in the case of the chantries, they attempted to secure the money for religious, educational and charitable projects.⁶³ But their efforts were only partially successful and a source of irritation to the despoilers. The climax came in the last months of the régime when Tunstall of Durham was deprived and there was a scheme to reorganize his wealthy bishopric. Cranmer resisted the deposition,⁶⁴ and if Ridley had been appointed as suggested it is likely that there would have been a headlong collision over the projected reorganization.

Still, the rapacity of the nobles made possible the deeper and more permanent reforms which Cranmer himself desired, and as in the reign of Henry he profited by the situation to do a less obvious but in the long run more decisive work. It was not entirely of his own choosing. If Cranmer had had his way, reforms would have come more slowly, prepared by a more thorough indoctrination by the Word of God. But Cranmer did not know, of course, how short was the time available. As it turned out, it was as well for the church, or at any rate for the reformation of the church, that the archbishop was hustled by events. The work done was superficial and transitory as he himself saw it, but it formed a solid basis for the more enduring settlement of the Elizabethan period.

Prayer Book revision was the first item in the programme. Many circumstances combined to make this desirable. The 1549 book had never become popular. The extremists in particular wanted something more definite and radical. Individual action, as for example Ridley's replacement of altars by communion tables,⁶⁵ had altered the emphasis and even the ethos of worship. The criticisms of Martyr and the detailed suggestions of Bucer underlined the need for reform. Above all, it was realized that the first version still left a loop-hole for the traditionalists. This perhaps more than any other factor inclined Cranmer to accept the principle of revision, and in January, 1552, the second Book of Common Prayer was enforced by a new act of uniformity.

In every way it was more radical than its predecessor.⁶⁶ The old vestments and ornaments were abandoned. Ancient ceremonies were discontinued. A penitential introduction replaced auricular confession. In baptism, the water was no longer consecrated and trine immersion gave way to single. In communion, the canon of the mass was ruthlessly but imaginatively dismembered, and every suggestion of a substantial presence was scrupulously removed. To make doubly sure, Knox tried to persuade the Council to prevent kneeling reception. Cranmer and Ridley resisted this demand, but they added the explanatory rubric which explains that no adoration is intended to Christ corporally present. The book went through several editions in its short period of use, and if it was not practised long enough to exercise its full influence, it had a decisive importance as the basis of the 1559 and 1662 books.

The next item was the long projected revision of the canon law, for which a commission had been appointed in 1549. The sweeping changes of the last twenty years had made this reform imperative, for many canonical provisions were now contrary to statute law, and others had become obsolete or inoperative.⁶⁷ In addition, Cranmer saw the need for clear disciplinary provisions, and he wanted to bring canon law into line with the new liturgical and doctrinal standards. But the project was not a popular one, for the lay lords and especially Northumberland had no desire to bring themselves under the clear-cut discipline of the church. A system of confused and in many ways convenient law was in every way preferable, for in effect it meant very little law at all so far as they themselves were concerned. As it turned out, the commission appointed in 1549 did not receive authority to proceed until 1552, and since it had been appointed for only three years it failed to complete its work in time. This was the kind of obstruction which Cranmer had always encountered on this issue. The need for revision was unquestionable, but in fact no one wanted it. Cranmer did not despair. He brought to completion his projected Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, and although he was never able to submit it either to Convocation or Parliament it is an interesting testimony to his work. As in all such codes, the detailed provisions have dated, and we may be grateful that they do not have statutory authority. But taken as a whole, the scheme has the merit of conciseness and lucidity, and one at least of the suggestions, the revival of diocesan synods with lay representation, was of great constructive importance.

The third item was the introduction of a common doctrinal confession, and in this field Cranmer was much more successful. His aim was not to stifle private opinion, but to enforce an authoritative standard of teaching on controverted issues. In a sense, the King's Book did to some extent provide this standard, but the church had moved a good way since its publication and Cranmer himself had never been really satisfied with the book. On the other hand, the free proclamation of wildly conflicting opinions could only do harm, and as early as 1549 Cranmer drew up some articles for use in his own diocese. The success of the scheme prompted him to submit these or similar articles to his fellow-bishops in 1551 and then, through Cheke and Cecil,⁶⁸ to the King and Council in 1552. As finally amended, these articles were finally published as the Forty-Two Articles of June, 1553. They came too late to be of any practical value, but they have an obvious importance as the basis of the Thirty-Nine Articles finally adopted by both Convocation and Parliament during the reign of Elizabeth. In the sense that doctrines were not too narrowly defined, the aim of the articles was comprehension rather than exclusion. As far as practicable, Cranmer wanted to carry the whole church with him in religious “concord and quietness”.⁶⁹ But the comprehensiveness must not be exaggerated, for traditionalist teaching is plainly rejected at the one end of the scale, and anabaptist at the other. It is apparent that Cranmer did not want either a detailed definition or a rigid enslavement of private opinion. But it is equally apparent that he had turned the authoritative doctrine of the church in an unmistakably reformed direction.

