Perichoresis 13.1 (2015)

© EMANUEL UNIVERSITY of ORADEA PERICHORESIS 13.1 (2015)

CONTENTS

3 Account of Law and Causality TORRANCE KIRBY The Marian Exile and Religious Self-Identity: Rethinking the 17 Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism ANGELA RANSON Profit hat Is Condemned by the Word o 37 Theological Method in His Opposition to Usury ANDRÉ A. GAZAL Evidence of Things Seen: Univocation, Visibility and 55 Reassurance in Post-Reformation Polemic JOSHUA RODDA Catholic Communities and Kinship Networks of 73 the Elizabethan Midlands LAURA VERNER

Polemics and the 97 Justification of Infant Baptism in the Early Restoration JONATHAN WARREN

Perichoresis Volume 13. Issue 1 (2015): 3-15

DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0001


NEOPLATONIC ACCOUNT OF LAW AND CAUSALITY

TORRANCE KIRBY*

McGill University

ABSTRACT. -1600) adaptation of classical logos theology is exceptional and indeed quite original for its extended application of the principles of Neoplatonic apophatic theology to the concrete institutional issues of a particular time and place the aftermath of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement of 1559. Indeed, his sustained effort to explore the underlying connections of urgent political and constitutional concerns with the highest discourse of hidden divine realities the knitting together of Neoplatonic theology and Reformation politics is per-haps the defining characteristic heres to a Proclean logic of procession and reversion (processio and redditus) formulation of the so-called lex divinitatis whereby the originative principle of law remains simple and self-identical as an Eternal Law while it emanates manifold, derivative and dependent spe-cies of law, preeminently in the Natural Law accessible to human reason and Divine Law revealed through the Sacred Oracles of Scripture. For Hooker, theref including even the Elizabethan constitution in Church and Comm they are in him as effects in their highest cause, he likewise actuallie is in them, the assistance and influence of his deitie is theire life. KEY WORDS: Richard Hooker, Neoplatonism, ontology, Natural Law, ecclesiology

Of the Lawes of Ecclesi-asticall Politie (1593) is his claim that God is law.

ofspringe of god, they are in him as effects in their highest cause, he likewise actuallie is in them, thassistance and influence of his deitie is theire life(Hooker 1977b: 23-25). eternal law. The latter comprises all derivative species of law which partici-pate the eternal law as discrete emanations ordered dispositively in hierar-chica -constituting divine source as it remains concomitantly and ineffably simple, at unity within it-self -nal law as simultaneously unity in simplicity and participation of that unity

* TORRANCE KIRBY (MA, DPhil, FRHistS) is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and the di-

rector of the Centre for Research on Religion, within McGill University, Montreal, Can-ada. Email: torrance.kirby@ mcgill.ca.

4 TORRANCE KIRBY

PERICHORESIS 13.1 (2015)

by a multiplicity of derivative forms of law recapitulates the account of cau-sality set out by Proclus in his Elements of Theology mains in its cause, proceeds from it, and reverts upon it -39). Hooker anchors his elaborate exposition and defense of the Elizabethan reli-gious settlement in a metaphysical theory of law which itself assumes a Neo-

All thinges are therefore pertakers of God, they are his ofspringe, his influence is in them, and the personall wisdome of God is for that verie cause said to excell in nimbleness or agilitie, to pearce into all intellectual pure and subtile spirites, to goe through all, and to reach All thinges which God in theire times and seasons hath brought forth were eternallie and before all times in God as a worke unbegunne is in the artificer which afterward bringeth it unto effect. Therefore whatsoever wee doe behold now in this present world, it was inwrapped within the bowells of divine mercie, written in the booke of eternall wisdom, and held in the handes of omnipotent power, the first foundations of the world being as yeat unlaide (1977b: 15-22).

neither very original nor remarkable. logos the-

ology such as one finds in both Platonic and Aristotelian metaphysics, in the thought of Philo of Alexandria, derived from such pre-Socratic sources as Heracleitus, and especially as formulated in the writings of the Neoplatonists of later antiquity (Chadwick 1967: 29-44). One finds Christian appropriation of this metaphysical theme among the early-church fathers, for example in the writings of Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Ambrose, Je-rome, Eusebius of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine and Pseudo-Dio-nysius the Areopagite, a theological trope later taken up by such medieval scholastics as Albertus Magnus, Bonaventure, Aquinas, and Nicholas of Cusa, and later still by certain Protestant reformers including Hooker himself and the Florentine reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli.1 For all of these theologians, an uncreated divine principle, the Word (logos, or ratio, or paradeigma rea-

created order while the creation, both visible-material and invisible-spiritual, proceeds from and is wholly depend-ent upon this original, un-derived, hidden and transcendent first principle as its primary cause.

For Hooker, however, the investigation of this original source of being and order entails a great deal more than a metaphysical claim concerning the nature of the first principle. As the argument of Book I of the Lawes unfolds,

1 Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ, Ia qq. 14, 15, 22, 33-35; IIa IIae, qq. 90-96. See Calvin In-

stitutes of the Christian Religion, I.5; II.14 and Kirby (2003: 131-145).

Account of Neoplatonic Law and Causality 5


it becomes plain that Hooker is as deeply invested in the practical, political,

he is committed to its underlying metaphysical sense:

The statelinesse of houses, the goodliness of trees, when we behold them de-lighteth the eye; but that foundation which beareth up the one, that root which ministreth unto the other nourishment and life, is in the bosome of the earth con-cealed: and if there be at any time occasion to search into it, such labour is then more necessary then pleasant both to them which undertake it, and for the lookers on. In like maner the use and benefite of good lawes, all that live under them may enjoy with delight and comfort, albeit the groundes and first originall causes from whence they have sprong be unknowne, as to the greatest part of men they are (1977b: 6-16).

Indeed the burden of his argument is to show that the Elizabethan constitu-tional and ecclesiastical order he seeks to explain and defend

hing com-monwealth

nal mani-festations of order: ll that is unparticipated produces out of itself the par-ticipated; and all participated substances are linked by upward tension to ex-

(Proclus 1967: 23). For Richard Hooker both meta-physical ontology and the institutions of the Elizabethan religious settlement

logos theology is exceptional and indeed

quite original for its extended application of the highest metaphysical princi-ple to the most concrete institutional issues of a particular time and place, viz. England in the late sixteenth century. His sustained effort to explore the in-timate connections of pressing political and constitutional concerns with the highest discourse of hidden divine realities the knitting together of Neopla-tonic theology and Reformation politics is perhaps the defining character-

As C. S. Lewis points out, . All dependent and

divine first prin-ciple and cause (Hooker 1977b: 236). In keeping with the thoroughly Proclean Neoplatonic presuppositions upon which his argument rests, by means of participation of the second eternal law

od hath made are in that respect the ofspringe of god, they are in him as effects in their highest cause, he likewise actuallie is in them, thassistance and influence of his deitie is theire life (1977b: 237).

doth assigne unto each thing the kinde, that which doth moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the so that no certaine end could

6 TORRANCE KIRBY


ever be attained, unlesse the actions whereby it is attained were regular, that is to say, made suteable for and correspondent unto their end, by some canon, rule or lawe (Hooker 1977a: 58). This definition places him squarely within a scholastic teleological tradition derived ultimately from the meta-physics of Aristotle. ptation of this definition, however, goes be-yond any ordinary Aristotelian or Thomistic account of causality. Working from the definition, Hooker asserts that everything works according to law, including God himself: his working: for that perfection which God is, geveth perfection to that he doth (Hooker 1977a: 59). There are certain structural similarities between this argument in Book I of the Lawes part of the Summa Theologiae.2

dispositio. Just as the neo-platonic cos-mology accounts for the genesis of the world by means of a emanation or processio from the principle of original unity, so also Hooker derives a diverse

His emphasis upon the divine unity is marked: rather verie Onenesse, and meere unitie, having nothing but it selfe in it selfe, and not consisting (as all things do besides God) of many things besides(Hooker 1977a: 59). All derivative species of law participate in the undiffer-entiated unity of the eternal law which simultaneously remains ineffably one with itself, and are also discrete emanations from that original unity by way

.

ulat Elements.3 For Hooker

sith there can bee no goodnesse desired which proceedeth not from God him-selfe, as from the supreme cause of all things; and every effect doth after a sort conteine, at least wise resemble the cause from which it proceedeth: all things in the worlde are saide in some sort to seeke the highest, and to covet more or lesse the participation of God himselfe (1977a: 73).

ersion

( lex divinitatis so-called law of the great chain the whereby the originative principle of law remains simple and self-identical as Eternal Law while, at the same time, proceeds out of itself through its generation of manifold, derivative and dependent species of law. As beginning in a monad and proceeds to a manifold co-ordinate therewith; and the manifold in any order may be carried back to a single monad 2 ST Ia IIae, qq. 90-96.

See, for instance, Marshall (1963) and Munz (1952). 3 See Proclus (1963) and Allan (1985: 75).



1963: 21). In a consequential move Hooker distinguishes between a first and a second eternal law on the ground that God is a law both to himself (in se) in his inaccessible divine simplicity, and to all creatures besides (ad extra). This distinction enables him to gather together the totality of the derivative species of law within a single, unified emanation viz. the second eternal law rather than present these species as proceeding one by one in a dispositive emana-tion from the eternal law as on the account presented by Aquinas in his Summa Theologica.4 His discussion of the first eternal law adheres closely to

second eternal law introduces something distinctive, unusual, and unex-pected from the perspective of the preceding scholastic theological tradition.5

, after a sort according to lawe 58-59). ing to a lawe, whereof some superiour, unto whome they are subject, is au-thor , their worker, and for the lawe whereby they are wrought. The being of God is a kinde of lawe to his working . As the first principle of law, God alone is self constituted (Proclus 1963: 40-51) and therefore gubernator sui (Proclus 1963: 141), and by virtue of the fullness of such being, is the cause and law-first, it can have no other then it selfe to be the author of that law which it willingly worketh by. God therefore is a law both to himselfe, and to all other things besides . All that is both the first principle itself and all that derives from it have their ground concealed within the simplic-ity of that same first principle or cause, hidden, as it were, like a foundation

(Hooker 1977a: 57).

tures, according to the severall conditions wherewith he hath indued them(Hooker 1977a: 63). It is through the working of this second eternal law that all creatures have their means of reversion back to their original source. The second eternal law has a vaof creatures subject to the single divine government. The two principal de-rivative genera of the second eternal law are first, the natural law and second, the revealed law of the scriptures, the latter of which is sometimes named by

not to be confused with the eternal law. The entire system of the laws comprised within the second eternal law thus expresses

exitus-redditus exi-tus) and redemptive conversion back to (reditus) the original unity of the eter-nal law as embodied in this primary distinction between natural law accessible

4 Ia IIa pars, qq. 90-96. 5 See Lee Gibbs discussion of the two eternal in FLE

volume 6, part 1, pp. 92 ff.

8 TORRANCE KIRBY


to human reason and divinely revealed law contained in the scriptures. On

law the natural law and the revealed law is further participated by mani-fold derivative and dependent forms. The natural law, by virtue of a further procession or unfolding, comprises in turn subordinate legal species which govern irrational natural agents as well as rational; the law which governs the rational creatures is distinguishe , which orders the angels understood acco

son , often identified by Hooker simply as All of

these sub-species of Natural Law comprise the flowing outward and down-processio ad extra

Hooker presupposes a breaking of the natural order, a disorder introduced into the cosmos by the Fall and original sin. The provision of a revealed law is treated as an instrument necessary to securing the ultimate restoration or

dition of unity under and within the foundational eternal law. summa genera of natural law and divinely revealed law corresponds to the Ne-oplatonic logic of creative emanation and conversional return; this metaphys-ical model also reflects an epistemological distinction central to his thought, namely the supposition of a twofold knowledge of God (duplex cognitio Dei), that is to say by the supernatural light of scriptural revelation and by the natural light of reason. Oeternal law there are composite species of law such as human positive law and the law of nations, for example which derive from a conscious, prag-matic reflection upon the general principles contained in the natural law. These additional derivative species of law are viewed by Hooker (following Augustine) as a consequence of human sin and, like the divine law, constitute a corrective to the disorder introduced by the Fall (remedium peccati).6 Coer-cive human law serves to redirect or convert fallen humanity back to the lost original order. In all of this the human creature as the imago dei is the focal point of the cosmic operation of procession from and conversion back to the original creative fount of order established in dependence upon the simplic-ity of the first eternal law.

The emanation-conversion (exitus-redditus) structure of this generic divi-sion of law in Book I of the Ecclesiasticall Politie shows that Hooker has ab-sorbed Neoplatonic metaphysics and indeed numerous scholars have noted

ST, Ia 6 For coercive law as a remedium peccati, see Augustine De civitate Dei, Book XIX.



pars) and on law (ST, IIa IIae) very carefully.7 a first and a second eternal law proves, nonetheless, to be a highly significant departure from the Thomist scholastic model. The effect of the distinction between these two aspects of the eternal law is simultaneously to widen and to decrease the distance between the creator-lawgiver and the created cos-mos and thus alters the calculus of conversion in a highly significant man-ner. the second eternal lawsents the eternal law as undifferentiated in itself challenges the assumption of the primary relation between creator and creature as governed by a grad-ual, dispositive, hierarchical model as found in earlier scholastic models, and emphasizes rather the common participation of these manifold species of law in a common source (i.e. the second eternal law) which, in turn, participates the divine source (the first eternal law) in its totality. In effect the second eternal law renders the participation of the manifold forms of law in their eternal source simultaneously both more transcendent and more immanent, and thus short-circuiting the gradual, dispositive linkage of derivative crea-tures with their creative original. The distinction between the first and second eternal laws thus entails a sharpened distinction and distancing of the hidden original source of law from the manifold derivative species of law. In effect,

the relation between the divine source and the collected derivative manifes-tations of order rather than to present them as Aquinas does, for example, in his questions on law in the Ia IIae of the Summa Theologica as gradually and dispositively mediated. law exhibits a marked Augustinian tendency of his thought, a general theo-logical bent which he shares with other magisterial Reformers.

The distinction between these two species of the eternal law marks a boundary between realms of apophatic and kataphatic theological discourse (Hooker 1977a: 63). The first eternal law is the law in its original simplicity and self-identity, the law as it is in and for the divine lawgiver, the law

This is a hidden unity concerning which, Hooker states, our safest eloquence is silence.8 The divine logos

7 Summa Theologica, Ia qq. 44-119; Ia IIae, qq. 90-108. See Munz (1952: 49-57); Passerin

(1952: chapters 5 and 6); Marshall (1963). 8 Lawes I.2.2; 1:59.12-19. Dangerous it were for the feeble braine of man to wade farre

into the doings of the most High; whome although to knowe bee life, and ioy to make mention of his name; yet our soundest knowledge is, to know that wee know him not as indeede hee is, neither can know him; and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence when we confesse without confession, that his glory is inexplicable, his greatnesse aboue our capacitie and reach. Hee is aboue, and wee vpon earth; therefore it behoueth our wordes to bee

10 TORRANCE KIRBY


law eternall which God himself hath made to himselfe, and therby worketh all things wherof he is the cause and of God, and with God everlastingly: that law the author and observer whereof is one only God to be blessed for ever, how should either men or Angels be able perfectly to behold? The booke of this law we are neither able nor wor-

-62). By contrast, the second

63). At the level of the second eternal law, the source of order continues to be unified, yet this unity is nonetheless adapted, or rather accommodated to the finitude of mortal capacity by means of the second eternal law; the latter is the first eternal law as it is knowable to us. Its knowability in this secondary

ticularly as it influences his presuppositions concerning the interaction of hu-man reason with revealed knowledge.

It is with this second eternal law that the manifold variety of the forms of law first comes into view, yet a variety which is understood by Hooker

The first and second eternal laws are one and the sa

in the ineffable self-identity of the divine law-giver, or from the standpoint of its reception by all creatures. In his distinction between two species of the eternal law, Hooker presents a marked departure from the Thomistic ac-count of the mode of mediation of the manifold species of law from their

an-gelic, natural, positive, human, revealed, etc. depending on the diverse modes whereby creatures are subject to the one divine government.

neous appropriation of a systematically Neoplatonic structure of argument and an appeal to reformed Reformation assumptions with respect to the re-lation of the orders of Nature and Grace.9 He begins with an allusion to the polemical occasion of the treatise in the ecclesiological controversies which arose in England as a consequence of the Elizabethan Settlement of 1559, and makes explicit the intimate connection intended between the metaphys-ical and the polemical arguments of the treatise:

Because the point about which wee strive is the qualitie of our Lawes, our first entrance hereinto cannot better be made, then with consideration of the nature of lawe in generall, and of that lawe which giveth life unto all the rest, which are commendable just and good, namely the lawe whereby the Eternall himselfe doth

9 in RHC, pp. 77. For an im-

portant discussion of related questions see Hankey (1998: 125-160).



worke. Proceeding from hence to the lawe first of nature, then of scripture, we shall have the easier accesse unto those things which come after to be debated, concerning the particular cause and question which wee have in hand (Hooker 1977a: 58).

By procee as he himself expresses his meth-

Hooker es-tablishes an order of argument in his treatise which is itself presented as a literary imitation of the divine creative processio. By this account, the idea of

1977a: 63).

1977a: 59). Hookerhe is, neither can know him: and our safest eloquence concerning him is our silence, when we confesse without confession that his glory is inexplicable, his greatnes above our capacitie to reach. He is above, and we upon earth, and

.

cause, whereupon originallie the being of all things dependeth and there-, there is a concomitant outward

showing of this first law.

Trinity, (1977a: 59)

glorious and most abundant vertue. Which abundance doth shew it selfe in varietie, and for that cause this varietie is oftentimes in scripture exprest by the name of riches. The Lord hath made all things for his owne sake -10).

The divine working which manifests itself in the riches and variety of the creation is presented by Hooker as follows:

I am not ignorant that by law eternall the learned for the most part do understand the order, not which God hath eternallie purposed himselfe in all his works to observe, but rather that which with himselfe he hath set downe as expedient to be kept by all his creatures, according to the severall conditions herewith he hath indued them (Hooker 1977a: 63).

There is indeed a considerable variety among the manifold forms of law de-rived from the fount of the first eternal law and understood by rational crea-tures under the aspect of the second eternal law (both angelic and human):

12 TORRANCE KIRBY


Now that law which as it is laid up in the bosome of God, they call æternall, recey-veth according unto the different kinds of things which are subject unto it different and sundry kinds of names. That part of it which ordereth natural agents, we call usually natures law; that which Angels doe clearely behold, and without any swarving observe is a law and heavenly: the law of reason that which bindeth creatures reasonable in this world, and with which by reason they may most plainly perceive themselves bound; that which bindeth them, and is not knowen bu by speciall revelation form God, Divine law; humane lawe that which out of the law either of reason or of God, men propobablie gathering to be expe-dient, they make it a law. All things therfore, which are as they ought to be, are conformed unto this second law eternall, and even those things which to this eternall law are not conformable, are notwithstanding in some sort ordered by the first eter-nall lawe (Hooker 1977a: 63).

Yet, in a manner to some extent analogous to the prior division of the eternal law into the two species of the first and the second eternal laws, here too at the level of the second eternal law the appearance of creation is itself ordered and limited within two principal derivative species

The former division embraces gov-ernance of the totality of creation distinguished in a primary sense between visible and invisible, material and formal, sensible and intelligible by con-taining within itself a completely exhaustive categorisation or division of the creatures and their diverse modes of subjection to the second eternal law: 1) natures -thinking creation; 2) the law of the purely intellectual and unfallen creation

reason which governs

The third category, which governs the rational but mortal creature, i.e. the human condition, is clearly understood by Hooker to be in some sense a mixed combination of the previous two categories. As intellectual natures mortals share the desire of the angels for an infinite good in which alone such a nature can be finally satisfied. injoy God, as an object wherein the powers of our soules are satisfied with everlasting delight: so that although we be men, yet by being unto God united

in this life. For while we are in the world, subject we are unto sundry imper-fections, griefs of body, defectes of minde, yea the best thinges we do arre painefull . The predicament of the human condition is to be of a mixed nature, partaking of both intellectual nature shared by the angels a For Hooker there can be no natural means of conversion to overcome this hiatus between a

achieve that end desired. While the desire for divinisation (theosis), that is to



say reunion with the original source of cosmic order, is a natural desirethat nature even in this life doth plainly claime and call for a more divine

nonetheless in keeping with a thoroughly Augus-tinian assumption concerning the state of original sin Hooker observes that

the light of nature is never able to finde out any way of obtayning the reward of blisse, but by performing exactly the duties and workes of righteousnes. From sal-vation therefore and life all flesh being excluded this way, behold how the wisedome of God hath revealed a way mysticall and supernaturall, a way directing unto the same ende of life by a course which groundeth it selfe upon the guiltines of sinne, and through sinne desert of condemnation and death (1977a: 118).

