SOURCE: Wabuda, Susan. “Bishops and the Provision of Homilies, 1520 to 1547.” Sixteenth Century Journal 25, no. 3 (fall 1994): 551-66.

[In the following excerpt, Wabuda describes how Cranmer's Certain Sermons, or Homilies gradually replaced sermons and doctrine from the Middle Ages with what he regarded as more scripturally based addresses.]

Of all the king's “grete clerkes,” no bishop spent more time devising homilies after the breach from Rome than Archbishop Thomas Cranmer. Starting in 1534, the preparation of homilies was one of his most important concerns. His earliest effort was the Bidding Prayer Order. Almost every sermon during the Middle Ages and the first half of the sixteenth century was preceded by an invocation which, before the breach from Rome, had asked for God's blessing upon the pope, bishops, clergy, and the king. It was also said for all Christian souls, especially the dead, in the belief that it would help them through their ordeal in purgatory.¹ In 1534, Cranmer and other bishops wrote a new bidding prayer, which was amended by Henry and approved by the council. The first part ordered all preachers to pray for the king as supreme head of the Catholic Church in England, Queen Anne his wife, and Princess Elizabeth. Preachers were also to pray for the clergy and temporalty, and for the souls of the dead. Cranmer commanded that clergymen must pray “against the usurped power of the bishop of Rome,” and that no one should be suffered to defend papal authority. Five lengthy articles were appended to enable preachers to expound the justness of Henry's second marriage.

The Bidding Prayer Order was also concerned with the content of sermons that were being delivered around the nation. Hinting that doctrinal issues were to be reviewed, Cranmer mandated that for one year, no clergyman should preach on purgatory, the honoring of saints, priestly marriage, justification by faith, pilgrimages, or forged miracles. By temporarily banning sermons on these issues, the regime was attempting to stop debate on contentious subjects by both conservative preachers and the reformers. Henceforth, all preachers “shall purely, sincerely, and justly preach the scripture and the word of Christ, and not mix them with men's institutions.”²

The Bidding Prayer Order was distributed by the bishops throughout their dioceses.³ It was remarkable because it was one of the earliest official endeavors to promote the royal supremacy from the nation's pulpits. It was also important for the emphasis it put upon preaching from the Bible, and for its doctrinal ambivalence concerning the tenet of purgatory and the efficacy of prayers for the dead. These issues were linked with the doctrine of justification, for if salvation were attained by faith alone, than purgatory was redundant, and no amount of praying for the dead could actually assist them.

In the following year, Cromwell sent a circular letter to the bishops concerning the royal supremacy. The bishops and all their clergy were ordered to preach “the sincere word of God” and the king's title of supreme head on every Sunday and high feast through the year.⁴ Cromwell's letter, plus Cranmer's Bidding Prayer Order, prompted the bishops to issue homilies and preaching aids to assist the clergy. Longland printed a mandate based upon Cromwell's circular for all clergymen to read to their congregations in Lincoln diocese, and his licensed preachers were supposed to use it as a source for their sermons.⁵

Archbishop Edward Lee of York feared that most of his clergymen did not have the capability to prepare their own sermons, or to deliver them. He complained that he could not “put in theyr hedes learnyng and cunneng to preache, that haue it not alredie,” and he sent to Cromwell a homily that he prepared to help them. It argued that scripture makes no mention of the Church of Rome, or Peter's jurisdiction over any of the apostles.⁶

In late 1535, Cranmer prepared new material against the bishop of Rome. Like Archbishop Lee, Cranmer was concerned for unlearned priests. He felt that those who “have excellent learning cannot lack matter abundant of their own inventions; but such as be of mean learning, have need of some matter to be ministered unto them, whereof they may take occasion to search their books.” Cranmer prepared several articles, each of which could provide enough material for a whole sermon, and some of them four or five, if they “be searched to the bottom.” Among them, Cranmer argued that the bishop of Rome was not God's vicar on earth, and that it was injurious to Christ to impute the remission of sins to any laws or ceremonies that were of man's making.