With the introduction of the articles Cranmer completed the threefold contribution—Bible, Prayer Book and Confession—which more perhaps than the political enactments of King and Council has revolutionized the church and nation. He was only just in time, for on July 6 Edward died, and after the futile conspiracy of Northumberland Mary's accession brought speedy ruin to these painful accomplishments. For the next two and a half years Cranmer had to endure the distressing spectacle of his life's work undone, his doctrines attacked, his friends tortured and executed. He himself was subjected to every kind of physical, mental and moral pressure, so that it was only through shame and weakness that at the last, on March 21, 1556, he witnessed a good confession, committing himself and his work to the resurrecting power of God.

The end is in a sense characteristic of the whole. From the human standpoint Cranmer's work had always been in frailty and it concluded in apparent failure. He had never been entirely the master of either events or circumstances. For the most part he had had to work with rulers whom he found it impossible to oppose and difficult to advise or control. He was hampered in a way by his own conscientious acceptance of the royal supremacy, which brought him at the last almost to a betrayal of his deepest convictions. But in and through it all he had accomplished an inward reformation of piety, worship and doctrine, which was not merely a complement of the external work of government, but something which a wider and therefore a truer perspective has shown to be more basic and enduring.

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THE SCHOLAR

From the time that he left Cambridge Cranmer was necessarily entangled in a good deal of administrative activity. He had his wider responsibilities as a member of the Council and a leader in Convocation and the House of Lords. He also had the not inconsiderable day to day business of his own diocese and household. In the circumstances it is not surprising that he made no very direct or more strictly academic contribution to theological scholarship, or that his attainments as a scholar could be almost forgotten by his younger contemporaries. Indeed, the ability with which he espoused the 1549 Prayer Book came as something of a surprise to the new generation: “The palm rests with our friends, but especially with the Archbishop of Canterbury, whom they till now were wont to traduce as a man ignorant of theology, and as being conversant only with matters of government.”⁷⁰ It has to be remembered, of course, that those who had put out this opinion were his ecclesiastical opponents, and at bottom it was a rejection of his theology rather than a criticism of his attainments. Vilification is often a more potent weapon than argument. On the other hand, even the more militant reforming group expressed their impatience in a similar way when Cranmer translated the catechism of Justus Jonas: “This Thomas hath fallen into so heavy a slumber that we entertain but a very cold hope that he will be aroused even by your most learned letter.”⁷¹ In other words, if Cranmer had been a sound and alert theologian he would obviously have held the same views as we do.

Of course, after twenty years' absence from the direct life of the schools it was hardly surprising that the earlier academic record should have been forgotten or that Cranmer should be regarded as a back number. Yet in his own day Cranmer had certainly been one of the ablest and most promising of the younger Cambridge theologians. His college had thought sufficiently highly of his attainments not only to give him a fellowship but to recall him to it after the death of his first wife, although normally the statutes were interpreted to exclude widowers as well as married men. During the years which followed he had not only proceeded to his doctorate but had become an examiner in the theological faculty. He did not have the means or influence to move quickly to high honour or distinction, but he was obviously making his way by solid merit and achievement, and Wolsey would have liked him for his new foundation at Oxford. Against the twenty years of administration we have to balance the twenty years of theological scholarship which preceded them. And we have to remember that the years devoted to theology were the most active and the most formative.

A further point is that Cranmer's methods of study were calculated to stand him in good stead when he did not have the same leisure for detailed reading. By the standards of his day he was always an omnivorous reader. He amassed a private library which was larger than the whole university library of his undergraduate days, although of course we must not forget that printing was a comparatively recent invention and the rapid multiplication of books was only just beginning in the early sixteenth century. In addition to the Greek New Testament and two Hebrew Bibles Cranmer's collection contained a fairly complete set of the fathers, many of the school-men, and all the leading writers of his own century. He seems to have read slowly, but he had the habit of careful annotation, for “he seldom read without pen in hand, and whatsoever made either for the one part or the other of things being in controversy, he wrote it out if it were short, or, at the least, noted the author and the place, that he might find it, and write it out by leisure”.⁷² By this means he gathered a large store of readily accessible knowledge which enabled him to weigh every side of a controverted issue and to come always to an informed and responsible judgment.

But even in his years as archbishop Cranmer did not rely only on his past acquisition of knowledge. His opportunities for reading were more limited, but by a methodical arrangement of his daily time-table he made the most of the time available. If Foxe's account is correct,⁷³ he normally devoted the first four hours of every day, from 5 o'clock to 9, to prayer and reading. After that, he committed the business of the day to the various officers of his household, and then whenever possible “associated with learned men, for the sifting and boulting out one matter or another”. The afternoon and evening were often claimed for outside business, but any time that could be spared was given to reading and discussion, so that the habits formed at Cambridge were carried forward into the new and very different circumstances.