Thus in his delineation of the path of conversion he identifies the second primary division within the second eternal law, as the way of return. Unlike the natural law, this other way of way

It is through such supernatural means that the natural desire for an infinite good overcomes the circumstance of the mortal condi-

summa genera the eter-nal law, the natural law of reason and the divinely revealed law where the latter two kinds are understood as comprehended within the first, and yet nonetheless radically distinct in their operation and in our knowledge of them. Together these forms constitute a comprehensive division of the all the

of law which are discussed throughout the remain-

treatise. The mode of their derivation and their reversion provides a crucial insight into the underlying metaphysical structure of the Lawes, and provides, moreover, a vital instrument for interpreting

-century discussion of con-version in the form of an attempted reconciliation of a Neoplatonic ontology of participation with Reformation soteriology.

Viewed from the standpoint of their divine principle of origin i.e. in the first eternal law these three summa genera of law may be considered as simply one God, who is law and is the source of all derivative species of law, as

Viewed from below, from the standpoint of creaturely, mor-tal finitude, this original divine unity assumes the aspect of diverse articulated

14 TORRANCE KIRBY


vided unity that is their common source.10 This claim regarding the simulta-neous unity and multiplicity of the eternal law and its various derivative spe-cies lies at thvital instrument in his apologetic effort throughout the Lawes which is to demonstrate the consistency of the provisions of the Elizabethan Religious Settlement with the central tenets of Reformed theology. For Hooker, there-

including the Elizabethan constitution in Church and they are in him as effects in their high-

est cause, he likewise actuallie is in them, thassistance and influence of his deitie is theire life (1977b: 236). Bibliography Allan D (1985) Philosophy for Understanding Theology. Atlanta: John Knox

Press. Chadwick H (1966) Early Christian thought and the classical tradition: studies in

Justin, Clement, and Origen. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Chadwick H (1967) Philo and the Beginnings of Christian Thought. In Arm-

strong AH (ed) The Cambridge History of Later Greek and Early Medieval Phi-losophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hankey WJ (1998) Augustinian Immediacy and Dionysian Mediation in John Colet, Edmund Spenser, Richard Hooker and the Cardinal de Bérulle. In Courcelles D (ed) Augustinus in der Neuzeit: Colloque de la Herzog August Bib-liothek de Wolfenbüttel 14-17 Octobre 1996. Turnhout: Brepols, pp. 125-160.

Hooker R (1977a) Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, volume 1. In Hill WS (ed) Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. London and Cam-bridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Hooker R (1977b) Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, volume 2. In Hill WS (ed) Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. London and Cam-bridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Hooker R (1981-1997) Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, volumes 3-7. In Hill WS (ed) Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. London and Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

tyr Vermigli on the Unity of Civil and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction. Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 94: 131-145.

Kirby T (2005) Richard Hooker, Reformer and Platonist. Aldershot: Ashgate Pub-lishing.

10 On the concept of the procession of the forms of law, see for example: I.3.4; 1:68.6-

the naturall generation and processe of all things receyveth order of proceeding from the



Lewis CS (1954) English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, excluding drama. Ox-ford: Clarendon Press.

Marshall JS (1963) Hooker and the Anglican tradition; an historical and theological . London: A&C Black.

Munz P (1952) The Place of Hooker in the history of thought. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

The Medieval Contribution to Political Thought: Thomas Aquinas, Marsilius of Padua, Richard Hooker. New York, NY: The Humanities Press.

Proclus (1963) The Elements of Theology. In Dodds, ER (ed) The Elements of The-ology, 2nd edition. Oxford: Clarendon Press.


DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0002


THE MARIAN EXILE AND RELIGIOUS SELF-IDENTITY: RETHINKING THE ORIGINS OF

ELIZABETHAN PURITANISM

ANGELA RANSON*

University of York

ABSTRACT. the Marian exile of 1553-1558, through a fresh examination of three exiles who have been de-scribed as early puritans: James Pilkington, John Jewel, and Laurence Humphrey. By studying the value they placed on church unity, this paper brings out the fundamental differences be-tween the early reformers and the later puritans. It also demonstrates that the religious self-identity of these men pre-dated the accession of Mary. Thus, their exile was a means of strength-ening their faith, not finding it, and their return meant that there was more continuity between the Edwardian and Elizabethan churches than is often allowed in current scholarship. KEY WORDS: Religious self-identity, Protestant, exile, puritan, unity

Introduction The reign of the Catholic Mary between 1553 and 1558 often provides a con-venient dividing line for the historiography of the English Reformation. The Reformation of Edward VI, which came before it, is portrayed much as is Edward himself: well-meaning and generally sound, but tragically lost far too soon. tempt to return to the Church of Rome is described as comparatively slow and awkward, plagued with the problems caused by three major parties. These were: the papists who still adhered to Rome, the conservatives who had managed to remain in England during the Marian years, and the exiles who returned ready to establish a new church that followed the Genevan ex-ample.

This portrayal arises from an assumption that many of the English people -identity on

the continent: a self-identity that is often described as radically, or at least passionately, Protestant.

* ANGELA RANSON graduated from the University of York (2014) with her doctorate in

early modern English history. Her research focuses on the self-definition of the Church of England in the 16th and 17th centuries. Email: ransoang@ gmail.com.

18 ANGELA RANSON


study of the Marian exiles (1938), which was significantly subtitled: Several decades later, John Neale

argued that the Marian exiles were inspired by the reformed churches, and

58). In a more recent study of the Elizabethan episcopate, Brett Usher claims that the returning exiles brought in the Calvinist ideas that favoured greater change, and that they found themselves restrained in Parliament by men ad-vocating a slower pace (2003: 4).

From this portrayal evolves the suggestion, found in many studies of the Elizabethan religious settlement of 1559, that the puritan movement of the 1570s and 1580s had its genesis in the Marian exile and was fostered during the debates over the establishment of the Elizabethan Church of England. However, on closer examination, some of the church leaders of the 1560s

from the men who gained that label in the 1570s and 1580s, in both their experience and their beliefs. An essential difference between the two groups was the ideal of church unity. Although advocated by Henrican and Edward-ian reformers and supported by the early Elizabethans, it was of far lesser importance in the puritan movement.

As this paper will show, the early reformers aimed for unity in the church under the authority of the monarch, even while they fought for an English liturgy, questioned the legitimacy of clerical vestments, and argued for a re-formed view of the Eucharist. A decade after the Elizabethan Settlement, new reformers started to question the basic structure and governance of the Eng-lish Church. At that point, unity became less important than individual con-science. The new reformers began to argue for further reform despite the monarch, and pulled away from the national church.

These different perspectives can be demonstrated by contrasting the ar-guments of two reformers whose works were published approximately fifty years apart.

mate leader of reform, although he also expected united action from people in the church (1548: D3v). By 1592, Henry Barrow showed how withdrawal from royal leadership and a national church had advanced. When chal-lenged, he did not deny the suggestion that he and his fellows were removing themselves from communion with the national church because they had de-

Rather, he qualified it by saying that they intended to obey God rather than men, saying:

B4v-C1).

The Marian Exile and Religious Self-Identity 19


It is to the new reformers such as Barrow, the majority of whom had not

accurately applied. However, that is not to say that it can be easily applied. The danger of over-generalization is high, since not all puritans wanted to separate from the national church in the literal sense. Also, it is a term that has been hotly debated for decades, which made it difficult to settle on a def-inition for this paper. work Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. Lake expanded upon a

To him, the common ground

ality of the community of the godly, and of the way in which that community could and should be called together through the word, particularly the word

This provides further clarification for a popular definition by Patrick Col-

linson, w Collinson suggested that once this hotter sort returned from the Marian exile, they

cally reconstituted churches which they 38). puritanism than does Lake, but both consider the distinct self-identity that characterized the movement. As these and other studies have shown, puritan beliefs encompassed a wide range of theological and political standpoints, but they had one common feature: the idea that they, the godly, were set apart.

This paper will consider the consensus and consistency of other reformers in the church, rather than focusing on the puritan conflict. By examining the call for church unity by the Edwardian and early Elizabethan reformers, it will contribute to the growing field of study which recognizes that Marian exiles and puritans were not necessarily one and the same. It will do this through a fresh study of three exiles often described as holding puritan be-liefs on return from exile: John Jewel, James Pilkington, and Laurence Humphrey. They were all part of the reforming movement at the universities before the death of Edward VI, and gained preferment in the early years of

The influence of the continental reformation on these men cannot be denied, but this paper will argue that their migration to the conti-nent did not cause them to develop a vision for church reform along the lines of continental Protestantism, but to refine a vision that had already formed. This will challenge the common assumption that Elizabethan puritanism be-gan in exile, and show the connection between the Edwardian and Elizabe-than Reformations.

20 ANGELA RANSON


First, this paper will examine the major influences on the Edwardian church, and how the actions of these three men during the Marian exile re-flected the beliefs they had formed during that time. Then it will take a fresh look at some of their theological works published during the first years of

expectations for returning exiles. As we will see, Humphrey discussed the concept of exile in a general Old Testament context, while both Pilkington and Jewel took on this topic via a parallel with the returning exiles of the Babylonian captivity. Notably, all three men focused on the role of the people

-dated their continental exile. Through this discussion, this paper will challenge the interpretation of

nounce the failure of reform and call for the completion of the English Refor- Gunther suggests that Pilkington focused on the duty to

resist ungodly monarchs, a concern which arose from his time in exile. He finds the seeds of puritan ideas of separation in passage regarding the excuses for not rebuilding the temple given by the re-turning Jewish exiles (2009: 698, 702, 707). This paper will allow a re-inter-

t as a guide for the recovery of a church that had died with Edward VI.

challenge the viewpoint that Jewel was more puritan at heart than he was on paper, due to his experience in exile. Although the term itself is not often

raphy of Jewel (1962: ix). Leonard Trinterud argued that the government used Jewel to counter the papist threat, which effectively distracted him so that the internal reforming zeal inspired by the continental reformation did not turn into external action (1971: 23). More recently, Peter White has sug-

by the extent of En

which influenced his reactions to the Elizabethan government (2006: 43). zabethan sermon on Hag-

gai presented the same message as did a sermon Jewel preached during Ed-

separates him from the beliefs of the puritans. Laurence Humphrey may well be the easiest of the three men to describe

in the mid-1560s. Indeed, many past studies of Humphrey focus on the dif- Christopher Morris examined the jux-

-144);



Paul Welsby connected Humphrey to the puritanism of his college (1962: 6). However, more recent studies of Humphrey have moderated that opinion. Thomas S. Freeman has described seems to reflect his beliefs best (Freeman 2004). After his concerted effort for further reform of the church in the 1560s, Humphrey conformed, and sepa-rated himself from his more radical colleagues.

The next section of this paper will begin our discussion of these men by examining their Edwardian background. This will include looking at the community of reformers with whom they worked, whose ideas of reform and individual participation influenced them greatly. It will also return to the question of church unity, and its significance during the first years of the English Reformation. This will help show the contrast between these early Elizabethan reformers and the puritans who came after them.

Edwardian Reformers The changes in the church during the reign of Edward VI were led in part by the foreign reformers Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr Vermigli. They had

Cranmer, and given positions as Regius Professors of Divinity: Bucer at Cam-bridge, and Vermigli at Oxford. The work of these men provided a focal point for the English reformers, because they drew in both controversy and loyalty. At Oxford, Vermigli became the centre of the reforming community, and greatly influenced both John Jewel and Laurence Humphrey. Jewel was

discussed some of the major religious texts of the day and prepared others for publication (Anderson 1990: 192). tures, and was impressed by them. He later recorded that Vermigli had an

prudence. bridge, to the point where he could recall their contents twenty years later (Kemp 1978: 8). Similarly, James Pilkington fondly remembered his friend-ship with Bucer in a sermon of 1561 (Pilkington 1842b: 651). He became part of what N. Scott Amos calls Buc

Both Bucer and Vermigli aimed to secure church unity even while they

fought for reform. w much he wanted to maintain his collaboration with the community of reformers in Cambridge and beyond: in 1551, he wrote that he agreed with what Bucer and Calvin had decided about the Eucharist and intended to support them completely (Vermigli 1989: 341). Bucer, meanwhile, was focused on church unity to the point where he was a cause of conflict. As Diarmaid MacCulloch

22 ANGELA RANSON


Protestant Churches through compromise did not endear him to the Luther-ans (2010: 7). participation of every individual in the church had a long-lasting influence (Amos 2010: 154, 162).

Regardless of the moderate pace, however, the massive changes in the church made unity in the church a major concern at this time. Thomas Becon

, v). Similarly, Katherine Parr expressed her hope in her Lamentation of a Sinner that con-

William Tyndale premacy de-

stroyed the unity of the church (1548: C1v). This reflects the argument of theologian and ecumenist Paul Avis, who suggests that the reformers believed

doctrine again -350).

All of this effort on the part of the reformers had an immediate effect. As

2). Similarly, Felicity Heal argues that the changes taking place during the Edwardian Reformation were en-

Massive changes in the doctrine of the church led to massive changes in the fabric of the church. This greatly influenced the clergy and the young men studying to be clergy, including Pilkington, Jewel and Humphrey.

Pilkington was el1539, and presented to a living by King Edward sometime between 1547 and 1552 (Marcombe 2004). He was also heavily involved in the Eucharist con-troversy, taking part in the 1549 disputation of the Eucharist at Cambridge. There he argued passionately for a fully reformed view of the real presence, and denied the entire concept of transubstantiation (Foxe 1583/2011). At nearly the same time, Peter Martyr Vermigli was arguing with William Tresham over the nature of the sacrament at Oxford, and Jewel was one of the notaries recording the debate. He was tasked to write down what was being said while people were speaking, and to act as a legal witness that what was written down was a true representation of what had occurred. Vermigli acknowledged a debt to Jewel in the published version of the debate: in the

paring the manuscript for publication (2000: 4).



During the reign of Edward VI, Jewel was a fellow of Corpus Christi Col-lege. He was known to be a committed reformer, and the extent of his repu-tation can be seen in his temporary appointment as president of Corpus Christi in 1552. Dr Morwen, the college president, was taken in for question-ing by the Council on the charge of using a service other than the prayer book. He was imprisoned, and while he was gone the Council gave Jewel his position, despite his relative inexperience (Strype 1721: 386). early biographers, Charles LeBas, noted that this was a prestigious appoint-ment for a young scholar, and the involvement of the Council in the decision shows that they had confidence in his loyalty to reform (1835: 18-19).

Significantly, it is likely that Jewel transcribed Vermigfirst chapter of Haggai during this time, which dealt with the return of the

Vermigli focused on how heinous a sin it was for the exiles to build their own houses and neglect the house of God, thereby placing the onus on the people to repent and participate. He also emphasized that the Holy Spirit would show people what to do as they re-built the temple, which made internal faith and devotion an essential part of belonging to the church (Anderson 1975: 316-317). As we will see, the same

on Haggai. Like Jewel, Laurence Humphrey developed a reputation early in his ca-

reer at Oxford. r to his re- It is likely

that this involved reforming the traditional view of the Eucharist. Humphrey recorded an incident from 1549 in the Magdalen college chapel, when the vice-president, Thomas Bickley, manhandled the priest and took away the consecrated host. Humphrey was not shy about his approval of this act (Kemp 1978: 8). Also, in 1552, Humphrey was one of the nine fellows who sent a letter to the royal Council, which denounced the president of Magdalen, Owen Oglethorpe, for maintaining the old faith (Freeman 2004). Oglethorpe resigned soon after, and the reformer Walter Haddon took his place (Kemp 1978: 7).

Of all the controversies underway during the Edwardian Reformation, it seems that Pilkington, Humphrey and Jewel were most involved in the de-bate over the Eucharist. This debate was consistently concerned with the con-cept of church unity: reformers such as Thomas Cranmer (1550: 11v), John Frith (1548?: A2), and Miles Coverdale (Calvin 1548: D5-D6) all emphasized the importance of unity for the legitimacy of the sacrament. The participation of these three men in this aspect of reformation, especially by publicly and persistently rejecting the mass, shows how they were already forming a par-ticular religious self-identity. was already distinct from the Catholic Church.

24 ANGELA RANSON


Significantly, these men accepted the role of the monarch in the church, and they were rewarded for it. Pilkington and Jewel were granted livings,

his college. As the next section will show, their concept of royal authority in the church would be challenged once Mary I took the throne, but not de-stroyed. It remained part of their religious self-identity throughout their ex-ile, along with their loyalty to the church of Edward VI.

Marian Exile Despite their reputations as reformers, Jewel, Pilkington, and Humphrey were not persecuted immediately after the accession of Mary. This was prob-ably due to their relatively low status, which gave them time before their views were brought to the attention of the authorities. Pilkington left England in 1554: once on the continent, he lived in Zurich, Basle, Geneva, and Frankfurt (Scholefield 1842: ii). Humphrey arrived in Zurich at approximately the same time as Pilkington, but it is not certain when he left England. Jewel left in 1555, and spent his exile in Zurich, Strasbourg, and Frankfurt.

While in exile, all three of these men seemed to have one goal: the unity of the church, which they wanted to see in the unity of the English exiles. As this section will show, this was not something that developed once they ar-rived on the continent, but arose out of the emphasis on unity that had char-acterized the Edwardian reformation. Significantly, they also took this goal home with them once Elizabeth took the throne. As William Haugaard has noted, the desire to maintain unity amongst Marian exiles can be best seen in the relationships between the exiles who became Elizabethan bishops and the exiles who had not gained preferment.

They had experienced fear and loneliness unique human bonds that are forged when men choose to face a common

The behaviour of the Marian exiles does not align with that of many other

exiles of the sixteenth century. Geert Janssen, in his 2012 study of Catholic exiles in the Dutch revolt, suggests that a search for self-identity in the Cath-olic exiles helped them develop the religious beliefs that had inspired them to leave their country: rved as a catalyst for radicalisation as it galva-nised confessional mentality680). -century

tinct religious identity at first. She argues that it was during the experience of exile that they found common ground in their faith, which strengthened their resistance to Protestantism (2011: 3, 16). In contrast, the Marian exiles were distinct from many of the other exiles of the sixteenth century. As Peter



Marshall recognizes, their emigration was not a direct result of persecution, since the bulk of the clerical exiles left for Swiss and German Protestant areas in 1553, before the heresy laws had been revived (2007: 267). This suggests that they already had a distinct religious self-identity that they knew would not be acceptable to the new monarch, and chose to leave rather than com-promise.

Although Jewel, Humphrey, and Pilkington did not leave with the first wave of exiles, they did begin working for the cause of reform as soon as they arrived on the continent, suggesting that they already had a clear sense of where they fit in. Humphrey was there officially as a student, but he seemed more focused on furthering reform than on his studies. He was also part of a movement for physical as well as doctrinal unity among the exiles. The church at Frankfurt circulated a letter to all the other exiled English faithful, offering to take them in. This sparked a considerable amount of controversy, but the community at Zurich responded positively. Humphrey was one of the men who signed their letter of acceptance, which posited that they ought to join together in aid and comfort,

-33).

The union of congregations did not occur, so Humphrey spent the ma-jority of his exile in Basle. There he worked with John Bale and John Foxe, assisting in the first Latin version of the Acts and Monuments. He continued to work toward maintaining unity amongst the exiles, which came out in his published attempts to moderate the resistance theories of John Ponet and Christopher Goodman. Htrue views, but still contradicted them by advocating only passive resistance (Freeman 2004).