Cranmer and his chaplains preached his articles in London and Kent. He also distributed them to some of the bishops, “thinking it good that they should procure them to be preached within their dioceses.” Like Lee, Cranmer sent a copy of his material to Cromwell, hoping that Cromwell would revise and print it, and cause it “to be sent unto every diocese, to be preached throughout the realm.” If such homilies were read once or more each quarter in every parish church, at the bishops' orders, Cranmer believed “it should do as much good to persuade the people as many sermons.”⁷

Although we know that Cromwell had Lee's homily revised and that he considered issuing it “for prestes vn lerned,”⁸ the first important, comprehensive homiliary that was issued for the entire realm was concerned primarily with doctrine. At the end of Cranmer's one-year ban against contentious sermons, preachers turned again to controversial matters. Lee warned Cromwell that people were again grudging at preachers who spoke against purgatory, and suggested that a book be devised on disputed matters so that all preaching would be uniform and grounded on scripture or the Fathers.⁹ When the bishops met in 1536, the homiliary they produced, under Henry and Cromwell's supervision, was the Ten Articles. It dealt with the Creed, the sacraments of baptism, penance, and the altar, with justification, the use of images, honoring of saints, praying to saints, rites and ceremonies, and purgatory. By discussing only three of the sacraments, the Ten Articles imply that the other sacraments are not really sacraments at all. Again, their views of purgatory and prayers for the dead were ambivalent. They notified preachers that it was good and charitable to pray for souls departed, and say masses for them, even if “the place where they be, the name thereof, and kind of pains there also be to us uncertain by scripture.” And although the Ten Articles argued that the honoring of saints and praying to them was a laudable custom for the decent order of the Church, they repudiated the superstitious use of images.¹⁰ An Act of Convocation, also issued in 1536, abrogated certain holy days at the king's desire. Thus, opportunities to deliver traditional homilies in honor of the saints were reduced. Just as the regime began its assault upon the images of the saints that were on display in English churches, so began official encouragement of a shift away from the honoring of saints as encouraged by medieval homilies.¹¹

Even though the Ten Articles had to be revised by the Bishops' Book in 1537, the new emphasis upon scriptural preaching at the expense of traditional sermons was continued. In Cromwell's Second Royal Injunctions of 1538, clergymen were ordered to preach at least one sermon every quarter, “wherein ye shall purely and sincerely declare the very gospell of Christ.” They were to exhort their listeners not to believe any works of “mannys fantasies,” but only scripture, and each church was supposed to set up an English Bible.¹²

As a result, there was an increased need for homilies that were based upon biblical teachings. To meet such a demand, various editions were printed of the Gospel and Epistle texts which the Sarum Missal set out to be read openly in church each Sunday. Also, collections of postils, or homilies that expounded these texts, were issued,¹³ most notably Richard Taverner's Epistles and Gospels with a brief Postyll vpon the same, which was printed in several editions starting in 1540 and had quasi-official sanction. For each Sunday and high holy day, Taverner reprinted the liturgical texts, each followed by a homily. Taverner was a clerk of the signet, and had been asked by “certayne godly persons” to edit this work, which was a collaboration between various unnamed persons. His postils were meant to be a “synguler helpe and benefite” for priests and curates to work for “the edification of Christes church.” His objectives were to replace traditional material, such as the Legenda aurea, and the Festial, with homilies that were doctrinally correct and scripturally based. He wanted the clergy to feed their flocks as ordered by the king, “not with rash, erronyouse, hereticall or fabulous sermons,” but with these “sobre, discret, catholike, and godly instructions,” or “better, yf better ye can deuise.” Doctrinally, Taverner's homilies favored reform, but were cautious. In a preface, he argues that the sacraments here are not “heretically contemned, but catholikely auanced. Fayth is here not so nakedly extolled, but that good workes also be necessarily requered to be in a christen man.” But good works are not so magnified that faith “is defrauded of her due place.”¹⁴