Indeed, in spite of the greater distractions, Cranmer had certain advantages in the new life. On the purely mechanical side, he now had the assistance of a secretary, so that he could continue his method of annotation with greater speed and less drudgery. The latter common-place books have come down to us and can be consulted in the British Museum. They are in the hand of Cranmer's secretary Morice, with various notes made directly by Cranmer himself. They give clear evidence not only of the methodical nature but also of the breadth and depth of Cranmer's reading even during his tenure of the archbishopric. There is also the further point that his contacts widened considerably with his advancement. In Cambridge, it is true, he had had the society of scholars and the assistance of books and a bookish atmosphere. But at Lambeth he was in constant touch with some of the best minds of the age, and he entered into direct communication with many of the leading continental scholars. During the reign of Edward especially, Lambeth became a kind of clearing-house of theologians and theological discussion, and Cranmer's own thinking took on a new liveliness and conviction. It was also his duty as archbishop to be a patron of younger scholars. Ridley in particular was a protégé of Cranmer, but so too were Bradford, Grindal, Jewel⁷⁴ and Parker.⁷⁵ In many respects Cranmer was the giver in this relationship, and the later Elizabethan leaders all show clear evidence of Cranmer's influence. On the other hand, the traffic was not all one way. Ridley in particular exercised a strong and on the whole perhaps beneficial influence on his more cautious if no less erudite colleague and patron, and the younger men generally helped to keep him open and alert in his thinking and approach.

The testimony of those who knew Cranmer is interesting if not altogether consistent. On the one side, it seemed to be a settled policy of his opponents to decry the scholarship of the archbishop. This emerges very clearly in the reply of Stephen Gardiner, who time and again suggests that there is nothing original in his work, but that he is deriving his ideas and arguments from Peter Martyr: “He doth but as it were translate Peter Martyr, saving he roveth at solutions, as liketh his phantasy”.⁷⁶ It is also emphasized in the examination, when he is accused of a feeble vacillation in the matter of the eucharist, and Ridley is charged with the main responsibility for Edwardian teaching.⁷⁷ In the case of Gardiner, it seems evident that there was a good deal of personal animosity. By a mere stroke of fate his less prominent Cambridge contemporary had suddenly outstripped him in honour and influence. But on the traditionalist side generally it was easier to discount Cranmer as an ignoramus than to give a solid answer to his teaching.

As against the denigration of opponents, the opinion of Henry VIII is useful and not altogether irrelevant. Henry had a considerable taste for theology—more, perhaps, than he had for ethics. He enjoyed theological disputation, and could take part in it with unruffled patience and temper. For his own part, he inclined strongly to traditionalist positions, but he was never a bigot in controversy, and if he enforced external uniformity he welcomed the interplay of private opinions. On disputed issues he seems to have leaned heavily on Cranmer's learning, even though he did not always follow his judgment: “At all times when the King's Majesty would be resolved in any doubt or question, he would but send word to my Lord overnight, and by the next day the King should have in writing brief notes of the doctors' minds, with a conclusion of his own mind, which he could never get in such readiness of none, no, not of all his clergy and chaplains about him, in so short a time.”⁷⁸ This quotation is very revealing. It not only displays the confidence of the King. It also shows us that Cranmer's judgments were based always on a solid foundation of knowledge, and that if he sometimes hesitated, it was not because of weakness but because of his grasp and appreciation of more than one side of a question. In our own day as in Cranmer's the greatest cocksureness is often a mask for the profoundest ignorance. A bold novelty is easy when the lessons of the past are not known. The originality of idea or utterance has to replace a solidity of learning and information. Set in the light of past discussion the novelty is soon shown to be superficial. Henry, at any rate, recognized the genuine scholarship of the archbishop. As he is once said to have put it to Stephen Gardiner when they were arguing a question with Cranmer: “My Lord of Canterbury is too old a truant for us twain.”⁷⁹

The learning of Cranmer was also appreciated by his contemporaries abroad. In some cases the tributes paid were merely conventional, as when Erasmus referred to him as “a most upright man of spotless life”. In letters from Bucer, Bullinger and Calvin we find similar protestations of respect,⁸⁰ but these can hardly be accepted as solid evidence. Again, when Bucer and Fagius were enjoying the hospitality of Lambeth and dependent upon the protection of the archbishop it is hardly surprising that they should describe him as “that most benevolent and kind father of the churches and of godly men”.⁸¹ The scholar who had the highest opinion of Cranmer, and who probably knew him best, was Peter Martyr. Like Cranmer, Martyr was very well versed in the fathers, and his cast of mind and thought seems to have been very similar to that of the archbishop. He obviously had a very great admiration for Cranmer: “But now, believe me, he has shown himself so mighty a theologian against them, as they would rather not have proof of, and they are compelled, against their inclination, to acknowledge his learning, and power and dexterity in debate.”⁸² Martyr, of course, seems to have had a thorough understanding of the difficulties which faced the archbishop, so that he could not approve the impatient criticisms of those extremer foreigners who boosted Hooper as their English champion. His letters refer constantly to the bitterness of the opposition: “The perverseness of the bishops is incredible; they oppose us with all their might.” But the weight of hostility only enhances the pertinacity of the archbishop: “The labour of the most reverend the archbishop of Canterbury is not to be expressed. For whatever has hitherto been wrested from we have acquired solely by the industry, and activity, and importunity of this prelate.”⁸³ For Martyr Cranmer was a “standard-bearer” among the bishops “not ill-inclined” to reform.⁸⁴ The general impression from Martyr's letters is one of a deep sympathy and understanding which inspired a high admiration for Cranmer's endowment and tenacity. He was able to inspire his pupils with something of the same enthusiasm, for at first John ab Ulmis had been a severe critic of the archbishop,⁸⁵ but he later wrote: “The Archbishop of Canterbury, a man of singular worth and learning, has contrary to the general expectation, delivered his opinion upon this subject learnedly, correctly, orderly, and clearly; and by the weight of his character, and the dignity of his language and sentiments, easily drew over all his hearers to our way of thinking.”⁸⁶ But perhaps by this time ab Ulmis realized that Martyr and Cranmer stood for what was substantially his own position.