He main-tained his position as secretary for Vermigli, assisting him in researching, ed-iting, and transcribing lectures. These works later emerged as arguments for the reformed view of the Eucharist, against the doctrine of ubiquitarianism, and in support of the role of the magistrate in the church. Perhaps most sig-nificantly, Jewel was also part of a delegation who went to Frankfurt in 1555, in an attempt to settle the divisions amongst the exiles there that had been sparked by the aforementioned offer to unite the congregations. was to work with the church leaders and the magistrate in an attempt to find

They decided that to restore unity they first had to rid the church of John

Knox, its intensely zealous leader. To do so, they charged him with high trea-

1908: 67). This decision meant that they were ered

26 ANGELA RANSON


this particular temporal magistrate to be unjust and ungodly. This placed the magistrate in a superior position to the preacher, which applied views on the royal supremacy that reflected those that had developed in the years before the exile.

It was during this conflict that the reformer Richard Cox famously insisted

1908: 54). This shows a determination amongst some of the exiles to maintain the standards of later Edwardian reform in both liturgy and leadership, one which Jewel wholeheartedly supported. So did James Pilkington, although he was not part of the original troubles. He arrived in Frankfurt near the end of the Marian exile, and he was there when the news came that Mary had died. Soon after, Christopher Goodman and John Knox, with some of the other more passionate reformers, circulated a letter that advanced their own views on the proper form of the English Church. It called the English exiles to unity against the papists so that the gospel could go forward all the more

Since God had shown them d churches during

that knowledge home for the relief and comfort of -225).

Pilkington was the first oand he may have been the penman of it (Scholefield 1842: iii). The reply told Goodman and his fellows that while they too hoped for reform, they would not proceed any further in their Protestant faith than the

we shall not be burdened with unprofitable ceremonies It also said, in re-

they saw no problem in having diverse ceremonies, so long as they all agreed in unity of doctrine. This letter displays a very Edwardian stance toward re-form, papal ceremonies, and the role of the monarch in the church. The de-velopment of unity was given the highest importance, and the Frankfurt con-gregation made it clear that they aimed for restoration, not reformation. They ended the letter with: mighty God, that of his infinite mercy he will finish and establish that work

Thus, it seems that Pilkington, like Jewel and Humphrey, did not develop

a distinct religious self-identity that was outside the authority of the crown while in exile, but rather maintained his own Edwardian beliefs throughout. Also, this letter does not reflect the views of later puritans who questioned both the structure of the church and its royal supreme governor. Indeed,

s response reflects a



stronger commitment to church unity than can be found in the puritans of the late Elizabethan church. This puts the first years of the Elizabethan church into context, showing the true diversity of the groups involved in the religious settlement of 1559. Although some reformers returned with a more passionate belief in the structure of the Reformed churches on the continent, others returned with the aim to continue the work that they had started. The next section will show how this diversity affected the Church of England. Elizabethan Divines On their return to England, Pilkington, Jewel, and Humphrey were all given prestigious appointments. Pilkington became the first Protestant Bishop of Durham in 1560, the same year that Jewel became Bishop of Salisbury and Humphrey became Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford (Scholefield 1842: v). Thus, all three men were all in prime positions to participate in the major religious controversies that threatened to divide the church during its first decade. Significantly, these were much the same controversies that they had dealt with during the reign of Edward. While conflict about the Eucharist was not as prominent, familiar debates over the liturgy, images in the church, and the vestments quickly arose, suggesting that the dividing line between the Edwardian and Elizabethan reformations is not as clear as it may seem. Pilk-ington was part of the committee for the reform of the liturgy in 1559, alt-hough his late arrival from the continent meant that he did not have as much time to contribute as he had hoped (Knappen 1963: 169). Jewel was involved in the controversy over images in the church that arose due to the silver cru-cifix in the royal chapel, and embarked upon a decade-long defence of the Church of England against the Church of Rome, through a polemical debate with his nemesis, the controversialist Thomas Harding.

All three men became embroiled in the vestments controversy that began in 1564. Humphrey actually led the anti-vestments party, which nearly cost him his position at Oxford (Booty 1963: 13). Pilkington wrote to the Earl of Leicester, asking for his intervention in the matter, because he did not want to see ministers deprived for their apparel when there was such a shortage of preachers (1842c: 659).

These are the actions that have earned these men their reputations as early puritans, but in actuality their beliefs continued to align with their Edwardian back-grounds.

Jewel felt that, despite the vestments controversy, they were succeeding in the re-establishment of the Edwardian church. In a letter to Vermigli in 1559, he wrote: that it

28 ANGELA RANSON


shall be restored to the same state as it was during your latest residence Notably, Jewel did not use the term

This suggests that Jewel aimed to return to a reli-gion he had helped establish during the reign of Edward, not develop a new one inspired by his experiences in exile.

He did, however, address the theme of exile in a sermon on Haggai, It is not certain exactly when this sermon was

preached, because it was published in a collection of sermons in 1583 rather than immediately afterward. However, it was most likely presented in the mid-same Bible passage. In it, Jewel reminded people of the story of the Israelites who had returned from the Babylonian exile and set about restoring their city. Forty years after their arrival, they still had not begun work on the tem-ple. The prophet Haggai was sent to the prince Zerubbabel and the priest Josua to point out that God was angry about their neglect. Both men imme-diately responded, inspiring the people to stop concentrating their own fine homes and work instead on building up the House of God. Jewel drew an obvious parallel with this story: ably razed, and the temple of God burnt down by heathen, even so has it

987). Significantly, Jewel emphasized two aspects of this story: first, the role of

Zerubbabel and Darius, the rulers who had made it possible to return and rebuild. beth, who was also working to build up the church. Second, he pointed out that it was the people who had to do the building. This reflected the message

rdian sermon on Haggai, which also gave the members of the Church of England the responsibility to work together toward the edifi-cation of the church. Jewel took this message further by presenting his ser-mon as a means of helping them fulfil this task. According to Jewel, it was meant to explain the errors and abuses of the Roman church, discuss the excuses that kept people from rebuilding, and show them the kind of church that they should be trying to establish. His focus was very much on showing that the Church of Rome did not reflect the faith of the pure apostolic church, and contrasting it with the faith of the Church of England (1847b: 987-988).

This sermon has a clear link with one Jewel preached during the reign of Edward, perhaps during his ordination service in the early 1550s. In that sermon, Jewel mourned the oppression the church was suffering from the church of Rome and presented the Church of England as representative of the true apostolic faith. Despite the more narrow focus of the Edwardian ser-mon, both sermons aimed to develop the unity of the English Church by en-



couraging individual participation. They were also concerned with the resto-ration of the church. The Edwardian sermon warned that they might lose what they had just recently gained, our matters are not so firmly es-tablished that they cannot fall. Except we take heed, except we look about, except we put to study and diligence, all things will easily slide and fall into

(1847a: 953). The Haggai sermon acknowledged that they had indeed fallen away, saying that they had strayed far from the origi-nal church. However, there was hope: that of his great mercy has restored [the church], and let every man endeavour to re-(Jewel 1847b: 994-995).

lished in 1560 and 1562. Pilkington too mourned the loss of the Edwardian church, and wrote to encourage restoration as much as reformation. In the preface, he pointed out late most mercifully restored to us, which not long ago most cruelly was pros-

However, where Jewel aimed to connect the stolic church, Pilkington

focused on the Henrican and Edwardian churches. Like Jewel, he put the onus for the rebuilding of the church on the people. He warned that because the Hebrew people did not appreciate Queen Esther, they were punished with cruel Antiochus. Thus, if the English people did not respond to their

Edward (Pilkington 1842a: 4). The loyalty to Elizabeth shown in this passage calls into question Karl

-inspired theory of re-

He contrasts , which made the prince Zerubbabel

the hero of the piece (2009: 693). However, in this example as in several oth-ers Pilkington showed the same loyalty to Elizabeth as did Jewel, driving home the message in several passages that priests were subject to rulers and rulers had to be obeyed. Although Pilkington did allow for resistance in ex-treme cases, he never wavered from the argument that everyone had their task in the rebuilding of the temple, and an obligation to fulfil it.

Let us do all we can therefore, and pray the Lord to further our work; the rulers with the sword defend the good and punish the evil; the preachers with the word, the school masters by their teaching, the fathers by bringing up their children, the masters by correction of their servants, the people in obeying their heads and neighbourly love; and everyone defend true religion to the uttermost of his

(Pilkington 1842a: 66).

30 ANGELA RANSON


definitely fail in their obligations. the greatest portion is left to every man, which

exile should make each person anxious to show their gratitude by working to- house (Pilkington 1842a: 66, 38).

Therefore, for both Jewel and Pilkington, exile was both a punishment and an opportunity. Perhaps more importantly, it was over, and they had to show God that they had learned from their mistakes by a unified attempt at restor-ing the church. specifically in his which was published in Latin in 1559. Humphrey too pointed out that the English people had not responded quickly enough to the reformation under Edward, and thus they lost him and had to suffer under Mary. He also em-phasized that the people themselves had to build up the church, although he did not illustrate his lesson with the story from Haggai.

Instead, Humphrey paralleled the situation of the English church with stories of the mistakes of several Old Testament characters. Like them, the English people had to repent. He brought the message home by saying:

cts it as perfidious and spiritually debauched; nor will he claim his bride except as a chaste and devout virgin. He throws us out as exiles and does not embrace us unless we return to our

Again, this demonstrates the expectation for individual repentance and participation, and wholehearted obedience to the monarch as well. Humphrey reminded his audience that Elizabeth was a legitimate and just ruler, placed on the throne by God. g to the will of God we must obey with the greatest submission we can, the highest vicars of God, kings, princes and mag-istrates -197).

These three men all presented a message to the people of Elizabethan England that reflected the ideals of the Edwardian church. They each ap-proached it differently, but the emphasis on the individual and the role of the monarch in the church came clearly through in all three. This connects the early Elizabethan church to the Edwardian, in part because they were dealing with the same issues of unity and royal supremacy as they had been a decade earlier. It was only after 1570 that the concerns that had occupied the Edwardian reformers gave way to new challenges, led by men who can be called puritans based on the definition discussed at the beginning of this paper.

These men argued against the very structure and government of the church, and the result was a division between them and many of the exiles.



Significantly, these men were divided from Humphrey, Pilkington, and Jewel. Even though those three men have all been described as puritan, an examination of their activities shows that they all actively resisted the puri-tans. Pilkington even called for prayer support from one of the continental reformers as he began the battle: in 1573, he wrote to Rudolph Gwalter

not what or whom to believe; the godless are altogether insensible to any danger; the Romish priesthood are gaping for the prey

By that time, Jewel was a prominent reformer due to his work as an apol-ogist and a polemicist for the Church of England. He was one of the first to stand against the puritans, preaching a sermon in 1571 that challenged their objections to the established church. In response, the puritan leaders John Field and Robert Wilcox rejected Jewel altogether. They stated publicly that

-81). Sifor further reform clashed with the puritan agenda. He, along with several other Marian exiles, attempted to convince the 1571 parliament to accept a reformed prayer book. This has been seen as a sign of his own puritanism, but significantly his efforts were ruined by a puritan: William Strickland.

It did not, however, draw Humphrey into puritanism. Nor did the efforts of his protégé, John Field. Field attempted to push his puritan agenda by publishing a tract enti-tled the Admonition to Parliament, and Humphrey could not and did not sup-port that course of action (Freeman 2004).

Perhaps most significantly, many of the puritans themselves did not accept the Marian exiles as part of their movement. In 1573, the prominent puritan Thomas Cartwright firmly rejected them. In his Second Admonition to the Par-liament, he said: ng beyond the seas in Queen

days are come home to raise a persecution Cartwright emphasized salvation through hearing the word of God rather than through the liturgy of a na-tional church. He also tried to claim that the Marian martyrs would have agreed with him, saying that if any of them had had the benefit of living amongst the continental reformers, they would have returned with a far bet-ter view of church structure than the exiles had (Cartwright 1572: 35). It is evident that Cartwright saw a clear division between the older reformers who had been overseas during the reign of Mary and the new reformers with whom he worked, thus dividing the puritans from the Marian exiles.

32 ANGELA RANSON


Conclusion The three men whose paths we have traced showed a remarkable consistency in their beliefs. They fought the same fight in the 1560s as they had in the early 1550s, as they attempted to define the royal supremacy and reform the church without sacrificing its unity. The biggest difference was in how they fought, and with whom. That was perhaps the greatest result of their experi-ence with exile.

Through the communities in Zurich, Strasburg and Frankfurt, men such as Jewel, Humphrey and Pilkington developed closer relationships with other English reformers who would later be fellow clerics in the Elizabethan Church of England. This affected how they saw the opportunity presented to them by the accession of Elizabeth. As Diarmaid MacCulloch (1990: 70-71), Joseph McLelland (1957: 41-42) and Philip Hughes all note, the experience at Zurich and Strasburg was completely absorbed into their basic outlooks. Philip Hughes argues that the majority of the reformers who had lived in Strasburg and Zurich emerge

Part of this awareness was of their unique definition of what constituted the united church of Christ, and how important it was to convince others to accept their definition (Hughes 1954: 69, 71).

It is evident that exile had a profound effect on the men who left Marian England for the various cities who accepted them on the continent. They gained further education, formed friendships and expanded their experi-ence of reform. Notably, however, they were not all automatically converted to continental worship. Many of them held on to the faith that they had been taught under Cranmer and the community of reformers that he developed during the reign of Edward VI. For these men, exile only encouraged their religious self-identity; it did not create it. Bibliography Amos NS (2010) Protestant Exiles in England: Martin Bucer, the Measured

Approach to Reform, and the Elizabethan Settlement. In Wendebourg D (ed) Sister Reformations: The Reformation in Germany and England. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, pp. 151-174.

Anderson M (1975) Peter Martyr: A Reformer in Exile. Nieuwkoop: B De Graaf. Anderson M (1990) Vista Tigurina: Peter Martyr and European Reform

(1556-1562). The Harvard Theological Review 83(2): 181-206. Avis P (2008) John Jewel: Ecclesiology 4(3):

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Barrow H (1591) A collection of certaine sclaunderous articles gyuen out by the bisshops against such faithfull Christians. STC (2nd edition) / 1518.

Becon T (1551) The Flower of Godly Prayers. STC (2nd edition) / 1720.3. Birt HN (1907) The Elizabethan Religious Settlement: A Study of Contemporary

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DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0003


EMNED BY THE WORD

S THEOLOGICAL METHOD IN HIS OPPOSITION TO USURY

ANDRÉ A. GAZAL*

Boyce College

ABSTRACT. John Jewel, regarded as the principal apologist and theologian for the Elizabethan

thority on the subject of usury, and therefore was cited frequently by opponents of usury towards the end of the sixteenth century and throughout the seventeenth century. One of the most sus-tained interpretations of Jewel as a theologian on the subject of usury was by Christoph Jelinger, who observed that the late bishop of Sarum employed the same theological method in opposing usury as he did in defending the doctrines and practices of the Church of England against its Catholic opponents, that is, by appealing to the Scriptures, the Church Fathers, Church Coun-cils, and the example of the primitive church. This article seeks to confirm the opinion of

conviction that it was both a vice and heresy that eroded the unifying attribute of Christian soci-ety which was love. KEYWORDS: John Jewel, Usury, Theological Method, Christoph Jelinger, orthodoxy Introduction In a letter to Thomas Wilson, the Master of Requests, dated August 20, 1569, John Jewel (1522-71), bishop of Salisbury, enthusiastically commended him for his recent Discourse on Usury, urging him to publish it:

I have perused your learned and godly travail touching the matter of usury, M. D. Wilson, and have no doubt but, if it may please you to make it common, very much good may grow of it. Such variety of matter, such weight of reasons, such examples of antiquity, such authority of doctors both Greeks and Latins, such al-legation of laws, not only civil and canon, but also provincial and temporal, such variety of cases so learnedly and so clearly answered, such eloquence, and so evi-

er possible pass in vain (Jewel 1845b: 4:1276).

* ANDRÉ A. GAZAL (PhD 2009, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School) is Professor of His-

torical and Systematic Theology at Boyce College. Email: Andre.Gazal@ ni.edu.

38 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


Wilson did indeed publish his Discourse on Usury three years later, and in fact e affixed this letter by Jewel

to the front of the work, having received it from his executor, John Garbrand, death. Interestingly, Peter Medine, in his biography of

Thomas Wilson, makes no mention of this letter when discussing the Discourse although he does mention John Parkhurst (Medine 1986: 107). The inclusion of these to enrich the credibility of the work shows that the bishop was con-sidered an authoritative source on the subject.

Although principally known for his Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562) and Defence of the Apology of the Church of England (1565, 1567), John Jewel also engaged the controversial issue of usury, or the lending of money at in-terest. At the 1571 Parliament, Jewel served on the committee in the House of Lords which dealt specifically with the usury bill that eventually passed during this session (Institute of Historical Research 1767: 678; Jones 1989: 25). It was also at this same Parliament that Thomas Wilson participated ac-tively in the debate concerning the same bill in the House of Commons (In-stitute of Historical Research 1682: 155-180). Moreover, Jewel contributed to the literature pertaining to this contentious topic in the sixteenth century. Specifically this literary input consists of an exposition of 1 Thessalonians 4:6,

salonians, originally preached as sermons at his cathedral in Salisbury either before or after the 1571 Parliamentary session, and a Latin paper on usury written in what appears to be the form of a dialogue.

Commentary of St has been frequently referenced since the sermons comprising it were compiled into this volume by Garbrand, the Paper on Usury, however, has received com-

first biographer, Laurence Humphrey (1527-90), is the first to mention the Paper on Usury st

Humphrey further relates that he assigned the names to the opponents ar-

arguments associated with the position against usury, and assigned the letters opponent Annotationes quasdam, sive breves propositiones

de usura, in ipsius musaeo post obitum repertas, placuit evulgare: ubi Lector intelliget ad quondam principalem quaestionem duas advesarias & acutas & succinctas respon-siones. Alteri quia author est incertus, literas. A. B. apponemus, in altera erit Ioannes Iuellus (Humphrey 1573: 217). Such editorial action and the fact that the late bishop was his patron suggest that Humphrey was position on the subject. Following these comments appears the entire Paper on Usury

ing usury 1573: 232).

hat Is C 39


eral areas of divinity, but also usury. Jewel as a Theological Authority on Usury Throughout the last three decades of the sixteenth century and the begin-ning of the seventeenth century, Jewel was regarded the authoritative expos-

Elizabethan Settlement. For instance, Gilbert Burnet notes that the Convoca-tion of 1563 intended to adjoin the Apology to the Thirty-Nine Articles, and Archbishop Matthew Parker desired for the Apology to be available in cathe-drals and collegiate churches as well as private houses (Burnet 1865: 3:516). Moreover, many diocesan injunctions and articles along with a myriad of par-ish account books together attest to the official status of the Apology and De-fence of the Apology as being equal to that of the Book of Common Prayer and the Second Book of Homi Apology and Defence was confirmed by the publication of them with the rest of his works in one volume by Daniel Featley (1582-1645) with official sanction in 1609 and 1611. Finally, university students at Oxford and Cambridge cited Jewel along with Calvin, Beza, Bullinger, Musculus, etc., as a major theological authority in their notebooks (Todd 1987: 56-59).

clerical opponents of usury cited the Bishop of Salisbury as representative of

stance, in describing the injuries public sanction of usury inflicts upon the m-

mentary on 1 Thessalonians alongside Martin Luther in his appeal to sub-stantial theological authorities supporting his position (Downame 1604: 262). Moreover, Joseph Bentham (1594-1671) references Jewel as an authority on both civil and canon law when he condemns usury on legal grounds:

I am not verst in forraine Lawes, nor in the civill or Canon laws, and therefore I cannot alledge them of mine owne reading, or upon mine owne knowledge, for these therefore I depend upon, and direct you unto the rhetoricall and religious discourse of the right revered Bishop Iewel against usury, on 1 Thess 4:6 where he saith, that no good man ever used it, all that feare Gods judgements, abhorre it, He saith it is filthy gaine, a worke of darkenesse, a monster of nature, a plague of the world, and the misery of the people. Hee saith it is not of God, nor found amongst Gods children. He saith it comes from the divell, that is theft and murder. That there was never any religion, not sect, nor state, nor degree nor profession of men but have disliked it: and that all laws civill, canon, temporall and natural condemn it (Bentham 1635: 334).