Taverner's Postils might have been overseen by Cranmer. Certainly, in 1539, he was busily preparing homilies. Miles Coverdale wrote to Cromwell that the king “hath seen a part of our postils, or ordinary sermons, which the lord archbishop of Canterbury hath corrected,”¹⁵ and Cranmer may have numbered among the “godly persons” who sponsored Taverner's work. We are given an even more revealing glimpse of Cranmer's activities in 1539, in a letter sent to Heinrich Bullinger by several English reformers, who wrote that Cranmer was preaching frequently, and wanted to replace traditional Latin sermon material with new homilies in the vernacular. “He is now wholly employed in instructing the people, and in composing some discourses in English, which our clergy are to use instead of those Latin ones which they have hitherto prated in their churches like so many parrots.”¹⁶

Cranmer determined that there was need for yet another official homiliary which could supply material to prevent clergymen from preaching what he later called “the foolishnesse” of works like the Festial and the Legenda aurea. In 1542, at his instigation, Convocation agreed to compile a book of homilies, “to make for stai of such errours as were then by ygnorant preachers sparkeled among the people.”¹⁷ That was the year in which Bishop Bonner of London seemed to support Cranmer's efforts and took steps to restrict sermons based upon late medieval material. In his visitation, he declared that priests in his jurisdiction were to “rehearse no sermons made by other men within these two or three hundred years,” but were instead supposed to recite plainly the Gospel and Epistle verses of the day. He warned every clergyman in London diocese to “beware that he do not feed his audience with any fable or other histories, other than he can avouch and justify to be written by some allowed writer.”¹⁸ Bonner's attack was meant to undermine the use of traditional materials; but he also wished to limit the reformers. Clergymen were not supposed to use the verses to advance reformed views. Each preacher was to expound them “not after his own mind, but after the mind of some Catholic doctor allowed in this Church of England,” using “some ancient writer”—by implication, one of the Fathers—as his authority. John Bale would have us believe that Bonner approved of all of the legendary homiliaries that were available in the capital.¹⁹ This does not seem to be the case. Although Bonner was a most conservative bishop, his visitation articles demonstrate his willingness to suppress traditional preaching material in order to obey the government.

Like Taverner's postils, Cranmer's proposed book of homilies was to be a collaboration, and clergymen from a variety of opinions were asked to contribute, including conservative bishops.²⁰ However, Cranmer's plans were dealt a serious blow by the king. Henry had never overseen the Bishops' Book, and by the early 1540s he was favoring increasingly conservative views.²¹ At his instigation, parliament passed the Act of the Six Articles in 1539, which affirmed consecration and masses for the dead far more strongly than the Bishops' Book had done.²² Henry eventually reviewed the Bishops' Book, and corrected the sections he felt were inadequate or mistaken, and circulated his revisions among the bishops, including Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, for their comments.²³ In 1543, six theologians were commissioned to prepare a new version of the Bishops' Book. The new manual, A Necessary Doctrine and erudition for any chrysten man, was approved by the king and was commonly known as the King's Book.²⁴

The King's Book replaced Cranmer's proposed homiliary. Several years later, Gardiner remembered that Convocation's accedence to the Necessary Doctrine “took away the mention of all homilies; and all the realm rejoyced so much therein that we regarded no more homilies.” Furthermore, Henry did not want yet another new homiliary to be produced: “he sayd that divers homilies, made of divers men, might ingender diversity of understandings; and this uniformity of understandynge set forth in his Majesty's book should be a good staye.”²⁵

The Necessary Doctrine established the tenets that were to be held as orthodox for the rest of Henry's reign. Under the Act of the Advancement of True Religion, which was passed in 1543, it was illegal for any clergyman to preach contrary to the King's Book.²⁶ Cranmer was forced to comply, even though he disagreed with some of its positions. When the Necessary Doctrine was being drafted, Cranmer objected to its proposed definition of faith. The article declared that faith was a virtue that could not be separated from hope and charity, and that Christians were justified by “Faith, neither onely ne alone,” but with hope and charity. On the contrary, Cranmer wanted the manual to state that faith alone was not acceptable, but “only faith” was. But Henry liked the original proposal, and the phrase was printed as it was first suggested.²⁷