One thing is clear. Cranmer did not make any very considerable contribution in theological writing. When we survey even his total literary remains, it is astonishing how small is the quantity compared with the vast bulk of Luther or Calvin or the lesser but impressive tomes of Zwingli. It is true, of course, that the two volumes of the Parker Society edition are both substantial and run to several hundred pages. But when we examine them, we find that there is not a great deal of direct theology. The main treatise is the True and Catholic Doctrine and the more detailed and scattered Defence, which together comprise the first volume. There is also a work on Scripture and Tradition, although this seems to have been put together and augmented by a Marian editor. For the rest we are dependent upon various papers and fragments and writings which are only indirectly theological. The preoccupation with ecclesiastical business is no doubt responsible in the main for this paucity of theological utterance. But there may be, perhaps, another and a deeper reason. The temperament of Cranmer was more that of the pure scholar than the independent thinker. His primary impulse was to amass knowledge rather than to state or discuss it.

Yet that is not the whole truth, for Cranmer is responsible for a tremendous amount of what we are forced to describe as indirect theology. For example, he had a hand in several confessions of faith, from the Ten Articles of 1536 to the Forty-Two Articles of 1553. Again, he was interested in the successive statements of doctrine which were issued for instructional purposes: the Bishops' Book, the King's Book, Cranmer's Catechism and possibly the Catechism issued with the Forty-Two Articles and usually ascribed to Ponet. We have to be careful, of course, that we do not appeal too confidently to these writings as an expression of Cranmer's own opinions, for there is no doubt that he did not like the King's Book, and it is doubtful whether he was really satisfied with its predecessor. More important from this standpoint is the first book of Homilies issued early in the reign of Edward, for Cranmer has always been regarded as the author of the great series on justification to which there is still a reference in the article (11). By their very nature the Homilies have a pronounced homiletical tendency, but all the same they have a definite doctrinal importance and Cranmer had a fairly free hand in their composition.

Even the Prayer Books are theological in an indirect sense, for at the most important points the changes in the form and structure of worship were determined on dogmatic rather than strictly liturgical grounds. This was particularly true in the case of the communion service, but in varying degrees it is true of all the services. The consecration of the baptismal water was not omitted merely because it is a dispensable ceremony, but because of underlying dogmatic implications. Similarly, prayers for the dead have to be excluded to safeguard a true doctrine of redemption by Jesus Christ, and the introduction of a general confession instead of the “sacrament” of penance is governed entirely by dogmatic and not liturgical considerations. It is for this reason that the Prayer Book is so often regarded, and with partial justification, as a supplementary confession of faith. We have to be careful, of course, not to read the liturgies merely as doctrinal statements. Obviously the language of piety cannot have the same precision as that of dogmatics, and the former ought to be interpreted in terms of the latter rather than vice versa. From 1549 to the present day the Church of England has suffered from an inveterate and apparently ineradicable tendency to treat the Prayer Book as a primary and even an autonomous confessional utterance. On the other hand, there is an evident inter-action, which Cranmer himself realized, between liturgy and doctrine, and from first to last the revision of the services, like every achievement of Cranmer, was regarded as a theological task.

Indeed, the more closely we consider his work, the more we see that it was dominated by a theological aim and method. He had no primary interest in the practical reformation of the church, which he was content for the most part to leave to the civil authorities. The concern of the archbishop was not merely that this or that abuse should be remedied or arrangement improved. It went a good deal deeper. It was a concern that the medieval system as a whole should give way to a reformed and therefore as he saw it a scriptural and a truly catholic system. To accomplish this task all sorts of practical measures had to be taken and Cranmer was ready to bring such pressure as he could where something vital was at stake. But his own positive contribution was primarily in the less tangible field of the word and sacrament. He gave to his church a Bible, biblical preaching, a catechism, a Prayer Book and a confession of faith. If he has nothing much to offer in the way of dogmatic treatises, the reforms for which he himself was in the main responsible are all at the theological level.