Thessalonians. Specifically, in this instance, Bentham appeals to Jewel not

40 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


simply as a theological but also a legal interpreter of the subject. Confessing his own ignorance of either civil or canon law, Bentham relies on the bishop as an interpreter of both types of legislation who commandingly summarizes it as condemning usury as deleterious to human society in conformity with natural law. To show that he is citing Jewel uncritically, Bentham proceeds

Provincial (Bentham 1635: 334). Thus, Bentham treats Jewel as a source of legal opinion that is equal to an existing body of canon law that had been binding on the late medieval English church. Bentham furthermore throughout his treatise references and quotes Jewel along with other divines such as Downame and Roger Fen-ton to demonstrate the theological consensus of the Church of England against usury (Bentham 1635: 343, 347, 350, 353).

Among the most interesting appropriations of Jewel as a principal theo-logical authority against usury was that by Miles Moss. In his work, The Ar-raignment and Conviction of Vsvrie, Moss stridently argues that usury is a viola-tion of the commandment terpretation of this commandment given in his commentary on 1 Thessalo-nians 4:6 (Moss 1595: 7). Moreover, while discussing the different definitions

nd most authoritative one (Moss 1595: 30). Moss further shows his dependence upon Jewel for his interpretation of Psalm 55.

Specifically, in this regard Moss cites Jewel equally along with specific pa-tristic authors such as Basil, Ambrose, and Augustine, so as to suggest both continuity and equality of interpretive authority (Moss 1595: 78). The ascrip-

Wi Discourse on Usury as containing exhaustive Scriptural discussions on the topic endorsed by the bishop (Moss 1595: 78). Most notably, Moss

ans 4:6, but cites extensively from t Paper on Usury vibiography (Moss the only sixteenth-century work which contains significant reference to

, the exploration of which will be discussed later in this work.

Throughout the seventeenth century, Jewel again figures prominently in debates concerning usury. The anonymous Death of Usury or the Disgrace of Usurers (1634) claims Jewel as an authority who agrees with him concerning his definition of ex damno habito enter my bond for it, and take the like of him that receiue the mony. I may

Death 1634: 4). In the same year, John Blaxton makes frequent references to Jewel in The Eng-lish Usurer, or Usury Condemned. For instance, in arguing favorably for just

hat Is C 41


commentary on 1 Thessalonians (Blaxton 1634: 9). Moreover in describing

similitudes in reference to usurers, treating them as authoritative descrip-tions of their danger to the commonwealth given by one of the Church of

most important divines (Blaxton 1634: 52-53). Finally, Blaxton in-

in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians, treating the late bishop as an author-itative interpreter of Scripture (Blaxton 1634: 54). Robert Bolton attacks an

garding the nature the usury (Bolton 1637: 1, 5-6). Specifically, he quotes

cites Jewel in order to corroborate the patristic consensus as well as the uni-versal condemnation by ancient civilizations of usury (Bolton 1637: 6). Like Blaxton, Bolton quotes Jewel as an influential expositor of Scripture in ex-plaining the classic text used for prohibiting usury, Deuteronomy 23:19:

1637: 41). Finally, in order to refute his opponen

intended to benefit widows and orphans and usury (Bolton 1637: 70-72). Probably the most concentrated and sustained use of Jewel as a theological

authority in the seventeenth-century debates over usury occurs in Christoph Usury Stated Overthrown

the commentary on 1 Thessalonians as one that is authoritative (Jelinger 1670: 55-56, 1definition of usury, but also to his direct, graphic descriptions of its destruc-tive effects upon Christian society (Jelinger 1670: 181). Furthermore,

understanding of usury as identical with those of John Calvin, Guillaume Farel, and Richard Baxter, while alleging that all of them sharply distinguished usury from partnership (Jelinger 1670: 63). At this point it should be noted that although Jelinger sviews on usury as being fundamentally the same as other English bishops, he

he most authoritative (Jelinger 1670: 228). Not only is this indicated by the special praise he gives him, but also and probably more importantly in the greatest frequency with which he cites, references, and alludes to him, in addition to frequently quoting him against his pro-usury opponent. In this regard, Jelinger calls attention to the manner in which Jewel inveighed so substantially against usury:

As for the fifteen hundred years for which Bishop Jewel saith, Usury was not de-fended by the ancient; I would have him know, that not he only, but two or three great Divines more have asserted the same; let him bring but one Ancient Father

42 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


or Dr. (Maniches the Heretick excepted) who has defended Usury as now it is prac-ticed: I challenge him now to do it if he can, even Bishop Jewel challenged the Papists to prove their Religion and Opinions to have maintained in such first Cen-turies as he named (Jelinger 1670: 220).

which was the same the late bishop utilized against his Catholic opponents Jewel

inveighs against usury by appealing to the same criteria he used in impeach-

first four general councils, and the example of the primitive church. Specifi-cally he challenged the advocates of usury to support it by way of what we have identified elsewhere as the traditional canonical criteria for determining orthodoxy (Gazal 2014). Interestingly, Jelinger appears to be the only seven-teenth-century English opponent of usury who reLatin paper on usury via 1670: 185).

Overall these early modern authors make this fact clear: Jewel was re-garded as a significant authority concerning the issue of usury by virtue of his standing as one of the premier (if not the premier) theologians of the Church of England as well as his status as an occasional interpreter of English law concerning usury. Yet, in the polemical literature in which opponents of usury appeal to the late Bishop of Sarum frequently, the references are mostly to the commentary on 1 Thessalonians, and rarely to the Latin paper on usury. However, when mention is made of the latter, it is considerable and sustained, as evidenced in the above discussion. Among the authors refer-enced here, Jelinger is of most particular interest with respect to citations of the Paper on Usury.

Jelinger strongly reminded his opponent, who apparently made claims for support of usury from antiquity, to cite one orthodox authority who did, highlighting the fact that Jewel employed the same criteria for orthodoxy in condemning usury that he did in discrediting the doctrines and practices of the Catholic Church. In so doing, Jelinger was showing his audience that usury was not only a vice that irreparably harmed the economy, but tolerat-ing and defending it was actually a form of heresy because it directly contra-vened the canonical criteria defining orthodox doctrine. More importantly, Jelinger appealed to the premier authority in the Church of England, who, he contended, interpreted usury the same way as something that contra-dicted orthodoxy as defined by this exact same canonical criteria the Scrip-tures, fathers, first four ecumenical councils, and example of the primitive church (understood as that which existed from New Testament times to the seventh century). Thus, as attested by the foremost theologian and apologist of the Church of England, usury at the very least was an aberration from the accepted doctrine of the church.

hat Is C 43


ewel serves as the point of departure for this article, which will argue that the seventeenth-century divine interpreted the Elizabe-than bishop of Sarum correctly with respect to the manner in which he ap-proached the issue of usury. In his strident opposition to usury, John Jewel, as a bishop, theologian, and preacher, employed the same theological

which was to contrast them by means of the canonical criteria found in his Challenge Sermon as well as his Apology of the Church of England and Defence of the Apology of the Church of England. By applying the same method to the issue of usury, Jewel fundamentally sought to reprove it not merely as harm-ful vice, but as a heresy, which, if countenanced, threatened the bonds of Christian society which orthodoxy nurtured. Towards this end, we will ex-

and Paper on Usury.

ssalonians 4:6

structed upon the concept of the supremacy of biblical authority. Specifically,

any matter; for the Lord is an avenger of all such things; as we have also told

verse that usury is one of the most destructive, if not the most destructive, tandeth the most miserable and shameful de-

ce 1845a: 2:851). From here, Jewel succinctly announces the outline of his argument: the definition of usury, the source of usury, and the consequences of usury for the commonwealth (Jewel 1845a: 2:851). Afterwards, Jewel clearly states the method by which he intends to

the apostles, and martyrs, and Christ, and God himself have thought and 1845a: 2:851). Although expressed slightly differ-

ently, Jewel will employ the same method regarding usury as he does the various doctrines over which he contends with Catholic opponents evaluat-ing its inherent orthodoxy, and thus legitimacy, in the light of traditional ca-nonical criteria of the Scriptures and the fathers.

Even though in his Challenge Sermon as well as in the Apology and Defence of the Apology, Jewel explicitly names the first four ecumenical councils as well as the example of the primitive church along with the Scriptures and fathers, his proceeding discussion here will show that the bishop subsumes these two additional authorities under the designation of the fathers. This will be evi-dent in two respects: first, like other reformers, he will cite the Scriptures and interpret them in the light of patristic tradition, which together fundamen-tally comprises his notion of sola Scriptura. Secondly, although he will not

44 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


specify them, Jewel will make general statements concerning the councils and the practice of the early church which specifically appeal to their authority. Moreover, Jewel arguably regards the councils and the custom of the early church as outworkings of the principal authorities of the Scriptures and fa-thers, thereby deriving their status from them. Furthermore, the same gen-eral statements will show that Jewel is consciously drawing his framework re-specting usury from canon law. Jewel defines usury as

a kind of lending of money, or corn, or oil, or wine, or any other thing, wherein upon covenant and bargain, we receive again the whole of the principal which we delivered, and somewhat more for the use and occupying of the same: as, if I lend 100 pound, and for it covenant to receive 105 pounds, or any other sum greater than was the sum which I did lend (Jewel 1845a: 2:851).

and condemned. It is (Jewel 1845a: 2:851).

Jewel explicitly identifies the devil and the flesh as the source of usury. Demonstrating this on the basis of Scripture, Jewel specifically appeals to

f thy father the devil, and the lust of thy father thou 1845a: 2:851). He then proceeds to relate this verse to the

itual pathology behind usury. Satan entered Judashim this greediness and covetousness of gain, for which he was content to sell

Jewel 1845a: 2:851). Immediately thereafter, the bishop suc-

devil was th 1845a: 2:851). Usury, then, stems from greediness and covetousness, both of which are interrelated and initially fostered by Satan. Jewel further expands on this point by quoting 1 Timothy 6:9-10 which cites gree which leads to sundry temptations and lusts, which in turn bring one inflamed by this desire to certain hell and destruction (Jewel 1845a: 2:851).

It should be noted here that as a typical aspect of Joften state his position as he does here by citing a pertinent biblical verse/pas-sage verbatim without comment so as to represent his conviction as truly the Word of God. He quotes 1 Timothy 6:9-10 along with John 13 and 1 John 3:8 in order to assemble a coherent statement highlighting satanically in-duced sin as the source of usury. T hosoever committeth sin is of the devil unambiguously punctuates the thought in-ferred from the preponderance of these p er of

1845a: 2:852). Moreover, from this collection of unified Scrip-tural witness Jewel constructs the diabolical process which brings usury

ulness,

hat Is C 45


unmercifulness, injury, oppression, extortion, contempt of God, hatred to the brethren, and hatred of all men, are the nurse(Jewel 1845a: 2:852). Accompanying covetousness, lust, and greed are malice and hatred towards God and humanity in fostering usury. Indeed usury

, and nourished by these crue 1845a: 2:852). Usury is the fruit of covetousness, lust, greed, and hatred, all of which Satan cultivates. Usury, in essence, is satanic.

Having attributed the cause of usury to sin generated by Satan, Jewel calls attention to the results of usury. This is the longest section of the exposition, and the one to which Jewel directs patristic interpretation of Scripture. Jewel summarizes the results of usury thus:

maketh men unnatural, and bereveath them of charity and love to their dearest friends. It breedeth misery, and provoketh the wrath of God from heaven. It con-sumeth rich men, it eateth up the poor, it maketh bankrupts, and undoeth many households. The poor occupiers are driven to flee, their wives are left alone, their children are helpless, and are driven to beg their bread, through the unmerciful dealing of the covetous usurer (Jewel 1845a: 2:852).

Usury fundamentally destroys the bond of love uniting Christian society as evidenced in the dissolution of friendships, families (specifically those of the poor), resulting in the fleeing of desperate fathers, leaving their wives and children destitute and helpless. Usury, furthermore, destroys both rich and poor and makes people bankrupt. Because it produces enmity and degrada-tion, usury incurs divine judgment. This appraisal of the consequences of

departeth 1845a: 2:852). As will also be appar-ent in his Paper on Usury, the unifying attribute of the Christian society is love love which is strengthened by truth revealed by God, recorded in Scripture as interpreted by the fathers and practiced by the early church.

In keeping with his theological method, Jewel next brings patristic au-thority to bear on the discussion. He begins by citing Augustine who charac-terized usury as more cruel than theft and murder, manifesting an absence of love which obligates one to help the poor person (Jewel 1845a: 2:852). Immediately following the references to Augustine, Jewel appropriates what by this time had been regarded as highly authoritative patristic text against

pocryphal book of Tobit (Nelson 1949: 3), where he depicts usury as giving the opposite of the relief sought

you bread: and you give him a knife: he desireth you to set him at liberty;

46 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


and you bring 1845a: 2:853). He then appeals to Chrysostom who avers that usurers increase their own sins (Jewel 1845a: 2:853).

Jewel relates the custom of the early church regarding usury. In this re-gard, the bishop observes that the early church severely disciplined usurers by excommunicating them, prohibiting them from witnessing in court cases and making wills as well as from Christian burial (Jewel 1845a: 2:853).

Afterwards, Jewel resumes his Scriptural discussion. The passages which the bishop references explicitly condemn usury. The first of these is Luke

Jewel interprets this verse as telling Christians to loan freely to those in need without expecting even the principal to repaid (Jewel ud not another: thou wouldest not another should defraud thee. Oppress him not, have pity on this wife and children: thou wouldest not have thy w(Jewel 1845a: 2:853-54). Following this Jewel quotes Leviticus 25:35-thy brothof him nor vantage; but thou shalt fear thy God, that thy brother may live

1845a: 2:854). Jewel declares succinctly the meaning of this no usury. And he hath power and au-

Word prohibits usury. This is why it must be condemned. Following this suc-cinct comment, Jewel cites Exodus 22:24- peo-ple, to the poor with thee, thou shalt not be as an usurer unto him: ye shall

Jewel 1845a: 2:854). The bishop then gives pointed interpretation and application of the passage:

Shew them mercy for my sake: they are my people. I can enrich him, I can impov-erish thee. I set up and throw down whom I will. When thy neighbor needeth thy help, and seeketh comfort at thy hands, afflict him not as an enemy, oppress him not like a tyrant (Jewel 1845a: 2:854).

Assuming continuity between the people of God in ancient Israel and the people of God in Christian England, Jewel maintains that the prohibition of usury is continuously normative. Just as the prohibition against usury is nor-mative for the people of God so is the warning of divine chastisement for its

his money upon usury, or hath taken increase, shall he live? He shall not live , shall be upon

1845a: 2:854). Following this Jewel quotes and interprets what Benjamin Nelson regarded as the prime passage condemning usury,

and fallen in decay: thou shalt not be an usurer unto him: thou shalt not 1949: xix). What might

hat Is C 47


verse 20 which allowed the Israelites to exact usury from foreigners. How-ever, Jerome removed this hermeneutical difficulty by arguing that the later prophets and New Testament universalized this prohibition, especially the latter by including the foreigner as a brother in the people of God, particu-larly in its present expression, Christian society (Nelson 1949: 3-28). Jewel makes use of this interpretation in his application of the Deuteronomy pas-

Jewel 1845a: 2:854). Further-more, the brother to whom this re-interpreted passage applied was poor and had come for help (Jewel 1845a: 2:854).

Finally, Jewel makes general reference to councils supporting the prohi-bition of usury.

And what law doth suffer it? I trow, not the law of God; for that law straitly for-biddeth it. But what speak I of the law of God? The civil law condemneth usury, the canon law condemneth it, the temporal law condemneth it, and the law of nature condemneth it (Jewel 1845a: 2:854).

Although mentioned along with natural, temporal and civil law, canon law factors among the authorities in the criteria for orthodoxy Jewel employed. The ecclesiastical prohibitions against usury in canon law were enacted orig-inally by the councils which Jewel regarded as among the parameters of or-thodoxy, such as the Council of Nicaea in 325 (Geisst 2013: 20-21). Thus in generally asserting the prohibition of usury by all of these laws, Jewel basically acknowledges the role of the councils in defining orthodoxy. Immediately following, Jewel chides the person who insists on defending and practicing usury in opposition to of these laws, including the canon law, as one who is not a man of God (Jewel 1845a: 2:854). Given that one defending and prac-ticing usury does so outside the parameters that Jewel identified, the offender is also guilty of heresy.

Throughout his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:6, Jewel clearly em-ploys the same theological method in condemning usury as something con-travening the criteria defining orthodoxy: the Scriptures, councils, fathers, and custom of the early church. The same theological method is apparent in the Paper on Usury.

Paper on Usury As earlier mentioned, Jewel, as bishop of Salisbury, attended this session of

and added to it two amendments, one of which had to do with the jurisdiction of ecclesiastical courts over usury cases (Jones 1989: 62). Given the fact that the 1571 Parliament debated the issue of usury and enacted a law prohibiting

48 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


t in the debate by virtue of his committee assignment, it would be plausible to infer that these together provide the con-text in which to interact with the contents of the Paper on Usury.

The body of the document consists of a series of exchanges between Jewel and A. B. as designated by Humphrey concerning different aspects of the issue. It begins with the question as to

Whether as a result of an agreement anything taken by him who gives money to a merchant on loan be illicit fenory [i.e. usury], even though he demand no profit

4:1293) The bishop provides the first response. He answers by asserting a significant difference between the type of contractual agreement described and usury,

[ Imo foenerator saepe etiam ex jactura lucrum quaerit, non tantum ex lucro ] (Jewel 1845b: 4:1293). From there the dialogue progresses through several specific topics regarding usury. It is at this point that A. B. brings up the lawfulness of any

nor the second [ Contractum de quo quaeritur licitum puto, quia nec primae tabulae repugnant, nec secundae ] of the Decalogue (Jewel 1845b: 4:1293). This particular reply from A. B. suggests a couple of things. First, he seeks to bol-ster the alleged lawfulness of usury by means of a negative argument; since the Decalogue does not explicitly condemn loaning at interest, it must there-fore be lawful. Secondly, this particular response by A. B., which commences a discussion regarding the place of usury in divine law, most likely says more about Jewel than this opponent since he arranged the arguments. This could

was its clear and forthright condemnation by the Word of God. Such a con-tention would be consistent with his position as developed in his exposition on 1 Thessalonians 4:6 (Jewel 1845a: 2:851).

Jewel replies by denying the lawfulness of usury according to any statute, either divine or human (Jewel 1845b: 4:1293). From this assertion follows a more extensive discussion between Jewel and his opponent regarding the Scriptural prohibition of usury. A. B. further develops his contention that Scripture does not condemn loaning at interest in and of itself. Specifically,

contract in which one offers another money for his work as done in the man-n 1845b: 4:1293). Moreover, he denies the dis-

at

hat Is C 49


: 4:1293; Kerridge 2002: 10).1 To this,

Because usury harms another, it violates the second table, but since both ta-bles are inextricably connected to each other, a usurer violates simultaneously the first table, and therefore sins secretly but directly against God, the

1845b: 4:1293). For Jewel, this is the principal grounds for the condemnation of usury as he understands it. Usury plainly violates the moral law of God summarized by the Ten Commandments. Jewel then proceeds to rebuke his opponent and others agreeing with him for refusing to defend usury biblically; he takes this as an admission that they know well that they cannot (Jewel 1845b: 4:1293).

The biblical discussion next addresses the meaning of the Hebrew word, , a subject that was commonplace in contemporary discourses and de-

bates on usury (Kerridge 2002: 26-27). Initiating this aspect of the dialogue, A. B. employs the meaning of the tion to highlight what he considers a very specific type of money lending the Scriptures condemn. Scripture forbids only that usury which exceeds the le-gal rate: Foenus enim (quod ab Hebraeis Nesek, id est, morsus, dicitur, et verbo Dei damnatur) tum demum exercetur, cum pecunia datur alicui mutuo, ut et sortem et al-iquid supra sortem quoquo jure exigam (Jewel 1845b: 4:1294). Jewel rebuts this interpretation by citing two passages that were common stock for those op-posing usury, Psalm 15:5 and Luke 6:35 (Jewel 1845b: 4:1294). The infer-ence Jewel draws from these passages is unambiguous: Scripture unequivo-cally condemns all forms of usury.