In light of the king's disapproval, Cranmer's homiliary went no further in Henry's lifetime. According to Gardiner, for the rest of the reign, Cranmer was silent on the subject. But he had never really given up the project, and within five months of the king's death, Cranmer was raising the issue again. His letters to Gardiner on the subject have not survived, but we can extract the essence of what he argued from Gardiner's replies. Cranmer felt “justly offended for the want of th' homilyes,” which he had “looked to have received five years passed.” At last he wanted to replace the Festial and Legenda aurea with homilies which he believed were closer to the word of God.²⁸

Cranmer argued that “the King our late souverain was seduced in his book,” that Henry had been led astray from the truth, especially in its article on faith and justification. Cranmer declared that the Necessary Doctrine had the effect of “an amphibologie,” or an ambiguity. He maintained that “the amphibologie of the Kinges Majesties booke” was “suche a fountaine as whereat both parties maye fetch water.” Now Cranmer implied that he did not want his new homiliary to serve as a common storehouse for both sides of religious controversy. When his chaplain John Joseph delivered a sermon in London, he preached contrary to the King's Book. According to Gardiner's account, Joseph triumphed in “only fayth,” and Gardiner was shocked that Cranmer should so soon after Henry's death forget his “olde knowledge in Scripture, set fourth by the Kinges Majestys booke.”²⁹

Cranmer's Certayne Sermons, or Homilies, like Taverner's Postils, was the work of several theologians, and Cranmer balanced the work by asking conservative clergymen, including Bonner,³⁰ and Gardiner,³¹ to contribute. However, the views of justification in the first Book of Homilies was a marked departure from those expressed in the King's Book, and they were prepared by Cranmer himself.

Three of the homilies addressed the issue of justification: “Of saluacion of all mankynde,” “Of the true and liuely fayth,” and “Of good workes.” Cranmer argued, based on the writings of the early Fathers of the Church, that “we be justified by faith onely, frely, and without workes.” Faith excluded good works, so that the Christian might not be made good by doing them. Justification was the office of God only. Good works were the product of faith, and it was possible to be justified by God without them, as was the thief who was hanged when Jesus suffered. However, Cranmer still saw a role for works, because “Faithe is full of good workes.” Indeed, the homily on faith was about good works, and the homily on good works was on faith.³² While exceeding the King's Book, the Edwardine Book of Homilies presented clergymen and their congregations with cautious Protestant doctrine.

If we wish to look for evidence of continuity in religious practices both before and after the break from Rome, then we should note that bishops wrote, authorized, and advanced printed collections of sermons and homilies for their parish clergy, particularly unlearned priests, to read or preach to their congregations. Bishops were continually interested in setting forth orthodoxy. They wanted to build up the Church, to teach all Christians how to amend their lives, and what each individual's duty was towards God.

Nevertheless, there were important innovations. Henry VIII's government began to raise serious questions about the manner in which images should be used, and how the saints should be honored. At the same time, new emphasis was placed (starting with some of the humanists, and carried on by Cromwell and reform-minded bishops) upon sermons and homilies that were based upon the scriptures and the Fathers. The result was the start of an official rejection of fabulous sermons, which had been the mainstay of homilists for many years, in favor of new material which was supposed to be based upon scripture.

This does not mean, however, that Cranmer was immediately successful in replacing medieval works with his Book of Homilies. As late as 1589, a Nottinghamshire clergyman was still reading from Mirk's Festial for Saint John the Baptist's feast day. But by that date, employing a medieval homiliary was becoming more and more unusual and this clergyman was charged with preaching erroneous doctrine.³³ It was during the 1530s and 1540s that this official shift to scripturally based homilies, one of the Reformation's fundamental changes from late medieval practice, had its start.