But he also had a theological strategy, for like Luther himself he believed and foresaw that this deeper reformation by the word would issue in a more thorough-going reformation of practice and conduct. Of course, Cranmer was far too much of a theologian to regard doctrinal preaching and instruction merely as the means to a practical or ecclesiastical end. It is a primary aim in itself. But he was also far too much of a theologian to think that the theological or religious world is an isolated one which does not have a very profound effect on affairs in general. If the people could be systematically indoctrinated in evangelical truth, the more mundane problems of the church and nation would necessarily solve themselves. It was for this reason, or better perhaps, with this necessary by-product also in view, that Cranmer concentrated upon the preaching and teaching of the Gospel, disseminating the Scriptures, introducing exhortations into all possible services, insisting upon instruction in the Creed, Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments, ordering the preaching of sermons or homilies, publishing catechisms and taking care for the proclamation of sound scriptural and catholic doctrine. The attempted development of schools and colleges was also an integral part of the basic strategic programme.

In two respects, it may be, Cranmer miscalculated. For one thing, he thought of his own task rather too narrowly as theological, leaving the more practical arrangements much too readily to the civil powers. Theoretically, of course, the proclamation of the word was to influence and inspire the civil rulers, but in practice it did not altogether work out that way, and in England as in Lutheran Germany the thoroughgoing reformation by the Word of God was never accomplished. Far too often the arrangements which were left to the civil powers were determined by purely practical or even selfish rather than theological or spiritual factors, and Cranmer's sharp separation of spiritual and temporal functions proved an obstacle rather than a help to his own ultimate objective. At this point Zwingli and Calvin saw deeper than Luther and Cranmer, for they realized that theological responsibility does not cease with proclamation and instruction, but has to see to a practical outworking in the life of church and nation.

But second, Cranmer had not reckoned on the fact that even the theological programme could not be carried out properly without practical measures of ecclesiastical reform. It is one thing to insist on a definite policy of preaching and teaching, but this policy can be put into effect only if there is a properly qualified, deployed and disciplined ministry. In sixteenth-century England this meant that there would have to be more and better schools and a thorough reorganization of diocesan and parochial life. The vast endowments of monasteries and chantries could have supplied this need and Cranmer and his fellow-reformers did their best to secure as much of the endowments as possible for educational and ecclesiastical projects. But for the most part their efforts were unsuccessful, and the failure in practical reform meant inevitably a partial failure in the theological. Because of the practical breakdown there was cumulative obstruction where there might otherwise have been cumulative development. The circle of inter-action was turning the wrong way.

The fact remains, however, that by impulse, aim and strategy, Cranmer worked as a theologian rather than an administrator, and that in spite of every obstacle he achieved a fair measure of success even in his own century, quite apart from the almost incalculable influence of his work on the centuries which followed. It is the theological character of his activity which makes it so difficult to form an impartial judgment of Cranmer. If we try to assess him by administrative standards, we shall be tempted to write him off as almost a complete failure: which would, of course, be quite unjust. Again, if we do not share or at least understand his theological outlook and teaching, his achievements will be real enough but distasteful or even disastrous. Because he operated at the deep level of the Word and the Spirit, Cranmer's greatness has necessarily an enigmatic quality, which is also apostolic. His weapons were not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. His accomplishments were not the striking successes of administration, but the unnoticed, intangible, incalculable things which in the long run have often the most decisive and enduring consequences.

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CONCLUDING ESTIMATE

From our brief survey of his teaching, it is immediately apparent that Cranmer was a capable and well-read theologian. He had a vast store of biblical and patristic knowledge upon which he could draw at once in his handling of any point at issue. He had also read and pondered the writings of contemporaries, and he had a mastery of the current forms of theological disputation. Even his administrative preoccupations did not cause him to lose touch with the movements of his age. It is a clear indication of the vitality of his thinking and the honesty of his approach that a man of his age and position should come so late to his final sacramental position.

On the other hand, it must also be apparent that the main strength of Cranmer is in scholarship rather than creative theology. He does not handle many themes at length, but even in the long eucharistic discussion it would be hard to say that he puts forward anything which is genuinely original. His statements are always clear. He brings to them a considerable body of biblical and especially patristic support. He argues them out with acumen. He is obviously responsible in very large measure for the shaping of the new Anglican theology as formularized in the articles and reflected in the Prayer Book. But, through the whole range of his discussions, it is difficult to say that at any single point he made a new contribution to general theological development.

Cranmer is seen at his best, perhaps, in the shorter treatises and especially in the articles. In wider discussion he becomes rather too detailed to be convincing, and like the majority of his contemporaries—and others too—he is far too concerned to score minor points of debate. There are interesting and important passages in the reply to Gardiner, but the True and Catholic Doctrine is best read in isolation from the ensuing controversy. Cranmer excelled, of course, in the short but lucid and expressive phrase which gives to the Prayer Book its enduring beauty and freshness. The articles were altered a good deal and in many respects improved in subsequent revisions, but even as they came from Cranmer they are a model of comprehensive but not too vague or generalized formulation. With his alert and not too rigid or dogmatic mind, and his genius for the right formula, Cranmer would have been an invaluable chairman in the ecumenical discussions which he attempted to convene. But circumstances did not allow him to deploy his learning and talents in this sphere as he might have done in a happier age. What he did do was to give to his own church a balanced synopsis of its Reformation convictions. If he was not a theologian of the first rank, he certainly exercised a decisive and lasting influence.