But if these and many other passages which are cited from the Word of God do not pertain to this instance, why do you not then from that same Word of God bring together those passages for usury which do pertain to this case? (Jewel 1845b: 4:1294)

By means of this rhetorical question, the frequent use of which is common in

specific passages of Scripture which explicitly sanction the loaning of money at interest. To heighten the rhetorical force of this technique in this portion of the Paper on Usury, Jthe Scriptures that it is thus lawful to make an agreement with a merchant or a rich person to demand 1845b: 4:1294)

1 Such a distinction was implied in the concept of lucrum cessans or interesse lucre cessantis,

, whereby a lender could contract to claim losses in the event that he was either not repaid or not repaid on time thus costing him the opportunity to earn profit with that money elsewhere. However, claims to lucrum cessans could only apply to industry, agriculture, trade, land, a particular means of production, or a ship, but not to money lending.

50 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


B. was that every divine and human ordinance prohibited usury. plainly see that usury is prohibited by all laws divine, human, civil, canoni-cal, new, old, Christian, and pagan and that it is approved by no law or human [ Ego, contra, usuram omnibus legibus divinis, humanis, civili-bus, canonicis, novis, veteribus, christianis, ethnicis, video diserte prohiberi, nulla autem lege aut hominem constitutione approbari. Itaque hoc genus contractum non puto esse licitum ] (Jewel 1845b: 4: 1294). Even though in this reply Jewel in-cludes a wider range of categories, when read in context, and compared with the discussion in the commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:6, it strongly suggests that Jewel has in mind the Catholic tradition of the undivided church else-where referenced as the fathers, church councils, and the early church. The

of 1 Thessalonians. As in the commentary discussed above, he cites patristic testimony by way of Chrysostom (Jewel 1845b: 4: 1294). Moreover he quotes most of the same traditional passages of Scripture mentioned in the commen-tary on 1 Thessalonians. tention is that usury is contrary to the Word of God that is Scripture. This part of his strategy parallels that which he employed against his Catholic op-ponents when he challenges A. B. to produce explicit passages of Scripture which support usury. It is thus quite apparent that in the Paper on Usury makes use of the same general theological method as he does in his commen-tary 1 Thessalonians 4:6 as well as his polemical works against the Catholic opponents of the Elizabethan Church.

After the Scriptural discussion, the dialogue turns to the subject of the

benefits the commonwealth, Jewel insists, that, on the contrary, usury causes extensive harm to the commonwealth (Jewel 1845b: 4:1294). In the final analysis, to Jewel, usury enriches no one but the usurer (Jewel 1845b: 4:1294-95).

discussion on contracts. In essence, for Jewel, a partnership, which he strongly advocates, is a contract in which both parties assume the same risks as well as share in the same profits (Jewel 1845b: 4:1295). The bishop juxta-poses a partnership over and against a usurious agreement in which the lender gains profit in any ev4:1295-96). Furthermore, a partnership is a type of contract that is charac-teristically Christian.

The Christian is to live in this manner: moreover the Christian is to contract in this manner: for contracts and agreements are, so to speak, certain chains on hu-man life. If a debtor says that he suffered loss through no fault of his own, the creditor therefore ought to bear the loss of his portion [ Christiani est hominis ita

hat Is C 51


vivere; est etiam christiani hominis ita contrahere: pacta enim et convent quasi vincula quaedam sunt humanae vitae. Si debitor, inquis, nulla sua culpa jacturam quidem nullam fecerit, creditor debet ipsius etiam sortis damnum ferre ] (Jewel 1845b: 4:1297).

A distinctly Christian contract or partnership for Jewel is thus one where both parties mutually undergo all of the vicissitudes of the proposed venture.

upon the most comprehensive of Christian virtues, love. This becomes ap-parent towards the end of the Paper on Usury, where Jewel stresses the differ-

e is much difference between usury and a loan. For God commanded to give a loan, but prohibited usury; also a loan is conjoined with love, while usury is [ Inter usuram et mutuum multum est discriminis. Deus enim mutuo dare jussit, foenerari prohibuit; et mutuum cum caritate conjunctum est, usura cum avaritia ] (Jewel 1845b: 4:1297).

alone of which is to be repaid, as opposed to the contrary opinion maintained by A. B. which portrays lending on the condition of repayment of interest as an act of benevolence (Jewel 1845b: 4:1296-98). Thus, a loan, as Jewel would conceive of it, is a tangible expression of obedience to the divine command to love, whereas usury is a brazen demonstration of avarice. At work in this con-nection between a loan and love might be appropriation of an Augustinian view of love as the working out of faith. Application of such an Augustinian construct to the subject of monetary transactions seems evident in the last paragraph of the d or there is none other that is equal or good than the will of a good man joined with [ Aequum enim et bonum non aliud est, quam arbitrium boni viri cum caritate christi-ana conjuntum ] (Jewel 1845b: 4:1298). This means then that the type of loan

not lend money at interest, nor does it seek the things that are its own, but those things that are Jesus [ Caritas autem Christiana non foenerator, nec ea quae sua sunt quaerit, sed ea quae sunt Jesu Christi ] (Jewel 1845b: 4:1298). Thus, love is the distinctive characteristic of the godly loan.

r. The Word of God condemns it. This position is identical to the one maintained in his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:6. His argument concerning the far reaching harm usury causes the commonwealth is secondary, deriving from the main objection that usury the fact that Jewel formulates this position within the framework of a Respu-blica Christiana in which society is ideally ordered according to the Word of God. When especially a Christian commonwealth violates the clear prescrip-

52 ANDRÉ A. GAZAL


mon practice, it incurs destructive consequences for its citizens, and therefore ails the whole body politic. None of this, of course, originates with Jewel. The bishop of Salisbury appropriates a conception of usury, along with its sup-porting arguments, standard Scriptural texts, categories, and distinctions for-mulated mainly by Thomas Aquinas and other schoolmen, as well as canon-ists (Kerridge 2002: 18, 81-82; Jones 2004: 16-36).

Among the Reformers, this position would align Jewel with Luther and Melanchthon while placing him in direct odds with Reformed theologians with whom he would normally agree on most doctrinal matters, such as Bu-cer, Calvin, Beza, and Bullinger, whose views on interest were far more nu-anced (Kerridge 2002: 23-35, 79-80, 87-112). Furthermore, the position es-poused by Jewel in the Paper on Usury is virtually identical to that of Thomas

Discourse as well as in his lengthy speech dur-ing the debate in the Commons concerning the usury bill (Institute of His-torical Research, 1682: 155-180). A cursory examination of this debate would

disputed mostly on theological grounds (Jones 1990: 118). When considered within this particular context, especially since Jewel himself participated in the parliamentary process regarding the course of the usury bill, it becomes apparent that the position for which he argues in the Paper on Usury as well as his commentary on 1 Thessalonians 4:6 represents a position commonly shared, in this case, by members of Parliament.

This brings us now to the place of the Paper on Usury and in the debate on the usury bill in Parliament. Unfortunately, at this point, the answers to both these questions are elusive. The document itself gives no explicit indication of the occasion for which Jewel composed it. Moreover, there is no reference to it in any of his extant correspondence. Neither does Humphrey, the first to mention and print the Paper on Usury, provide any information as to the reason or circumstances that prompted the bishop to author it. Conclusion Throughout both documents on usury, John Jewel employed the same the-ological method as he did in vindicating the doctrines and practices of the Elizabethan Church against its Catholic detractors by determining illegiti-macy, in this case, according to the canonical criteria of Scripture, the fathers, first four ecumenical councils, and custom of the early church. In so doing, he showed usury to be the product of deceit, greed, and hate and something that is essentially satanic. Furthermore, since Jewel in both the 1 Thessaloni-ans commentary and the Paper on Usury is addressing those who defend usury

hat Is C 53


in one form or another, in showing that these proponents contradict the pa-rameters of orthodoxy. Usury, as a manifestation of hatred, destroys the bond of love that coheres a Christian society. This concept of love as the unifying attribute of a Christian commonwealth factors even more prominently in the Paper on Usury. For, it is here that the bishop of Sarum more explicitly argues that the transacting of business for worldly profit is lawful only when both parties in a contract mutually share in the fortune and loss, the lender loans freely, and all the commonwealth benefits. Such occurrences show that busi-ness is ruled by love, and therefore accords with the Word of God. Bibliography ***** (1634) Death of Usury, or the Disgrace of Usurers. London: Robert Allott. Bentham J (1635) The Christian Conflict: Shewing the Difficulties and Duties of this

Conflict, with the Armour and Speciall Graces to be Exercised by Christian Sould-iers. London: Philemon Stephens & Christopher Meredith.

Blaxton J (1634) The English Usurer or Usury Condemned By The Most Learned and Famous Divines of the Church of England, and Dedicated to all His Majesties Subjects, For the Stay of Further Increase of the Same. London: John Norton.

Bolton R (1637) A Short and Private Discourse between M. Bolton and one M.S. concerning Usury. London: George Miller.

Burnet G (1865) The History of the Reformation of the Church of England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Downame G (1604) Lectures on the XV Psalm: Read in the Cathedral Church. Lon-don: Adams Flip.

Gazal Apology of the Church of England. In Defending the Faith Confer-

ence, Salisbury, United Kingdom, 17 September 2014. Geisst CR (2013) Beggar Thy Neighbor: A History of Usury and Debt. Philadel-

phia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press. Humphrey L (1573) Iohannes Iuelli Angli, Episcopi Sarisburiensis Vita. London:

John Day. Institute of Historical Research (1682) Journal of the House of Commons:

April 1571. The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Eliza-beth (accessed 5 July 2011) http://www.british-history.ac.uk/re-port.aspx?compid=43684.

Institute of Historical Research (1767) House of Lords Journal Volume 1: 30 April 1571. Journal of the House of Lords. Volume 1: 1509-1577 (1767-1830) (accessed 4 October 2011) http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?-compid=31781.

Jelinger C (1670) iliaries Shamefully Disarmed and Beaten By An Answer to Its Chief Champion Which Lately Appeared in Print to Defend It. London: J Wright.

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Jewel J (1845a) . In Ayre J (ed) The Works of John Jewel, 4 volumes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 2:813-946.

Jewel J (1845b) Paper on Usury. In Ayre J (ed) The Works of John Jewel, 4 vol-umes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 4: 1283-98.

Jones DW (2004) Reforming the Morality of Usury: A Study of the Differences that Separated the Protestant Reformers. Lanham, MD: University Press of Amer-ica.

Jones NL (1989) God and the Moneylenders: Usury and Law in Early Modern Eng-land. Oxford: Blackwell.

Jones NL (1990) Religion and Parliament. In Dean DN and Jones NL (eds) The Parliaments of Elizabethan England. Oxford: Blackwell.

Kerridge E (2002) Usury, Interest, and the Reformation. Aldershot: Ashgate. Medine P (1986) Thomas Wilson. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. Moss M (1595) The Arraignment and Conviction of Vsvrie: That is, The Iniqutie,

and Unlawfulness of Usurie, Displayed in Sixe Sermons, Preached at Saint Ed-munds Burie in Suffolk, Upon Proverb 28:8. London: Thomas Man.

Nelson B (1949) The Idea of Usury: From Tribal Brotherhood to Universal Other-hood. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

Todd M (1987) Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wilson T (1572) A Discourse vppon Usurye, by vvaye of Dialogue and Oracions, for the better varietye, and more delite of all those, that shall reade thys treatise. STC, 25807-403.


DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0004


EVIDENCE OF THINGS SEEN: UNIVOCATION, VISIBILITY AND REASSURANCE IN

POST-REFORMATION POLEMIC

JOSHUA RODDA*

University of Nottingham

ABSTRACT. This article reaches out to the audience for controversial religious writing after the English Reformation, by examining the shared language of attainable truth, of clarity and cer-tainty, to be found in Protestant and Catholic examples of the same. It argues that we must consider those aspects of religious controversy that lie simultaneously above and beneath its doc-trinal content: the logical forms in which it was framed, and the assumptions writers made about

the notion of certainty through the early Reformation, the article asks how English polemicists

accessibility and honest dealing. Two case studies are chosen, in order to make a comparison across confessional lines: first, Protestant (and Catholic) reactions against the Jesuit doctrine of equivocation in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, which emphasized honesty and encouraged fear of hidden meaning; and second, Catholic opposition to the notion of an invisible or relatively invisible church. It is argued that the language deployed in opposition to these ideas displays a shared emphasis on the clear, certain, and reliable, and that which might be attained by human means. Projecting the emphases and assertions of these writers onto their audience, and locating it within a contemporary climate, the article thus questions the emphasis historians of religion place on the intangible on faith in considering the production and the reception of Reformation controversy. KEY WORDS: Religious controversy, church history, equivocation, certainty, truth It has been suggested that religious controversy and polemic after the English Reformation might be seen as one-dimensional. Its authors focused on the exclusive, tiresome minutiae of doctrine; they were more concerned with de-molishing their adversaries than offering any real assurance to their reader-ship, and the nature of their positions and arguments engendered a man-nered process of perpetual and self-perpetuating antagonism. As a result, and despite the intentions behind it, religious controversy bore little relation to the real, personal experience of faith: Michael C. Questier (1996: 12, 13-

* JOSHUA RODDA (PhD 2012, University of Nottingham) is a tutor in the Department

of History at the University of Nottingham. Email: J.Rodda@ nottingham.ac.uk.

56 JOSHUA RODDA


23, 35-39), to give one example, has cited both the accessibility and the avail-ability of controversy, only to return to the ultimately distant, and demon-strably circuitous, nature of the arguments involved. For the most part, there-fore, reference to the tremendous body of polemical writing that survives for post-Reformation England has been restricted to two areas of enquiry: bio-graphical studies of the divines who produced it, and more intricate exami-nations of the refinement of particular churches and their doctrinal positions. The audience who are taken to be inscrutable, save through a study of mar-ginal annotations, works written in response, or a tabulation of printed and manuscript editions have largely been set to one side. Their experiences when they encountered works of polemic transformative or not are often minimized or underexplored. But to maintain this focus and these assump-tions would be to underestimate a genre whose profile in research has been steadily growing; one that can tell us a great deal about the expectations of the society in and for which it was produced (Lake 2006: 89-90).

To move into these questions, it is necessary to take something of an in-terdisciplinary approach, and to examine polemical pamphlets and tractates not as works of academic theology, but as cultural artefacts. In this paper, I will suggest that the most interesting, fruitful aspects of a work of religious polemic lie simultaneously above and beneath its actual doctrinal content. On the one hand, as has been argued for a long while by Peter Lake, Anthony Milton (1995: 4) and others, a greater emphasis must be placed on the intel-lectual apparatus of religious controversy the methods of reasoning, of con-trast and genre, in which its arguments were framed. On the other, and in tandem with this, we need to go deeper into the casual rhetoric of these works the passages in between those we would typically underline. What assumptions were polemicists making about their audiences? To what human needs or fears were they appealing? And how did they respond to their read-

works might be closer at hand than the paucity of direct evidence has led us to assume, and could well have been more engaged than the style and subject matter of religious controversy might lead us to believe. Addressing these questions will allow us to step beyond the cyclical back-and-forth between an-tagonists, towards the more positive and far more interesting relationship between controversialists and their audience (Questier 1996: 36).

The starting point for this article has been the idea of certainty, and more specifically the articulation and presentation of that idea in controversy and polemic. In this, what follows transposes several of the conclusions of Susan Schreiner on the early European Reformation into a post-Reformation, Eng-lish context, and further takes a parallel approach to some of the questions raised and answered by Daniel Cheely in an article of 2014. Schreiner (2010: 3, 35, 205) saw the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as an age transfixed

Evidence of Things Seen: Univocation, Visibility and Reassurance 57


by notions of certainty, and haunted by the demonic spectre of doubt and deceit, and this same atmosphere can be pursued in English examples. Cheely (2014: 825-826), meanwhile, has found a necessary and deliberate maintenance of certainty in controversial works, in the face of epistemological scepticism, and describes its invocation in the writings of Robert Bellarmine and William Whitaker as a conflict over the ownership of truth although less is made here of the needs of a wider audience. In fact, polemicists of every confessional standpoint worked to appeal to a diverse readership through a careful, and occasionally subtle, deployment of the most basic lan-guage of certainty, clarity, and manifest or tangible truth. To give an opening and a most direct example, the Protestant lay polemicist Humphrey Lynde (1629: 231, 241, 256-the Protestant faith, and the uncertainty of flawed human tradition from the security of scripture. The idea that audi-ences at this time needed something tangible to hold on to is first evidenced by the fact that polemicists took time out from attacking their confessional opponents in order to give it to them.

To demonstrate this, and the overlap between Catholic and Protestant ap-proaches, this article will focus on two specific areas of dispute: the Protestant reaction against the Jesuit doctrine of equivocation or mental reservation

tional visibility and succession through the first half of the seventeenth. This is, in itself, something of a departure. Equivocation has previously been a concern for literary theorists as much as for historians, and historical studies of the doctrine have for the most part focused on its legal aspects, and ques-tions of loyalty, Catholic identity and the role of the state in the climate sur-rounding the Gunpowder Plot and subsequent Oath of Allegiance. The lin-guistic nature of this defensive doctrine which allowed for the presentation of ambiguous or truncated testimony, whilst retaining the whole and perfect

has appealed to those with an eye tdramatic output, as has its prominence in the popular imagination (Huntley 1964: 390-400; Baynham 2006: 101-112; Wake 2011: 941-960). For histori-ans of law, religion, and the church (Halley 1991: 33-52; Carrafiello 1993: 671-680; Houliston 2007: 17-18, 145, 148), the circumstances of that promi-nence, through the trials of the Jesuits Robert Southwell in 1595 and Henry Garnet in 1606 (in the immediate context of the Plot), along with the dissem-ination of A Treatise of Equivocation, or the Treatise against Lying and Fraudulent Dissimulation (Anon 1851: iii-xviii), have drawn analysis away from the nature of the doctrine, towards its application and ramifications.

The language of Protestant counter-arguments has rarely been subject to close analysis, but in those instances where it has, the importance of palpable truth, of certainty, is already visible. In discussing the trial of Southwell, Janet

58 JOSHUA RODDA


did not provoke outright denunciation so much as a dialectic joust over clar-

happen after the trial of Garnet all sides trying, as Paul Wake (2011: 942,

reading, equivocation had overthrown language, and put truth at a new and terrifying distance. Doubt had been instilled. Now, for the sake of confes-sional discourse and personal religious assurance, it had to be purged.