Notes

1. For examples, see Lyndwood, Provinciale, Lib. 5, tit. 5, p. 291(o); The Sarum Missal, 110-12; The Lay Folks Mass Book, ed. Thomas Frederick Simmons, EETS, 71 (1879): 100-1, 315-19; Quattuor Sermones, 86-89; “Two Sermons Preached by the Boy Bishop at St. Paul's Temp. Henry VII., and at Gloucester, Temp. Mary,” Camden Miscellany, 7, Camden Society (CS), n.s. 14 (1875): 3-5; also Duffy, Altars, 57-58.

2. British Library (BL), MS Cleopatra E.V., fols. 294r-297v; printed in Cranmer, Writings, 283-84, 292-93, 296-97, 460-62; cf. Elton, Policy and Police, 230.

3. York: BL, Cotton Cleopatra E.VI., fols. 240r-244v (LP 8, nos. 869, 963). Worcester: PRO, SP 2/P, no. 18.

4. No copy of the circular is now known. For a similar document, see Cromwell's orders to the sheriffs and justices of the peace: PRO, SP 1/239, fols. 168r-169v (LP addenda, no. 990); also, Elton, Policy and Police, 231-40.

5. Susan Wabuda, “Bishop John Longland's Mandate to his Clergy, 1535,” Library ser. 6, no. 13 (1991): 255-61; PRO, SP 1/132, fol. 103r (LP 13/i: no. 981 [vii]).

6. Lee's original version: PRO, SP 6/3, fols. 149-56.

7. BL, Cotton MS Cleopatra E.VI., fols. 234r-235r; printed in Cranmer, Writings, 314, 325-28.

8. There is as yet no evidence that Cromwell printed either Lee's or Cranmer's material. Edited versions in manuscript of Lee's homily: PRO, SP 6/8, fols. 221-42; SP 6/5, fols., 165-74 (LP 8, Nos. 292 [1-2], 294); see also BL, Cotton MS Cleopatra E.VI., fol. 263r (LP 9, no. 29).

9. PRO, SP 1/98, fols. 103r-105r (LP 9, no. 704).

10. Articles devised by the Kynges Highnes Maiestie … (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1536; STC 10033); reprinted in Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. David Wilkins (London, 1737), 3:817-23.

11. For the attack upon holy days and the intercession of saints, see Duffy, Altars, 379-423. Mirk provided homilies for some of the holy days that were suppressed, including the feasts of Saint Thomas Becket (December 29) and his translation (July 7), Saint Mary Magdalen (July 22), Saint Laurence (August 10), Saint Winifred (November 3), and Saint Catherine (November 25). No postils appeared for the suppressed holy days in Taverner's Postils. See The Sarum Missal in English, tr. Frederick E. Warren, vol. 2 (London: Alcuin Club, 1913), 244-587 (for the proper of saints); Wilkins, Concilia, 3:823-24, 827 (for the act); Mirk, Festial; Taverner, ed., The Epistles and Gospelles wyth a brief Postil vpon the same from Aduent tyll Lowe sondaye … (London: Richard Bankes [1545?]]; STC 2967.7) and The Epistles and Gospelles … from after Easter tyll Aduent.

12. Visitation Articles and Injunctions, 2:34-43.

13. Only a single, imperfect copy of another collection of postils (in addition to Taverner's) has survived. It is missing its title page, but its colophon reads “The ende of this brefe Postyl, vpon the Epystles and Gospelles of all the sondayes in the yeare.” It was printed by Richard Grafton, c. 1543 (STC 2972.7; Cambridge University Library Syn. 8.54.234); see J. W. Blench, Preaching in England in the Late Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: A Study of English Sermons 1450-c. 1600 (Oxford: Basil Blackwood, 1964), 32-33. The liturgical Gospels and Epistles were also printed for lay readers. See the STC starting at no. 2964.5. For examples, see Here begynneth the Pystles and Gospels / of euery Sonday / and holy Daye in the yere ([Rouen?], 1538; STC 2966); the Gospelles and Pystles of all the Sondayes & sayntes dayes that are red in the churche, all the whole yere (London: Richard Grafton, 1540; STC 2971).