In the teaching itself, certain features stand out which if they are not specifically “Cranmerian” do at least characterize his work. The first of these and in some ways the most outstanding is the patristic emphasis which coloured his whole outlook on current controversies. In some measure, of course, all the reformers appealed to the fathers as well as to Scripture. Zwingli, for example, condemned the traditionalist doctrine of communion, not only because it was not scriptural, but also because he did not find it in the fathers as the first interpreters of Scripture. If necessary, he would have followed Scripture against the fathers, but in most issues he could insist that his teaching was catholic and patristic as well as biblical. On the eucharistic question, Oecolampadius of Basle made a special study of the patristic doctrine. Peter Martyr, too, was a particularly good patristic scholar, as was also Calvin. In England the young Jewel had already set himself to work over the whole range of controverted questions in the light of the patristic literature of the first six centuries. It was a general contention of the reformers that their opponents were the innovators and that they themselves were returning not only to the Bible but to catholic faith and practice. There is, therefore, nothing special or distinctive in the patristic appeal as such. Yet Cranmer does seem to attach a particular value to this appeal and it has a place of especial prominence in almost all his writings. Perhaps it was an innate conservatism. Perhaps it was his mastery of the field. Whatever the reason, the fact itself is indisputable. And it has rather more than a personal importance. For while we cannot speak in any very meaningful way of disciples of Cranmer, there is no doubt that his theological successors in the Church of England have almost all of them manifested this same patristic tendency. They have not all interpreted the fathers in quite the same way as Cranmer did. But they have accepted his appeal to the early church, and for the most part they have used it in opposition to both medieval and modern novelties.

There is another and not unrelated point, that in Cranmer's teaching the incarnation of Christ assumes an importance which we do not always find in Western theology. This emerges particularly in his sacramental doctrine, in which he is obviously feeling after a common incarnational pattern. But it is also important in his understanding of the church and the ministry, and even in a sense of justification, in which there is a duality in the one being of the human actuality on the one hand and the heavenly, or, in Jesus Christ, the divine actuality on the other. He had found this understanding, of course, in some of the fathers, and in his own appreciation of it he may have been influenced to some extent by Peter Martyr, in whom we find the same teaching in much greater detail. Cranmer himself did not work out the theme in any fulness, but it belongs to the very heart of his teaching, and it is an insight which cannot be ignored in any attempt to understand either the life of Christians or their work and witness.

In this respect again Cranmer set the tone for much of the Anglican work which has followed. But he did not make the mistake which has had such unfortunate consequences for some of his successors, especially in recent times. He did not “naturalize” the incarnation by forgetting, ignoring, minimizing, or misinterpreting the redemptive work of Christ in His crucifixion and resurrection. The incarnational principle which he found in sacraments, church, ministry, or justification was not a principle of the natural conjunction of human and divine by virtue of the incarnation. It was a principle only for the redeemed humanity beyond the cross and the tomb. There could be no question, therefore, of a philosophical or natural religion of incarnation, but only of a biblical and redemptive theology. The incarnation as Cranmer saw it has significance, not merely because Christ identified Himself with man, but because He identified Himself with sinful man to bear the judgment of death passed on the old creation and to initiate the new.

The incarnational pattern is, therefore, a pattern only for the word and sacraments of the cross and the resurrection. It is a pattern only for the church which is the company of the redeemed. It is a pattern only for the ministry which is an embassage of reconciliation. It is a pattern only for the Christian life which is a new creation in Jesus Christ. It is a pattern which cannot be given an indiscriminate application, but which can be found only on the far side of Good Friday and Easter Day, in the tension of the old creation and the new. In the resurrection fulfilment, the pattern will be worked out in a new and fuller way, for the church will enjoy in Christ a perfect union of its redeemed humanity and its “divinity”: “we shall be like him.” But here in the time between regeneration and resurrection, when the union is that of faith, the new life is worked out in terms of sinful flesh, and we know the duality in a sharpness and poignancy of tension. One day, the emphasis will be on the oneness, for the context will be a context of harmony. But for the moment, as Cranmer sees so clearly, the duality is heightened, because it is set in a context of dualism and conflict. The “humanity” of the Christian and the church and the ministry and the word and the sacraments is the sinful humanity with which Christ certainly identified Himself in His incarnation, but which He took to the cross and destroyed in His own body, which for that reason has to be crucified, reckoned dead, put off and finally done to death in physical dissolution. The “divinity” is the new life, life in the Spirit, the life of faith, the new and eternal life which Christ gives us by His rising again from the dead, the life which we have to nourish, into which we have to grow, which we shall know in fulness only in the resurrection, which is itself a union of natures by virtue of the divine-humanity of the resurrected and ascended Christ. It is not in isolation, but in this hard but glorious context of reconciliation that the incarnation has for Cranmer its tremendous significance. To isolate it, and above all to philosophize it, is to be false to the true biblical and evangelical insight which shines steadily in Cranmer's work.