Attacks on equivocation and mental reservation stemmed from popular fears of the hidden; of uncertainty and deception. The Society of Jesus was particularly associated with the practice following the trials of Garnet and Southwell: encountering a disguised Jesuit at dinner in 1626, the chaplain Daniel Featley (1630: 239-not onely a Priest, but a Jesuited Priest also. For you can equivocate Those of the Society are deemed untrustworthy as a result (Featley 1624: X2*v; Ma-rotti 2005: 51; Walsham 2009: 42). In a sermon at court following the Gun-powder Plot, John King (1608: 27, and see Persons 1609: 674-675) asked

A2r), in the midst of a printed dispute with the Jesuit John Percy (alias Fisher),

who maintaine, that a man may utter an untruth in words without the guilt of Veniall sinne, so hee be sure to make it up by a mentall reserva-tion

-catholique, as Æquivo-

-Catholicus 1607: A3r-v). In a hundred such, William Fen-

Harris (1614: 298), opposing the Jesuit Martin Becanus in 1612-14, more savage & wilde robbers which teach

bishop of Canterbury, applied this theme directly to the question of correct, certain doctrinetrinally the art of lying v). Similarly, the controversial college head Thomas Anyan (1615: 13) pro-

from us to joine with them in truth of doctrine, that maintaine Equivocating who make an equivocating lye a doc-

ley 1624: Ar). More crucially, Thomas Morton (1610: 126), in a longer, printed dispute

Protestants, and Romanists demonstrated by the practice, as did a defence



Protestant hath more reason to be beleeved on his bare word, [than] a Papist, because the Protestants Religion tyes him to speake the truth from his heart, without any mentall reservation; but the Pa-pists doctrine teacheth him a pretty kinde of deceipt called Æquivocationferer 1634: 97). Robert Horne (1614: Q2r

a turn of phrase to which we shall return. At the heart of these assertions is not just the familiar depiction of Rome as a false church, but an image of it as the last place one should venture to find certainty. In the 1640s, this was to be spelled out in verse by the virulent po-lemicist William Prynne (1642: 111-112), and printed for wide circulation:

All Rome for a false Church should damne, flye, hate, Because she teacheth to equivocate; The worst of all Lies, cheates, that is; no truth

How can men pin their faith on Romes Church sleeve, Whose doubling faith, words, oathes none can beleeve.

he broad brush of equivocation

appealed directly to the need for firm ground; for assurance. Similarly, An-thony Wotton (1608: 15-16) had argued at the height of the equivocation

oyou, a sound foundation, to build my faith upon, when I have the word of these equivocating traitours, Priests and Jesuits? And yet this is the most I can have in this case, if I b(1612: 137-

own conversion, whilst presenting it as a warning to others. So far, so antagonistic. So negative. But there was also a positive mirror to

this approach. As well as decrying equivocation as the symptom of Catholic deceit, Protestant writers constructed an image of a grounded and reliable clarity and rationality, against which they could oppose it. Historians have begun to revisit the role of reason as it was perceived by contemporariesin religious polemic, and more broadly the extent to which we can place our conclusions within the rationality of the period, but the link between discern-ible reason and confessional reassurance deserves greater attention (Coffey and Chapman 2009: 2-5, 11-14, 16-17; Questier 1996: 16). Peter Lake (1989: 74, 77) has suggested that Protestants saw their faith as having a greater log-ical consistency than Catholicism, as opposed to the illusory, superficially re-assuring doctrines of popery, and this view, confirmed in Morton and Feat-ley, was itself an effort to offer comfort and sure ground, building on the foundation of certainty to be found in Scripture. On this theme, Thomas

60 JOSHUA RODDA


Beard (1616: 43) argued that equivocation itself, as a doctrine, ought to be

thority of fathers and heathen philosophers. The origins of equivocation lay in an Aristotelian fallacy. As this has been

ocates, he uses a single expression, more exactly a single phoneme or mor-pheme, to mean two things This is built upon Ar

which the reasoner equivocates justifies a part of his reasoning but no one of ; Feat-

ley 1624: V*r; Maloney 1984: 86). This is opposed to the construction of sound arguments, and to the attainment of whole and defensible truth: but on top of this, the term had, through the course of the Jesuit controversies of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, undergone a redefinition by intent and morality, which produced such interpretations as the following, from a linguistic guide of 1621 (B 1621: G2v):

Equivocate. To speak or answer with a secret meaning reserved in ones owne mind; which peradventure the hearers do not understand. Equivocation. A speech or answer made, with a secret meaning reserved in ones mind. The Aristotelian flaw in argument was not, however, forgotten, as this fi-nal entry shows: Equivocke. When one word signifieth two things.

In fact, the original definition of double interpretation, ambiguities and multiple answers had a role to play in the controversy (Halley 1991: 35; Carrafiello 1993: 672-673). Although Morton (1605: 43) scoffed that the Jes-

definitions were further connected in Protestant minds by the lack of a clear, identifiable meaning; the impossibility of reasoned argument. Thus, to rely on those who approved the practice was not only to open oneself up to deceit, but to wander into new possibilities of formal error and, consequently, un-certainty.

By its first definition, equivocation signified an ambiguity that demanded a clear, logical distinction to approach the truth: the Jesuit Michael Walpole (1613: 27) described it in passing though at the height of the controversy

Bacon (1605: Oo3r) described such ambiguity in expression as the reason for all formal logic. For Protestants, the concept of mental reservation only am-plified this problem, by suggesting a multitude of entirely hidden reasons



that could never be brought to trial. Featley and George Walker, vocal pro-ponents of anti-Catholic disputation in the 1620s, presented equivocation as the antithesis of reasoned debate a fault in Catholic argument, and a fun-damental flaw in Jesuit disputants. Walker (1641: 29) accuses one adversary

divers senses; which Logick abhorres in a disputation Featley (1624: Eev) tells his Jesuit respondentWhat sense mean you? The sense that is to be made of your words, or the sense which you make am I therefore to dis-pute in your non-sence

Another former antagonist of the Jesuit Percy, Henry Rogers (1638: 1-2),

taken, no not so much as one bare Proposition, or Sen-tence may subsist with æquivocation, and amphibologie, words or sentences of double signification, and doubtfull sense untill they be cleared by explica-tions, and distinctions More broadly, equivocation and mental reservation

2v). It should be remembered that for all the emphasis historians have placed on the intangible nature of faith, and the role of divine revelation in conversion, polemicists on both sides spent an inordinate amount of effort trying to prove their points of controversy. The Protestant reaction against equivocation formed part of this approach, and speaks to a need not only for assurance, but for an absolute, demonstrable cer-tainty. Wotton (1608: 16) follows his expression of doubt in equivocating priests withold nothing for truth in religion, but that which is proved to us by plaine testimonies of Scripture, or certaine consequence of reason, drawne from principles evidently exprest, or appare[n]tly contained in the knowne word

Building on this rational confidence, equivocation in the Catholic clergy

was twinned with a lack of discernment in their audience: as Professor Lake

1641: 23). Thus did Thomas Blundeville (1599: 164) produce a guide to logic for those who would not make it into the universities, because he saidlogic was an esseheresy: a work that contains a passage on the fallacy of equivocation. To take

polemic, confidence in knowledge and in the formal, logical demonstration of truth thus stood on the correct side of the division it was polemically, as well as philosophically, appropriate and thus the reasoned search for truth through human endeavour could be presented as a godly alternative to the

62 JOSHUA RODDA


deceptive comforts of the Roman Church. For Protestant and moderate pu-ritan writers, therefore, even the most intricate and complex of scholastic dis-cussions, and perhaps especially these, had an eye towards a wide, uncertain, unlearned and godly audience.

But the equivocation controversy also prompted Catholic reactions, partly but not exclusively in the context of disputes between the Jesuits and the English secular clergy (James 1612: 16-18; Featley 1644: 23). During the confrontation between secular and Jesuit priests at Wisbech Castle in 1601 and in the aftermath of Southwell Christopher Bagshaw (1601: 73,

with equivocation, or a subtile and dissembling kind of speech, as that to the scandall of others they are not ashamed to defend it in their publick writ-

it is come to that passe, that though they sweare, men will not beleeve them More significant, however, are the qualifications, and outright oppo-sitions, offered by Jesuit writers themselves: because these show precisely the same concern with clarity and attainable certainty found in Protestant reac-tions. In his exchanges with Morton, Robert Persons (1607: 277-278) restated the need for truth and honest dealing in all but the most dire of circum-stances, placing emphasis on constancy and sincerity. Mental reservation had

internal expression occurring in the presence of heretical examiners (but au-dible only to the speaker and to God) need not prejudice truth, or natural reason, or logical progression. Moreover, and more crucially, equivocation was never to be used in matters of faith, particularly in giving comfort or delivering doctrine (Halley 1991: 37, 42; Carrafiello 1993: 676-677; Hou-liston 2007: 169-170). Persons (1607: 488) is also quite naturally eager to sep-arate the argument over equivocation from doctrinal difference, and Catho-

controversy our writers shall never be found guylty in these kyndes of false lying & malicious equivocatio[n]s, where not only untruth is uttered, but it is wittingly also ut-tered

The manuscript Treatise of Equivocation, which had rekindled the contro-versy after the Gunpowder Plot, had established this same point (Anon 1851: 58), through the language of personal profession

ances, it combines this protection or ring fencing of doctrine with a protesta-tion of underlying honesty and clarity (Anon 1851: 54-55):

there is a certaine vertewe, [which] not onely Catholicke Devynes but the heathen Phylosophers them selves have required in a mans lyfe, [which] is called veretye; not in that strict signification wherby it signifyeth that condition of [our] speech [which] is that it be trewe, but as it signifyeth a generall disposition of the mynde, wherby a man as well in speech as in action, and generally in his whole lyfe,



[with]out equivocation or dissembling, sheweth hym selfe such as verely he is, and neither more nor lesse.

As this virtue demands, the Treatise

n philos-ophers, moreover, points readers back towards that realm of rational demon-stration and discourse to which Protestant writers were staking their own claim. The language here is remi-niscent of Augustine, as well as matching Protestant objections to equivoca-tion (Morton 1610: 114). Persons (1607: 486; 1609: 678) was to build on this spirit in attacking implied Protestant cases of what he would call equivocation; of ambiguity, double-dealing or mental reservation iexample: If a preacher in England who in deed is no Protestant in harte, should preach Protesta[n]t doctrine that is false, and himselfe should thinke it also to be false (as divers perhaps doe) this were to Equivocate both falsely

Protestants follow their own flawed judgement and self-interest on the truth Equivocation, & such as do maintayne

1612: (i)3v-(i)4r). For Catholic writers, this need to present truth, and to offer certainty and

assurance to their audience, found clearest expression in statements on the pastoral, validating role of the visible, institutional church. This is, of course, to be expected: the turn towards visibility, for reasons of both spiritual assur-ance and polemical necessity, has been discussed in terrific detail (Milton 1995: 270-321; Questier 1996: 23-33). However, the language used in this was markedly similar to that found in the equivocation controversy. Building

or corruption, and taking this to its logical extreme, Catholic writers instead emphasized the role of the church in protection from doubt: it was the guar-

the piller, and ground of Truth -89; Schreiner 2010: 187). As Schreiner (2010: 137, 165) observes, certainty was to be found in the spirit, and the spirit, for Catholics, in the church.

For this reason, as Michael Questier (1996: 25, 27, 30; see Schreiner 2010: 161, 195; Persons 1585: d2v-d3r) has stated, the clear and certain identifica-tion of the church was the means to attain a broader certainty: without it, there was a constant danger of deception and doubt. Thus, in opposition to Protestant invocations of abstracted, syllogistic reasoning themselves seen as a flawed reliance on private interpretation the determination of the church was held up as the preventative to endless doctrinal wrangling. How-

visibility were directed to a broad and mixed audience: they were phrased within the need for rational coherence and a firm foundation; for a practical,

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at times surprisingly worldly method onto which both learned and unlearned communicants could pin their faith (Milton 1995: 271). In offering the lay

lic John Floyd (1631: b2v-b3r

scholar to seek the physical, visible church as the route to correct doctrine:

to find out the Doctrine, which is a thing more spirituall and lesse subject to the sense, by that which is corporall and more subject to the view of all sorts of men. For this is the way that all Scholars, in the teaching of all Sciences take, to wit, to beginne with that which is knowne and evident, and by it to come to the knowledge of that which is hidden, according to Doctrine.

Percy would describe the Protestant reliance on inferences from scripture as

v), whereas clarity or was the true path. Further, the mission-

ary priest and polemicist Richard Broughton was to describe visibility itself

-31, 32-34). This accepted, the role of the church was then to give comfort, and to offer a clear dissemination of the truth. It provided clarity and resolution to the un-

tainty and doub v). The language of comfort and sure ground is

again prevalent here. In his early responses to Luther, Thomas More had

2010: 181, 183, 195). Percy would repeat an argument on the Roman Church we may securely follow her directions and rest in her Judgement

signs (B 1632: 30-31). It is remark-able that both equivocation and invisibility would lead their detractors back

and authority: the minister Henry Bur St Augus-

on the point of visibility, rather than collective enquiry, Catholics rested on

church, as a requirement to faith and a preventative against heresy (N 1621:

little children which may be seduced by me[n] from the manifest clearnes of ble, Protestant line was both hidden and

And again, just as Catholics asserted evident truth in the face of the equiv-

ocation controversy, in this later exchange Protestant writers were torn be-



tween holding ground and offering their own language of safety and reas-surance, through logical constructs aimed at proving consistent doctrine, or in attempts at producing their own demonstrable succession. Whilst some, like Featley and the Scottish preacher Patrick Forbes (1613: 138), tried to use old, reasoned methods to push back against the visibility argument (suggest-

lingering reply was to present a visible Protestant alternative through the early church and those hidden sects that had escaped Catholic corruptions. The true church, clear to God and the elect, was set aside from visible insti-tutions, but was also traced by an increasing number of divines through a revised history (Milton 1995: 278-281; Questier 1996: 31-35).

Though there were differences in emphasis (and outright disagreements) over these methods, it can be argued that they took aim at a consistent target: the concerns of the audience. For some divines, the hidden church of the elect and the visible remnant reinforced one another, as the ideal and the promise, within the assumed and asserted logical cohesion of Protestantism: Catholic visibility, in this synthesis, was simply another, more powerful form of deception; a distraction from the true, doctrinal hierarchy found elsewhere (see Featley 1624: B3v-B4r, C3v, D4r, S2*v-T*r). In attempting to combine these approaches, arguing that Protestant visibility since Christ was demon-strated by correct doctrine, Humphrey Lynde (1629: 241-242) maintained

fears and accusations of dangerous uncertainty, and this model was con-trasted against a Catholic Church that was but a human manipulation of the word of God: a deception, dangerously open to error (Milton 1995: 297; Questier 1996: 25). The same intent can be seen in the opening up of the Protestant succession from the later 1620s (Milton 1995: 306-308). In the judgment of the Catholic Broughton, this effort to construct a visible succes-sion for the reformed church was itself a construct, made because the Protestants found their concept of invisibility in his own words

time the Jesuit Percy still maintained that visibility was the most plausible and best help to the unlearned (C 1623: 27, 61, 63). This conflict and concurrence of language and approaches speaks to the need for tangible certainty experi-enced on all sides. Absolutes, pillars, were being put forward.

At the heart of these claims and counter-claims was the seemingly inextri-cable link between clear, attainable truth and divine authority. As Schreiner (2010: 165, 200) argues, the comfort Catholics located in the visible church

& mer-

66 JOSHUA RODDA


During the equivocation controversy, Persons (1607: 299) downplayed the significance of the

positions, that helped Catholic writers to

strayed into the sin of a lie. God could neither deceive nor be deceived. But, of course, the distance between deception and the divine was cited ad infini-tum on the other side of the equivocation debate: Thomas Sanderson (1611:

how I cannot but detest your popish equivocation, and mentall reservation? which is nothing else but flat lying & hypocrisie In a sermon of 1616, printed two years later, John Squire (1618: 7-8) cited Proverbs 12:22, and tied equiv-

he cannot lye; God is not, he cannot be deceived. Therefore the highest com-mendation of a g without equivocation or men-

over the infallible guarantor of truth and the reliable ground of reassurance; in-struction to the audience as to whither they should turn.

Assertions such as these were matched by the connections drawn between invisibility and deceit, uncertainty and doubt, and the threat of the devil. To

- -master of s 1613: 71,

and see Huntley 1964: 393, 397). In a sermon preached before King James, and printed in 1608, the young clergyman Thomas Walkington (1608: 47)

equivocation: for this pr

doe inchaunt, and captivate the spirituall eare Plain speaking, natural rea-son, knowledge and divine truth are wrapped up together here; part of one contingent, Christian mode of expression. Equivocation transcends the wit of

Devils -17): it denies clarity and reason, denies the example of Christ, and is cause for doubt and distrust.

noted by Persons (1609: 108, and see Carrafiello 1993: 671) as a frequent response from Morton. To Samuel Harsnett (1603: 164), equivocation was a



equated by Catholics with the doubt and discomfort that would result from invisibility (Schreiner 2010: 35, 277, 302).

This has been an early, exploratory effort. Schreiner (2010: 204) draws

tainable certainty, visibility and tangible evidence in opposition to deceit and doubt, can be seen in other doctrinal points. Persons (1607: 317) finds equiv-ocation in the Protestant interpretation of hoc est corpus meum an interpreta-

signification, which -72) and Peter

Lily (1619: 22-23) both saw the fallacy in the Catholic doctrine of justification. The point to be made here, however, is that we must continue to reconsider how we use the foundational language of polemic, in order to get the most from such efforts in this case, to understand how they worked to govern the anxieties of their readership, and of the audience gained through printed or vocal delivery. Attainable certai Christian Directory of 1582 is cited by Questier (1996: 37-39) as a prime instrument of persuasion because it was a departure from polemic and controversy, moving the reader through the language of a good life; but this work too had chap-ters inserted, in the 1585 edition, on points of Christian certainty (at the ca-

v-d2r)

Plausibility, clasent from the controversial field; and indeed, it may be said that the true,

posits (1996: 37) than the intricacies of doctrinal argument would lead us to assume. We need to recognize that below these circuitries of doctrine, there were more fundamental stances and actions being pursued the clarity and availability of these works is matched by an accessibility in method and lan-guage (Questier, 1996: 13-14). As a result, the readers are not an unreachable body, disconnected from the arguments produced. In fact, the greater part of post-Reformation polemic was directed to their needs. The principal Cath-olic defence on equivocation was reserved meaning and identity in the face of incompetent judges. For Protestants, in the matter of the church, meaning and identity are further reserved: they are restricted to the elect, and to be sought in scripture. The Protestant position is that no judge is competent but God; the Catholic is that only God needs hear a whole, absolute truth.

But where did these doctrines, both of them founded in persecution (Houliston 2007: 170), leave their readership? Quite simply, in need of reas-surance. In need of fair dealing from their fellow man; a full hearing, natural reason, and scriptural proof. Or in need of security, guidance; somewhere tangible to put their faith. In a culture still dominated by the visual, a polity

68 JOSHUA RODDA


increasingly terrified by the spectre of duplicity, and a society not yet emerged from the anxieties of material subsistence, neither side was likely to win converts by proclaiming the abstract and the unattainable: the invisible was necessarily a cause for unease. Our focus in studying religious contro-versy thus needs to shift from the cyclical deconstruction of opposing doc-trines, which indeed left very little in its path, to the construction of some-thing positive, that a mixed readership could hold onto. The persistent focus of polemicists on clarity, visibility and evidence can open this area up. At the least, it questions our assumption that the best instrument in controversial writing was the evidence of things not seen. Bibliography Anon (1851) A Treatise against Lying and Fraudulent Dissimulation. In

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DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0005


CATHOLIC COMMUNITIES AND KINSHIP NETWORKS

OF THE ELIZABETHAN MIDLANDS

LAURA VERNER*

ABSTRACT. An integral method of keeping a non-conforming community functioning is the construction and up keep of networks, as this web of connections provided security and protec-tion with other non-conformists against the persecuting authorities. The non-conforming Cath-olic community of Elizabethan England (1558-1603) established various networks within Eng-land and abroad. This article is based on research that examines the network of Catholics in the Elizabethan Midlands in order to understand both its effectiveness and the relationship of the local and extended Catholic community with one another. The construction, function and result of these networks will be surveyed over several categories of networks, such as local, under-ground, clerical and exile. Members of the Midland Catholic community travelled to others areas of the British Isles and Europe to gather spiritual and material support for their faith, sent their children abroad for religious education, and resettled abroad creating in this wake a larger and complex international network. The main objective of this exercise is to show the dynamic and function of the network, and understand the impact it had at the local level for Midland Catho-lics. KEY WORDS: Network, Patronage, Community, Catholic, Midlands Introduction In post-Reformation England, Catholic gentry and laity employed networks to alleviate the consequences of the Religious Settlement against non-con-formists. When the Catholic Church structure collapsed with the Refor-mation, the formation and maintenance of a network of family, friends and patronage sustained the church. This network was significant for its role in keeping Catholics connected with one another, and for the patronage rela-tionships that allowed Catholics to exercise some power and authority at both the local and national levels. Essentially, the network became a substitute for a parish church and community.

The Catholic community used kin and family networks along with neigh-bours and patrons as a means to maintain their religious non-conformity.

* LAURA VERNER (MPhil 2011, University of Hong Kong) is a third year doctoral stu-

dent jointl he University of Hong Kong, researching post-Reformation Catholicism in the Elizabethan Midlands.

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This is prominent and obvious among gentry and noble families, though ev-idence is less clear about the methods employed by non-gentry laity to in-clude themselves in the network or as clients. For the gentry, however, in-volvement in the network is clearer. They used the network not only for pro-tection but also as a means to continue in the socio-political role to which they were accustomed before the Reformation. Thus, Catholic networks are an interesting and important model of research, as they were a customary aspect of early modern society that continued throughout the Reformation, espe-

Religious Settlement in England, Catholics continued the practice of utilising networks of friends, community and patron-client relationships. In this way, English Catholics of the Midlands were able to exercise power and prestige within their own communities and at times in the larger local or national framework.