14. Taverner, The Epistles and Gospelles … from Aduent tyll Lowe sondaye, preface and sigs. 25r, 47r, 57r, 67v, 69r, 78v, 82r-86v, 151r-151v; The Epistles and Gospelles … from after Easter tyll Aduent, preface and sigs. 39v-44r; and The Epistles and Gospels with a brief Postyll vpon the same from Trinitie sonday tyll Aduent (London: Richard Bankes, [1543?]; STC 2969.3), sigs. 173v, 177r, 182r. See also Duffy, Altars, 425-27.

15. Remains of Myles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, ed. George Pearson, PS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1846), 498.

16. Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, ed. Hastings Robinson II, PS (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1847), 625-26; Ronald B. Bond, “Cranmer and the Controversy Surrounding the Publication of Certayne Sermons or Homilies 1547),” Renaissance and Reformation 12 (1976): 28-35.

17. The Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. James Arthur Muller (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1933), 296-97, 311-15.

18. Visitation Articles and Injunctions, 2:89-90.

19. Ibid., 88-90; Bale, Romyshe foxe, fols. 54v-55r, 56v-57r.

20. Gardiner, Letters, 303.

21. The Bishops' Book: The Institvtion of a Christen Man (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1537; STC 5163), preface; Latimer, Remains, 379; Cranmer, Writings, 469.

22. 31 Henry VIII, c. 14; printed in Statutes of the Realm (rpt. London, 1963), 3:739-43; Glyn Redworth, “A Study in the Formulation of Policy: The Genesis and Evolution of the Act of the Six Articles,” JEH 17 (1986): 42-67.

23. Cranmer, Writings, 83-114; Gardiner, Letters, 305, 345, 351.

24. A Necessary Doctrine and erudition for any chrysten man, set furth by the kynges maiestye of Englande (London: Thomas Berthelet, 1543; STC 5171).

25. Gardiner, Letters, 300-4.

26. 34 and 35 Henry VIII, c. 1; printed in Statutes of the Realm, 3:894-97

27. Necessary Doctrine, sigs. A7v-A8r; Gardiner, Letters, 329-31, 336-40, 362-63.

28. Gardiner, Letters, 300-2; 311-15.

29. Gardiner, Letters, 292, 300-2, 304-5, 307, 324, 333-39, 351, 354-55.

30. Bonner's “Homilie of christian loue and Charitie,” in Certayne Sermons, or Homilies, sigs K3r-L4r, was revised and reprinted in his Homielies sette forth by the right reuerende father in God Edmunde Byshop of London (London: John Cawodde, 1555; STC 3285.4), fols. 21v-27r.

31. Gardiner, Letters, 303-4, 353-54.

32. Certayne Sermons, or Homilies, sigs. C4r-K2v, esp. D2r, D3r-E1r, F2r, H3r; Jasper Ridley, Thomas Cranmer (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 265-71; Patrick Collinson, “Thomas Cranmer,” in The English Religious Tradition and the Genius of Anglicanism, ed. Geoffrey Rowell (Oxford: Ikon, 1992), 93-95; Haigh, English Reformations, 170; Maria Dowling, “Cranmer as Humanist Reformer,” in Thomas Cranmer: Churchman and Scholar, 112-14.

33. Veronica O'Mara, “A Middle English Sermon Preached by a Sixteenth-Century ‘Atheist’: A Preliminary Account,” Notes and Queries, n.s. 34 (1987): 183-85; Spencer, “Sunday Preaching,’ 224-25, 295-96, 300-3; Wakelin, “Manuscripts of Mirk's Festial,” 93-118. A copy of Gulielmus's Postilla, preserved in the Cambridge University Library, was still in use in the 1580s (CUL, shelf mark Peterborough Sp. 12).