A final point in Cranmer's assessment is his underlying appreciation of the action of the Holy Spirit and therefore of faith. Nowhere does Cranmer give a developed statement of his teaching on the Holy Spirit. But he shows a firm grasp of the fact that the attestation of Christ incarnate, crucified, risen and ascended for us is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit subjectively applying the objective work. Therefore, whether we say church, ministry, word, sacraments or Christian life, we always say Christ, but we say Christ in and by the Holy Spirit. The importance of faith is not as a work, or even as pure subjectivity, but as the operation of the Holy Spirit in which human response is made to the evangelical word and there is the new life of identification with Jesus Christ in death and resurrection. In these matters Cranmer is open to misunderstanding in the light of the current “liberalizing” of Protestant doctrine. But in his own emphasis on the Spirit he has no thought of separating the Spirit from the objective word and work, let alone of “spiritualizing” the action and ultimately the person of the Holy Spirit Himself. Again, he has a proper appreciation of the critical significance of faith, but not in such a way as to give the false prominence to the human subject which involves a final subjectivization. His concern is to give the true and biblical place to that personal application of Christ's work which is specifically the action of the Holy Spirit, operative in word and sacrament to give and nurture the new life which is in Jesus Christ, and therefore to evoke and increase faith.

It has to be recognized, of course, that these positive insights are present in Cranmer only in what we might describe as embryonic form. Cranmer himself was too confined by controversial requirements to develop with any richness an alternative doctrine. We must not judge him too harshly on this account. If the needs of his own time were not always our needs, they were real needs all the same. A living theology always has to reckon with the actualities of the contemporary situation. No reformer could ignore the medieval aberration, or proclaim his message in conscious or unconscious isolation from it. Much of the work had to be negative, and with the current methods of disputation it often had to be tediously and almost pedantically thorough. We certainly cannot afford to be too impatient with this aspect of Cranmer's work. Theology has moved a good deal since those days, but in their codified Tridentine form the doctrines which Cranmer opposed are still a living and potent force on a by no means secondary or unimportant front. It is tiresome to have to traverse continually the same ground, but it is sometimes necessary. If the path is almost tediously well-trodden, it is due to the thoroughness with which Cranmer and his fellow-reformers did the initial work. The hackneyed nature of the material is in itself a tribute.

All the same, the controversial preoccupation did exercise in some ways a hampering or stultifying effect on the development, or at least the expression, of Cranmer's thought. For one thing, it gave to his wider writing an argumentatively negative emphasis. He continually had to meet and overthrow the error and he did not always have enough time or energy adequately to state and discuss the truth. If that is an exaggeration, perhaps we can put it in this way. He could not state and discuss the truth in such a way that it is seen in its right perspective, as a positive thing and not merely the defence against something else. And it cuts rather deeper than that. For even when he does state and discuss the truth, he is inhibited to some extent by the fear of misinterpretation and misunderstanding. The fear was not illusory, for traditionalists like Gardiner did not scruple to turn every possible phrase or expression to the advantage of their own teaching. But it is not always a help to the free and positive expression of truth to have to keep a continual watch over the shoulder at possible misinterpreters. The whole difficulty in Reformation controversy is precisely at this point. In basis and structure the opposing systems are so similar that the decisive differences may easily be glossed over or overlooked. In these circumstances it is understandable that the reformers should have to be careful in positive construction. But in the long run it is regrettable and even harmful. For after all, the best answer to error, even to the error which is a perversion of the truth, is not a negative critique of the error, but a bold affirmation of the truth. It is not enough merely to show the falsity of transubstantiation. It must also and primarily be shown what is the real and essential truth of which this doctrine is an elaborately but basically misconceived expression. In the long run, it is this part of the task which is the more important, as Cranmer realized with his bold title: The True and Catholic Doctrine. But in the ensuing discussion, it did not have always the more dominant, which is the obvious and rightful, emphasis.

Yet when that is said, and every reasonable criticism is accepted, the theology of Cranmer cannot be dismissed as merely negative or even derivative. He was not a great creative theologian. He did allow himself to be too much hampered by the petty dialectics of scholastic controversy. But he did something more than give a learned apologia for the rejection of traditionalist teaching, and a concise summary of the new position. He also showed in his works a clear and bold understanding of the great themes which were his primary concern. Indeed, if he himself did not always work them out, we find in Cranmer the basic insights which will control a genuinely biblical and evangelical reconstruction.

Notes

1. Narratives of the Reformation, pp. 238-239.

2. Ibid., loc. cit.

3. Ibid., p. 269.

4. Ibid., p. 219.

5. P. S. I, p. 305.

6. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 219.

7. P. S., II, p. 327.

8. Ibid., p. 437.

9. P. S., II, p. 437.

10. Ibid., p. 223.

11. Ibid., loc. cit.

12. Ibid., p. 216.

13. Foxe, VIII, p. 8.

14. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 242.