Various levels of the Catholic network overlapped each other, but none were independent of the others. Indeed, at times it appears that the network was not fuelled primarily by religion, but dependant upon kin and commu-nity as well. Also, scholars of English Catholicism now suggest that the subject matter of networks must be understood with a broad geography, not only within the British Isles, as English Catholicism was not insular. While some Midland Catholics did travel abroad, the full extent of a wider European net-work and community is outside the scope of this research, though mention will be made of several Midland Catholics who chose to leave their local com-munity for short or longer periods of time, and some attention will be paid to links with exile communities in the Netherlands and France (Gibbons 2006: 496).

The goal of this article is to explore the dynamic and function of the Cath-olic network of kinship and patronage to understand the impact it had at the local level. It is especially interesting to understand how some Midland Cath-olics used the network to demonstrate non-violent political resistance. There was no unanimity among Catholics in the encouragement of violent tactics against the queen and government. Small pockets of aggressive Catholics, including some from the Midlands, flocked together to support foreign Cath-olic forces such as Spain, and thanks to these militants other Catholics of a non-threatening nature were sometimes imagined to be a formidable force. Many paid dearly for it.

Opposed to the militant minority, the majority of Catholics hoped that by conforming to the demands of the state, showing loyalty to the crown and disregarding violence, they would eventually distance themselves from their more extreme co-religionists (Edwards 2002: 74-75). When this is shown alongside the well-known anecdotes of Catholic militant defiance, it becomes clear that sixteenth century Catholics were not a unified band of brothers.

Catholic Communities and Kinship Networks of the Elizabethan Midlands 75


After all, one cannot research early modern Midland Catholicism without stumbling over the Gunpowder Plot, the exemplar of Catholic frustration. But with the addition of the predominantly loyal Catholic community, we can understand the network as it evolved without direction incorporating the entire community.

Impact at the Local Level In August 1580 Ralph Sheldon, a Worcestershire Catholic, was summoned to appear before the Privy Council. Standing at his side and also under sus-picion was a Midland Catholic cohort made up of his friends and relatives: the Lords Paget, Compton and Vaux, and Sirs Thomas Tresham, William Catesby, John Arundel, and Thomas Throckmorton (APC xii: 166, 254, 301-302). Sheldon was questioned about his religion, and his agreement in Janu-ary 1581 to outwardly conform to the Religious Settlement was expedient.

He was then released from the Marshalsea, as he had court connections,

influence through business and land holding was considerable. Sheldon was believed to have been above political disloyalty by the Privy Council, despite the fact that he maintained, by purposefully cultivating Catholic relation-ships, a Catholic network. Neither embarrassed nor disheartened, he lived a public life that included high-ranking connections of both Catholics and protestants. Sheldon, in contrast with more anti-protestant recusants, gives a

-inent Catholic acquaintances, was in a politically sensitive situation, and he and his friends manoeuvred within the circumstances using various methods.

Although Sheldon promised on his release form prison in 1581 that he

formed outwardly, as he was accused of being a recusant for the rest of his

ing interrogations regarding his involvement in the Somerville Plot of 1583 (SP 12/164, f.141; CRS Misc. II 1906: 27; CRS Misc. IV 1907: 5). In 1585

usancy, but in a Star Chamber court session, Sheldon claimed that he was not ashamed of his beliefs and that he was as good a man as any (STAC 5/R12/34; STAC 5/S15/38; STAC 5/R41/32). In 1587 he was examined by the Grand Jury of Worcestershire and indicted. In this instance Bishop Whitgift gave surety for his conformity (SP 12/206, f.175).

These brushes with the law seem minor when compared with the accusa-tion in 1594 that he may have, or was at least willing to, finance a plot against

liams and Edmund York, both soldiers in the army based in the Netherlands,

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and Henry Young. They claimed that Sheldon and William Allen shared cor-respondence, and had planned to put William Stanley, Earl of Derby, who

(SP 12/249, f.217). It is possible that Sheldon escaped penalty through the patronage of Christopher Hatton, who claimed he had seen Sheldon at church in London, along with others in his network such as Mr Thimbelby (possibly his son-in-law), and Thomas Throckmorton. Young confessed that

don appeared infrequently in records, and kept himself from trouble. The peace in which he spent the last decade of his life may have come from the patronage of Robert Cecil, whom Sheldon thanked in 1603 for support (HMC Hatfield, XV: 60).

For Elizabethan recusants, family and kinship groups were the first thread woven into the network. From there the network becomes more complex, and also more difficult to trace. Theoretically speaking, there are two broad types of networks, relational and functional. A relational network can be con-spirative, made within an institution such as a prison or university, between

a writer and printer, the exiled community, and finally female networks, since it was frequently women who harboured priests. Functional networks were more abstract, but could be created through the delivery of letters, po-litical resistance, direct financial support, the underground community, ad-visors, propaganda and recommendations of contact. Examples of the above classes of networks will be made for the Midlands below.

Rather than being confined to isolated pockets of Catholics within a parish or county, a network enabled interaction, straightforward or indirect, with other Catholics in neighbouring counties, different social circles, or even abroad. Most of the networks that were relevant to Midland Catholics were informal, such as kin, neighbours and friends, although there were also for-mal associations possible through business, education and local government, since Catholics remained active members of society. These informal networks played a crucial role in maintaining the Catholic community, and gave non-

, the Bishop of Worcester wrote to Robert Cecil about the impact that powerful local Catholic families had had in the area:

I have viewed the state of Worcester diocese, and find it, as may somewhat appear by the particulars here enclosed, for the quantity as dangerous as any place that I know. In that small circuit there are nine score recusants of note, besides retainers, wanderers, and secret larkers, dispersed in forty several parishes, and six score



and ten households, whereof about forty are families of gentlemen that themselves or their wives refrain the church, and many of them not only of good wealth but of great alliance, as the Windsors, Talbots, Throgmortons, Abingtons and others, and in either respect, if they may have their forth, able to prevail much with the simpler sort (Bilson 1596: 265).

Bilson was evidently aware that the network had given strength to the com-munity:

How weak ordinary authority is to do any good on either sort long experience hath taught me, excommunication being the only bridle the law yieldeth to a bishop, and either side utterly despising that course of correction, as men that gladly and of their own accord refuse the communion of the church both in sac-raments and prayers (Bilson 1596: 265).

Looking at the Catholic community through the angle of networks skews our natural sense of community as geographically defined, as an entity that can be placed physically in a specific area (Corens 2102: 122). A parish map of Warwickshire created from the data extracted from a of recusants in 1592 shows where known recusants, recusant priests and con-formed recusants lived in the county according to parish (SP 12/243, f.202). With this evidence, it seems that the natural landscape had an impact on the preservation of Catholicism in Warwickshire, and perhaps the network along with it. Most pockets of Catholics in Warwickshire lived either in the Forest of Arden, a forest that was dense and lacked easily traversable roads, or near the borders of Oxfordshire and Worcestershire, counties known for their conservatism and networks of missionary priests. Near the border of Worces-tershire, more than thirty Catholics lived in the parish of Tanworth in 1592.

The landscape may have offered religious sanctuary to some of the Cath-olic community. That some natural factor, such as landscape, impacted the survival of Catholicism by physically protecting the community and therefore hindering the efforts of the state is extraordinarily significant. Vincent Burke has found a similar phenomenon in Elizabethan Worcestershire, but this may be unique to only some Midland counties (Burke 1972: 4). Indeed, Wendy

shire, where, while recusants lived on the border of Monmouthshire, many lived in parishes around the city of Hereford.1

The creation of the network resulted in more than protection it built a sustainable medium for intellectual and polemical debate, especially with the gentry families and clergy. This could include links with seminaries and con-vents on the continent, where Midland Catholics sent their children for reli-

1 I am grateful to Wendy Brogden for this information.

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mem-

leading up to The Gunpowder Plot. This makes the important argument that there was no single point of view among Catholics, and that variation and indeed disagreement were common, and had to be negotiated within Catho-lic networks. For example, Robert Brookesby of Shoby sat in Parliament for

the 1570s he had been absent from reformed services so frequently as to draw the suspicion of Edmund Scambler, Bishop of Peterborough (Hasler 1981: 488). He was reported to the Privy Council as an absentee in 1577, and in 1581 Scambler was of the opinion that Brokesby was a committed Catholic (Hasler 1981: 488). This spread from parishes to counties, and into Europe among the exiled community. Indeed the network makes little sense unless it could cross county and even national boundaries, as the Midland network did.

Local networks were naturally small and had some geographical limits; at the same time, however, these networks could offer protection to Catholics in counties not their own and further afield than the Midlands. We know that Midland Catholics were able to rely on the network and avoid being fined and imprisoned because they were often recorded as absent from their home when authorities came in search of them. If possible, individuals and families would cross parish boundaries in order to be absent when searches in their home parish took place. In this case, it seems that most Midland Catholics resorted to other Midland counties, or parishes within their own county, but there are records of others venturing further afield.

Alternatively, Lancashire recusant William Blundell sought protection in the Midland county of Staffordshire, so there was certainly fluidity within the national community (Sena 2000: 58; LCRO f.202v). In 1592, Warwickshire commissioners recorded Thomas Stonley of Kinbury, Warwickshire, who was living with Samuel Marrowe of Berkeswell in the same county, and George Harris of Hales Owen, Worcestershire, had left his home to live in Solihull, Warwickshire. The commissioners wrote that both men were very poor and unable to cover the cost of their imprisonment, neither did they have friends who were able to bear the responsibility of either the cost, or to find them a home in a reformed household (SP 12/243, f.202). Lady Philipa Gifford of Sheldon, Warwickshire, claimed to have reformed herself, and to attend ser-vice in Buckinghamshire. No one in Sheldon could confirm this, so the com-missioner was forced to find proof elsewhere. Her servant, John Grisham, was also presented for recusancy, but the commissioner recorded that since he was at times in Sheldon and other at his own parish of Oldnall, he was only able to confirm that Grisham went to reformed services once or twice (SP 12.243, f.202).



There are numerous examples of this practice of evasion recorded in 1592. John Keeling, a servant to John Wyse of Coleshill, Warwickshire, left the county for an unknown destination. Thomas Blunte and his wife, who was previously been presented in Idlycote, were found not there in 1592.

Francis Hollyoak, alias William Francis, of Hampton in Arden, could not be found. James and Richard Bishop of Brailes had left the parish for the conti-nent, and the commissioners recorded they were believed to have joined a seminary, like their brother William. Robert Whateley, an old Marian priest, could sometimes be found in Henley in Arden, though the commissioners could not find him. Young Walter Chetuynde of Grendon, Warwickshire, was found in Staffordshire, whereas his neighbour Roger Wall had gone to Shropshire. Henry and Judith Freeman of Tamworth fled to Ireland, and Eleanor Brookesby was not found in Tanworth, Warwickshire, but in Leices-tershire, where her husband was from (SP 12/243, f.202). The east-Midlands experienced a similar practice. Eusbie Isham, the sheriff of Northampton in 1585, wrote to Walsingham:

I haue travelled vnto these places w[i]th certaine Iustices next adioyninge to haue manifested the effect of her ma[jes]ties pleasure but divers of them were not at home nor w[i]thin the Countie as by examination and searche yt dothe appeare:

]th whom I haue had conference aboute the same and as we suppose there was not any suche at any time dwelling in the said countie (SP 12/183, f.143).

While Catholicism was forced to become hidden and domesticated, it re-mained unabated, which must have been especially unnerving for John Whit-gift, bishop of Worcester from 1577-1583. concern, unlike other Midland bishops such as Thomas Bentham, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield from 1560-1579, whose frustrations with his clergy stunted his efforts for conformity. It could not have escaped Whitgift that powerful Catholic families could provide support and protection to the con-servative laity, in addition to Marian priests in the area. His main fortification against the spread of Catholicism was to ensure that the clergy were reformed and that they preached frequently against Catholicism and conservatism (Sheils 2004: 721).

This style was probably the most efficient means to the desired end of a reformed diocese, and Whitgift had the most success in so doing of all the bishops who held jurisdiction over Worcester diocese. In the 1580s, as a re-sult of the activities of the Jesuits and seminary priests, an appreciably stricter stance resulted in regard to recusancy. Suspicion was heightened, as were fines and prosecution. In the diocese of Worcester, Whitgift initiated changes

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in several stages, such as the Bishop meeting with notable recusants, subse-quent arrests, and heightened prosecution (Gilbert 1991: 19). Steadfast pock-ets remained, however, and it is possible that these smaller groups were forced to strengthen their inter-parish network.

We ought not to view this as proof that any Catholic engaged in the net-work, or even in the network of political resistance, was therefore open to violent and forceful action on part of the Catholic cause. Rather, Catholics could demonstrate peaceful political resistance by opposing policies and harsh enforcement of the anti-Catholic laws. In the Midlands, this was illus-trated especially by the previously mentioned Thomas Tresham, who had a reputation in Northamptonshire as a lay Catholic leader. Tresham demon-strated an awareness of national politics, so he differs from the model of rec-usant political and social isolation. For example, in 1581, the Spanish ambas-sador Don Bernardino de Mendoza and Sir Thomas Tresham were discuss-ing ways to re-establish Catholicism in Engla h him that I dealAlthough Thomas Tresham is a prisoner, I am in constant communication with him by means of priests

Many of the terms we use to categorise English Catholics, such as papist, recusant, conservative, non-conformist, church papist and Romish, refer to inclinations and trends, not to a qualitative classification of a group or com-munity. With strict terms as our guiding approach, it is difficult to see and understand the fluidity of Catholicism and the Catholic community with their protestant counterparts. Catholics defined boundaries, but they also fitted in with the wider community in social, cultural and political contexts (Shagan 2009: 15-16). For example, the social importance of Catholic families can be seen in marriage matches that may seem peculiar; Mary Throckmorton, daughter of Sir George and Katherine Throckmorton, married Sir John Hubaud, Constible of Kenilworth, in 1564. Hubaud was High Steward to the Earl of Leicester, and sources seem to show that his religion was never doubted. the parish of Spernall in Warwickshire around 1588, which indicates a con-tinuing connection between the families (Styles 1945: 172-174).

Tresham was fined heavily and imprisoned for many years during his life-time for recusancy, but he never displayed militant behaviour, and frequently begged the queen for leniency, describing himself as her humble and loyal servant. In the mid-1580s a group of Midland Catholics made an impression on national politics and the Catholic community by drawing up a sophisti-cated proposal for Catholic freedom of conscience. The petition may have been written by Tresham, and was endorsed by the Lord Vaux, Sir John Ar-undell and a layman from Rowington, William Skinner. It asked for a specific number of churches in every shire to be allotted to those who preferred Cath-olic worship, and for anti-Catholic legislation to be dropped. As a token of



their appreciation for this tolerance, each Catholic would pay a subsidy to the queen. The debate was in progress for five years, and the petition signed by many leading Catholic laymen around the country, again demonstrating an operative network of politically active Catholics (Scarisbrick 1984: 148; SP 12/167, f.54).

The fact that the layman, William Skinner, faced the brunt force of the law for his part in the petition, rather than the more prominent gentlemen of the Midlands suggests that the prominence of the gentry were a more for-midable obstacle. Job Throckmorton was commissioner for Warwickshire be-tween 1583 and 1584, and wrote to Ralph Warcupp that he had appre-hended Skinner, searched his home and examined its inhabitants as wit-

e was enough ev-idence to bring him within the statutes, as Skinner had confessed his belief that Catholics should enjoy toleration, that Mary Stuart should be the heir

men near me were well wrung, there migh happen to be wrung from them some evident matter of the service of her Majistie in the full discovery of

of Busshewood, Thomas Attwood of Rowington, Sir William the priest at Batsley, John Cooper of Rowington, and Dorothy his wife, Henry Hudsford,

A letter that was intercepted by authorities en-route to Europe described the petition as unpopular among English Catholics (CSPD, CCXVII: 238). The debate of this petition in the Commons recorded Francis Craddock of Staf-ford supporting the Act, but suggesting restraint on the clauses for family life, evidently believing that there were some areas where authorities ought not to meddle (Neale 1969: 281, 293-294).

The gentry Liggons family of Madresfield, Worcestershire, are an exam-ple of a diverse, yet integrated, Catholic family. Richard Liggons was respon-sible for the family, and he seems to have espoused a variety of social and political objectives. His younger brother, Ralph, served Mary Stuart and the Duke of Norfolk abroad from 1571, trying to garner continental support for her right to the throne. He had links with England from the continent, which suggest he was actively garnishing support for the Queen of Scots in both England and Europe (Calendar of Manuscripts at Hatfield House, HMC IX/2: 84). Another Liggons brother, Ferdinand, had expressed his wish for Elizabeth to take the throne in 1553 over her Catholic sister Mary. Another brother, Hugh, was recorded as a recusant from 1580, while yet another, Thomas, harboured priests (Williams 2001: 8-9; Beauchamp 1928: 25; SP 53/14, f.54). The eldest brother, Richard, conformed and attended reformed services. He was high sheriff of Worcester in 1574 when the Privy Council ordered that Ralph return from the Low Countries, and he was sheriff again

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in 1585 when Ralph was trying to gain foreign support for Mary Stuart (CSPD XCVIII: 1). It is unclear his siblings through political influence, but if this was his intention it proved successful.

At times people drew on the network for neither political nor conspirato-rial gains, but to support the religion of the community. Late in 1588 Wal-

ant to Wrenford, of Worcestershire, he having never been to church in his

hathat he be confined and examined, for information about Wrenford and his acquaintances (LPL MS 3470, f.97r). Thomas Throckmorton wrote from Gloucester in 1594 that his brother Anthony had been informed that many Catholics heard Mass at the home of William Myners in Herefordshire on Sundays and holy days. This information was confirmed by Lewes Watkens while attending the Council of the Marches in Gloucester, who told Sir Thomas that as many people attended Catholic Mass as reformed service at Oldfield in the parish of Garway (LPL uered [Wolverton], hath Mass in his howse ordynarilie and Seminaries: And a Sonne that hath ben at Rome and is a pridon was charged with always having priests in his house to say Mass.

Further suspicion was aroused by the fact that his sister had been to Lou-vain, though what she was doing there remains unclear. Thomas Lucy and John Har(SP 12/249, f.145). Thomas Pearsall of Eccleshall, Staffordshire,

cate his children (Cal of Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salis-bury, XVII, 1605: 642). In Aldrudge, Staffordshire, Robert Gorway was ac-

a great seducer of the people thereabouts to popery and a very bad man of life and conversation, was vehemently suspected to have in

(Cal of Manuscripts of the Most Hon. Marquis of Salisbury, XVII, 1605: 642). The network could also help Catholics even after they had been appre-

hended by the law. Anne Clarke, a widow from Herefordshire, was able to

and loyaltie towards her Ma[jes]tie and to be discharged of all perservants n of Hereford-

shire did the same: dutifully consyd[er]ing the clemency & favor of her most excellent Ma[jes]tie to-wards such as are w[it]hin the danger of penal laws for maters of conscience &

ealde to the yearly payment of fyue [five]



marks to her highness for me, to be discharged of Shyryffe pursyuannts Inform-ers & other ordinary inconueniences growing thereby (SP 12.189, f.2).

The creation of a network necessarily required loyalty to kin and community, as well as faith, but not necessarily to Catholic militancy, or indeed to all other Catholics. What Elizabeth I wanted was loyalty to herself from her Catholic subjects, but some members of her council could not accept that a Catholic could be loyal to both the state and Catholicism at the same time. The queen was naturally prepared to encourage and reward loyalty, especially among young priests she persuaded to convert who chose to serve in her new church, given the vulnerable state of her early reign (Hogge 2005: 51). Mem-

came with great sacrifice such as separation from friends and kin, and even-tually financial ruin (Hogge 2005: 51). Patronage The patron-client relationship among Catholic recusants and the conforming protestant community has not received as much research as it deserves. Susan Cogan laments this, but also leads the research in the field of patronage as a form of networking. How patronage relationships were constructed and

researched for the Midlands. Catholic men and women employed patronage relationships in order to manoeuvre through politically rocky ground. Women frequently used this to secure release or comfort of their imprisoned husbands Cogan 2009: 89).