15. P. S., II, pp. 229 f.

16. Cf. P. S., II, pp. 304-305.

17. P. S., II, pp. 216-224.

18. P. S., II, p. 224.

19. P. S., II, pp. 408-409.

20. P. S., II, pp. 323-324.

21. P. S., II, p. 215.

22. P. S., II, p. 16.

23. P. S., II, p. 379.

24. P. S., II, p. 344.

25. P. S., II, p. 346.

26. P. S., II, pp. 118 f.

27. Cf. P. S., II, p. 378.

28. Foxe, VIII, pp. 14, 23; P. S., II, p. 168.

29. Deane, Thomas Cranmer, p. 148.

30. Cf. Narratives of the Reformation, pp. 258-259; Pollard, Thomas Cranmer, p. 159.

31. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 252.

32. Foxe, VIII, p. 27.

33. Narratives of the Reformation, pp. 254 f.

34. Foxe, V, p. 527.

35. Wilkins, Concilia, III, p. 863.

36. P. S., II, p. 493.

37. P. S., II, p. 494.

38. P. S., II, p. 412.

39. P. S., II, p. 415.

40. Original Letters, I, p. 41.

41. P. S., II, p. 415, n. 5.

42. P. S., II, pp. 498 f.

43. P. S., II, p. 511.

44. P. S., II, p. 513.

45. P. S., II, p. 218.

46. P. S., I, p. 374.

47. P. S., II, p. 430 f.

48. Cf. Original Letters, II, pp. 469-470.

49. Original Letters, I, p. 323.

50. Original Letters, I, pp. 232-233, 323, 251.

51. P. S., II, pp. 163 f.

52. P. S., II, pp. 455-456.

53. Cf. P. S., II, p. 444.

54. Cf. Original Letters, I, p. 70.

55. Ibid., p. 89.

56. Ibid., p. 83.

57. Ibid., p. 81.

58. Ibid., p. 87.

59. Original Letters, II, p. 567.

60. Ibid., pp. 486-487.

61. Ibid., p. 494.

62. Cf. Ridley (P. S.), pp. 59, 410-411.

63. Cf. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 247.

64. Pollard, op. cit., p. 260.

65. Ridley (P. S.), pp. 319 f.

66. For a detailed comparison, cf. Liturgies of Edward VI (P. S.).

67. Pollard, op. cit., p. 280 n. 3; cf. P. S., II, pp. 68 f.

68. P. S., II, pp. 439-440.

69. P. S., II, pp. 440-441.

70. Original Letters, II, pp. 469-470.

71. Ibid., pp. 380-381.

72. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 219.

73. P. S., I, p. xi.

74. His final letter to Peter Martyr is thought to have been taken by Jewel. Cf. P. S., II, p. 457.

75. Cf. P. S., II, pp. 418, 425.

76. P. S., I, p. 195.

77. P. S., II, pp. 217-218; but cf. the tribute of Ridley (P. S.), p. 161.

78. Narratives of the Reformation, p. 249.

79. Ibid., p. 250.

80. Cf. Original Letters, II, p. 711.

81. Ibid., p. 535.

82. Ibid., p. 470.

83. Ibid., p. 480.

84. Ibid., p. 482.

85. Ibid., pp. 380-381.

86. Ibid., p. 388.

Select Bibliography

This list, which is not exhaustive, contains books which are of particular importance and value for wider reading.

(a) H. Bullinger, Decades, Ed. Parker Society, 1849-52

J. Calvin, Institutes, Eng. tr. Beveridge, 1845

T. Cranmer, Works, Ed. Jenkins, 4 vols., 1833

Ed. Parker Society, 2 vols., 1844-6*

Formularies of Faith under Henry VIII, Ed. Lloyd, Oxford, 1856

J. Foxe, Acts and Monuments, Ed. Townsend, 8 vols.

M. Luther, Werke, Weimar edition

Narratives of the Reformation

Original Letters, Ed. Parker Society, 2 vols., 1846-7*

N. Ridley, Works, Ed. Parker Society, 1841*

H. Zwingli, Werke, Corpus Reformatorum

Selected Writings, Library of Christian Classics, vol. 24, 1953

*In the text the abbreviation P. S. is used to indicate the Parker Society editions.

(b) G. W. Bromiley, Thomas Cranmer, London, 1955

A. C. Deane, The Life of Thomas Cranmer, London, 1927

G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 1944

F. E. Hutchinson, Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation, London, 1951

A. D. Innes, Cranmer and the Reformation in England, 1900

A. J. Mason, Thomas Cranmer, London, 1898

A. F. Pollard, Thomas Cranmer (Heroes of the Reformation Series)

C. C. Richardson, Zwingli and Cranmer on the Eucharist (Cranmer dixit et contradixit), Evanston, 1949

F. J. Smithen, Continental Protestantism and the English Reformation, London, 1927

C. H. Smyth, Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI, Cambridge, 1926

J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation, 4 vols.

Ecclesiastical Memorials, 3 vols.

Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, 3 vols.

G. B. Timms, Dixit Cranmer, Alcuin Club Papers, 1946