Margaret Whorwood Throckmorton asked the Privy Council that her

ster in May 1590 (APC XIX: 102). Similarly, Muriel Tresham, wife of Thomas Tresham of Rushton Hall, Northamptonshire and daughter of Thomas Throckmorton of Coughton Court, acquired patronage and protection for her husband during his lengthy imprisonments in the 1580s and beyond. Muriel frequently wrote to Lord Burghley and his sons Robert and Thomas Cecil, petitioning for leniency for her husband. In March 1589 she wrote to

asking him to intercede with his father to allow her request (HMC various iii: 109; BL Add MS 39828, f.137). Apart from his health, Banbury was also much closer to his home in Northamptonshire than Ely.

In May 1589 Anne Catesby petitioned her patron, Archbishop Whitgift, much in the same way, asking that her husband be allowed leave from prison

1599 Muriel Tresham appealed for support from her patrons: this time she wrote to Lady Egerton to ask if her husband, Viscount Brackley, who was at

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that time Lord Chancellor, might help Thomas Tresham, who was then im-prisoned over a disputed debt rather than recusancy BL Add MS 39829, f.35, 36). Lady Egerton was born Alice Spencer and raised at Althrop, Northamp-tonshire, eighteen miles from Rushton. It seems that Muriel was making use of a local network of her protestant peers. Muriel Tresham used the network, but also added to it by reaching out to protestant neighbours and patrons.

From the archive of her letters held at the British Library, Muriel Tresham seems to have been one of the most industrious women in the Cath-olic and recusant patronage network, though it should be kept in mind that her letters have been preserved while others may have been lost or destroyed (Cogan 2009: 89). As demonstrated above, Muriel regularly wrote to diverse men and women to appeal for assistance and support of her often-impris-oned husband. What is less clear is who the mouthpiece of the letters was, as

if he was in prison, as is clear from the Tresham Papers held at the British o garnering patronage

was to have both husband and wife cast a wide net by contacting various pa-trons.

her network of patrons, especially Robert Cecil (Cogan 2009: 89). Maintain-ing patronage associations became all the more imperative once a recusant woman was widowed, as her legal standing as widow rather than wife was different. As a widow, a recusant woman could be lawfully accountable for non-attendance at Sunday services. Muriel Tresham wrote to Robert Cecil in March 1609 to protest how she was dealt with by John Lambech, proctor of Northampton. Muriel complained that regardless of her frail age, the proctor

dig

more an attempt to appropriate her lands for his own gain (SP 14/144, f.100; Cogan 1009: 90).

Sir Christopher Hatton, who acquired for William an allowance through By 1582, however,

dor Mendoza, and William fled to France, where he remained until the

had not gone unnoticed by Thomas Tresham, who wrote to Hatton that Wil-liam ought to be grateful:

that of a thrall prisoner delivered him a freed subject, that of a countryman pro-cured him a settled courtier; that of a person disgraced restored him into her



our; yea, that bestowed on him forth of your coffers your own office of a pensioners room (HMV various lii: 23).

Robert Brooksby, father to Edward who married Eleanor Vaux of Har-rowden, maintained a patron-client association with the protestant and Puri-tan Hastings family, the heads of which were the third and fourth earls of Huntingdon (Cogan 2009: 90). This, along with Margaret Whorwood and

would not necessarily discourage a protestant patron from offering support.

was well founded. The endeavours of Midland Catholics to establish and con-serve independent and household capital allowed them to participate in a network of patronage that enabled them to manoeuvre through the anti-Catholic legislations (Cogan 2009: 90).

Patron-client relationships could reinforce existing kinship ties. Sir Rich-ard Verney was petitioned for patronage by Elizabeth Vaux, who held ward-sit lye in my powar thowgh it be with the hassard of my estate I will requite

tioned Sir Henry Goodere, their kinsman, in the early seventeenth century to assist them in regaining possession of family lands that the crown had confiscated in 1583, 1603- benefits could trickle

his clientage with the Cecil family. When Thomas Tresham petitioned to the queen and Privy Council for tolerance in the interests of Midland Catholics, he put himself in the position of patron to all Midland Catholics. He wrote to Burghley in 1588:

[I] mosy humblye beseech [you] be ever sheltered under your honourable pr [family is] dewlie bound reverence your hono[u]r, not onlie a most excellent magistrate of his common wealthe, but as a special Patron of me in what I esteeme dearest (SP 12/219, f.138).

Women Recusant women, with their lower social status, faced different punishment than their male recusant counterparts, which ironically could work to their advantage. Married women, who were without legal autonomy, could there-fore enjoy a certain amount of anonymity in consequence of their status. The Elizabethan Settlement required each individual, including women, to attend the Book of Common Prayer service on Sundays and holy days. The penalty for failing to do so, initially a fine of 12d, was handled by the Justices of the

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Peace, as proxy for the Privy Council, but also by the Ecclesiastical Commis-sion. Thus, both civil and church authorities were involved in the suppression of recusancy, even though a recusant could be punished for an offence only by one court (Bowler 1965: xii). Lists of those who refused to attend church were eventually recorded into the Exchequer, first into the Pipe Rolls in 1581, and then into a new category created especially for non-conformists, the Recusant Rolls in 1593.

Single women widows and a few independent unmarried women are frequently recorded in these lists, and could potentially hold positions of

estate at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire at just twenty years of age, and kept this position until Sir George married. Elizabeth had been raised protestant,

events such as poor health and her unwillingness to marry eventually per-suaded her to enter a convent, and she became an Augustinian nun at St

er 1596 (Walker 2004). Married women who recused themselves from church services are absent

from these particular lists, as they had few legal rights outside the marital confines, whereas unmarried adult women and widows were legally respon-sible for their own actions and therefore could be punished for recusancy with indictments, fines and imprisonment (Rowlands 1985: 150) Married rec-usant women caused consternation among authorities and could not easily be punished by normal means. On the one hand, a husband was not respon-sible for the criminal acts of his wife, but on the other, society revolved around the conviction that the enforcement of proper religious behaviour within the family was the task of the patriarch (Rowlands 1995: 150).

Within female netwand seems to have strengthened the religious aspect of the network, but also worked independently from it in a social context. In 1557 Lady Anne Neville chose to live with her daughter Agnes Brudenelle after the death of her sec-ond husband, Sir Anthony Neville, at the Brudenelle estate of Deene. Agnes and her husband Edmund quarrelled over religion, she a protestant and he at least sympathetic to conservative religion. Anne Topcliffe Brundenell, Ag-

ousin and sister-in-

strates the fluidity of women within the networks (Wake 1953: 71). Similarly, Muriel Tresham retained a relationship with her Throckmor-

ton sisters, her natal daughters and her daughter-in-law, Anne Tufton. Like her husband as a prominent lay Catholic leader, Muriel seems to have nur-tured a maternal network among Catholic women (Wake 1953: 105). Even after Catholic movement was restricted in 1593, Catholic women managed



tained bonds, even though they were separated geographically after mar-riage. The Tresham sisters Lady Elizabeth Monteagle and Catherine Webb called on their sister Lady Francis Staunton in 1601 (HMVC: 110-111; Cogan 2012: 133). The Tresham and Vaux women would have had little difficulty sustaining their own network, considering the closeness of the family homes: it was about ten miles between Rushton and Deene (Cogan 2012: 133). This type of close familial network also offered protection to women in need. For

-aunt Clemence retreated to Rushton after she was displaced as a nun at Syon Abbey, and she remained there until her death in 1567 (Butler 1974: 91-93; Bainbridge 2010: 102). Mary Arden moved back to her family home of Coughton Court at some point following the execution of her husband, Edward Arden in 1583 (SP 12/243, f.202).

A clause aimed at controlling recusant wives was not initiated until 1581,

. 1 1581). This Act finally put the respon-sibility of controlling recusant wives into the hands of the county JPs (Bossy 1976: 154; Rowlands 1985: 151). There was still little that could legally be done against them, however. Wives could be indicted and convicted, but still could not be fined, nor made to forfeit lands or possessions, since they legally

his death, a recusant widow could have two-thirds of her jointure seized, and the Recusant Rolls of 1593/94 record sixty such seizures among 450 (Row-lands 1985: 152; Bowler 1970: xxxiv). While this punishment must have been perceived as harsh, fines could not be a means of suppressing religious non-conformity, and this was clear to the Council (Rowlands 1985: 152).

The evidence in both the civil and ecclesiastical records implies that recu-sant women were frequently evading authorities for punishment. Mrs Han-corne retreated from her parish in Warwickshire when she was meant to be presented, while Margaret Attwood of Rowington moved from parish to par-ish in the same county (Hodgetts 1965: 31). Authorities heard in 1592 that Bridget Strange of Gloucestershire had not been to church in three decades, and when she heard that pursuivants were coming to search her Warwick-shire house she left with the altar vessels and vestments she kept for Masses

not have the desired effect on recusant women, for a further Act was created in 1586, attempting to clarify the 1581 procedures against Recusants (28 Eliz., c. 5 1586).

Why authorities could not resolve the problem of recusant women, for they evidently knew of their influence, is unclear, but may be based in the social tradition of the family hierarchy. By the early 1590s it was obvious even

88 LAURA VERNER


to the most senior administrators, for example Lord Burghley, that the influ-

193). For example, Thomas Tresham was a prolific letter writer, even while he was under house arrest in London. He sent letter drafts up to Lady Tresham in Northamptonshire, and she copied and sent the full letter to the intended recipient. Many of these are still kept with the Tresham Papers in the British Library. During house arrest, the women really took the reins of the family and kept the network alive by writing these letters and petitions.

While Catholic women attempted to evade authorities, the shape of the network is most visible when they ran into trouble from the law. Shortly after the Throckmorton Plot, pursuivants raided Throckmorton House in London while Mass was being said. Because of this we know that Margery Throck-morton was in attendance along with other women such as her daughters Mary and Anne, and her daughter-in-law Francis (SP 12/167, f.144). In sim-

ing Muriel and her daughters Mary, Elizabeth daughter-in-law Anne, hurried to petition patrons who could protect Francis Tresham for his involvement in the rebellion (SP 14/216, f.141). Perhaps the

aarea within and without the Midlands, after the Gunpowder Plot on 1605. This included the radical families of Beaumont of Leicestershire, Catesbys of Warwickshire, Digbys of Rutland, Treshams of Northamptonshire, and the Wintours of Worcestershire (Cogan 2012: 137).

Eventually, by the early 1590s, local authorities were being ordered to in-dict and imprison recusant women, especially women of higher social stand-ing. In the Midlands six gentlewomen in Northamptonshire were arrested (CSPD CCXI: 108). The Privy Council wrote to the Archbishop of Canterbury

e practiced (APC XI 1592-3: 9). Notable women such as Margaret Throckmorton were

the Dean of Gloucester (APC XXIV 1592-3: 279-280). Similarly, Lady Con-stance Foljambe, of Tupton Derbyshire, was put into the care of her grand-son, Godfrey Foljambe, in 1587 (LPL MS 3204, f.121).

release would have, and wrote a letter to the Earl of Shrewsbury, who seems to hhave on the members of the community who had been attending Sunday services since her incarceration (LPL MS 710, f.19). She seems to have been



months later, though he retained . She was keen upon her release to conform and retain her freedom, as an entry in a commonplace book written by Roger Columbell makes this interesting note:

Mem. Godfrey Foljambe of More Hall, myself, my brother Blunt were at Tupton

th September, 1589, when all he morning prayers, saving the ij lessons omitted for want of a byble and the collect for the day for want of skyll to find out, was distinctly read with the Latinne also by Nicholas Harding; hir man servant, and Elianor Harrington, hir waytinge woman being present, who reverently and obediently behaved themselves during all the service tyme (BL Add MS 6702, f.20).

Free women also ventured inside prisons to help and comfort incarcerated recusants and priests. Inquiries into Dorothy Pauncefoot of Hasfield Glouces-tershire showed that:

she hath daily access and Recourse unto such as do lye in prison for recusancye; and so hath used of longe tyme And them dothe maynteyne, and of them doth Receaue newes and desclotheth the same to them that conveyeth the lyke beyond seas (SP 12/230, f.61).

Dorothy had herself been imprisoned at Newgate in 1585 for recusancy, and her husband, John, had fled to Rouen. She was believed to support a network of letter carriers between Gloucester and France, and to be acquainted with Thomas Alfield, a seminary priest from Gloucestershire, who was imprisoned at Newgate between 1582 and 1585, ending with his execution (SP12/167, f.81).

The names and positions of recusant women are not difficult to trace, es-pecially of unmarried or widowed recusants, for they appear in commission-

ble is evidence of the network created and maintained by recusant women, either as spiritual guides within the home, priest harbourers, or exiled nuns.

religious network has recently been appreciated by Su-san Cogan, who argued that it was in their capacity to construct networks of protection with other Catholic families, specifically for the protection and benefit of their male relations who would feel the blunt force of the law for non-conformity. Cogan admits that this role of recusant women has been overlooked in post-Reformation scholarship, despite its relevance (Cogan 2009: 70). Perhaps an exception to this is the plentiful research on Margaret Clitherow, and her role among Elizabethan Catholics, during her life and after her death.

90 LAURA VERNER


The most obvious, and arguably most influential, aspect in which recusant women involved themselves in the maintenance of the network was through the harbouring of missionary priests. This illegal activity was often taken up by women, and a statute of 1585 stated that all who harboured a Jesuit or missionary priest, male or female, had committed a capital felony (27 Eliz., c. 2 1585). Catholic hagiography of the period was engrossed with female priest harbourers: William Weston and John Gerard write at length of them, and women martyrs, such as Margaret Clitherow and Anne Line, had early hagi-ographical accounts written about them leading up to Catholic Emancipa-tion. The two most famous priest harbourers were undoubtedly Anne Vaux and Eleanor Brookesby, daughters of the Lord Vaux of Harrowden, North-amptonshire.

The pair used their wealth to rent property in the Midlands, such as Bad-desley Clinton in Warwickshire, and White Webbs, in Enfield Chase, closer to London. In doing so, the sisters provided safe houses for missionary priests and members of the recusant community, but their involvement in the com-munity and network went beyond offering protection. Anne was at Coughton Court leading up to the Gunpowder Plot, and organised the Midland pil-grimage to Holywell, Wales, earlier in the year. A theory that it was Anne Vaux who wrote the Monteagle Letter, alerting King James and the Privy Council to the threat, was based on a supposed similarity between her own handwriting and the disguised handwriting of the letter. Historians generally agree that this theory lacks credibility (Nichols 1991: 214).2 Clerical Networks The network of Catholic priests was a link between and overlapping with other parts of the network. The establishment of a clerical network allowed Catholic families with access to a priest to practice a religion that was more elaborate than simply receiving rites and sacraments. The importance of the network between clergy and family cannot be overlooked, for priests were frequently travelling within England and abroad, and could potentially have connections with Catholics of various forms of social standing, and even in-carcerated Catholics. Thomas More, a Marian priest, was still roaming Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Warwickshire, and Herefordshire in 1582 (SP 12/154, f.46).

Of course this is not peculiar to the Midlands; similar occurrences took place in Lancashire, an area with a higher proportion of Catholics, and as well as in Sussex, where there were less non-conformists (Sena 2000: 57). The religious experience of Midland Catholics was in many ways similar to those

2 Seeing as much research has been devoted to Anne Vaux and Eleanor Brookesby, their

inclusion in this paper will end here.



olics a sense of shared identity. Certain experiences, such as imprisonment, fines, religious rather than political persecution, and a comparison with the persecuted early Christians, were similarly recorded throughout the country, and it was the network that kept the polemical debate organised among the community (Sena 2000: 57).

Priests frequently lived in or visited Catholic gentry houses, and so these gentry families and perhaps their network and servants had frequent ac-cess to the celebration of mass and the other sacraments (Rowlands 1985: 165). In 1584, Lady Throckmorton, wife of Sir John Throckmorton and mother of the recently executed Francis Throckmorton, had enough reli-gious support from various recusant priests that she was able to send one away to Rome. His

w[hich] the said morgan [the priest] tould the said Throckm[or] P 12/173/1, f.40). Ralph

Topcliff wrote to the Earl of Shrewsbury in 1590, and after a dose of flattery begged the Earl to open his eyes to the network of priests who supported the Catholic community in Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire:

Let me remember yo[re] Lo: that yo[u] are a prynce alone (in effect) in too cuntrees in the hart of England more danngeroosly infected than the worst of England of my knowledge: There and every where els Badd weeds will seeke to shrowde them selfs vnder great Oaks whose pollicees (I trust) yo[re] Lo will

an not hyde where they receave com-forthe, nether will God suffer the practices of the wicked to lye hidden as laytly hathe [burst?] ovt the lewde dispocitions of that danndgeroos familye of the fytzharberts in y[is] countree (LPL MS 3199, f.215v).

Priests were viewed as especially untrustworthy because of their foreign con-nections, and thus any information that could be collected of them engaging in conspiracies was sought by authorities. Even so, older members of these families must have felt detached from medieval Catholicism. It seems that

reasonable to assume that the celebration of holy days, devotion at nearby wells and relics, and pilgrimages were reduced, even among gentry families who had a significant network within the Midland counties. Conclusion We ought not to view the above as proof that any Catholic engaged in the network, or even in the network of political resistance, was therefore open to

92 LAURA VERNER


violent and forceful action on part of the Catholic cause. Rather, Catholics could demonstrate peaceful political resistance by opposing policies and harsh enforcement of the anti-Catholic laws. The picture of county Catholi-cism that emerges from this study is not one of isolation, either self imposed by the Catholics themselves or politically imposed onto them. Studies have shown that early modern people were connected with numerous groups of people at any particular time; groups which could change over the course of years (Shepard and Withington 2000: 5).

Thermodel of community, as it was constantly in flux and was naturally changea-ble among individuals, counties and with time. Catholics were not confined to the appendixes of their religion with sacraments, fasts and feasts, nor were they forced underground or into obscurity. They used, through the network, subtle but effective methods of political resistance, and the fact that the au-thorities sought to infiltrate the network with their own agents is proof of its effectiveness.

This paper has shown, from this rather broad and theoretical view of Mid-land Catholic networks, is that not all Catholics, nor all recusants, can be lumped together in the same political category. We should view Elizabethan Catholics more as how they viewed themselves: as members of a wider Eng-lish community, and generally with pliable convictions within their Catholic faith. Catholics practiced strategies that assimilated themselves within the larger community. They may have seen themselves as persecuted against, but the evidence does not suggest that they saw themselves as anything but inte-grated members of English society. Bibliography Manuscript Sources 1. Original Sources i. British Library Add MS 6702 Add MS 39828 Add MS 39829 ii. Lambeth Palace Library, London MS 710 Shrewesbury Papers

MS 3199 Talbot Papers MS 3204 Talbot Papers MS 3470 Letters and papers on ecclesiastical affairs, 16th-17th cents.



iii. The National Archives, Kew, London CSPD Secretaries of State: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Elizabeth I CSPS Secretaries of State: Calendar of State Papers, Spanish, Elizabeth I

SP 12 Secretaries of State: State Papers Domestic, Elizabeth I SP 14 Secretaries of State: State Papers Domestic, James I STAC 5 Court of Star Chamber, Elizabeth I

2. Printed Sources 23 Eliz., c. 1 (1581) 27 Eliz., c. 2 (1585) 28 Eliz., c. 5 (1586) Acts of the Privy Council of England, Eliz. Bowler H (1965) Recusant Roll 2, 1593-4, Catholic Record Society, volume 57. Calendar of Manuscripts at Hatfield House, HMC IX/2. Calendar of the manuscripts of the most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury,

XVII, 1605. Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) various Historical Manuscripts Commission (HMC) Hatfield Petti, AG (1968) Recusant Documents from Ellesmere Manuscripts, volume

60. Pollen, JH (1906) The Memoirs of Father Robert Parsons, Catholic Record So-

ciety Misc. volume 4. Secondary Works Bainbridge V (2010) Syon Abbey: Women and Learning, c. 1415-1600. In

Jones E and Walsham A (eds) religion, c. 1400-1700. Suffolk: The Boydell Press.

Beauchamp WL (1928) The Madresfield Monuments. Worcester. Bossy J (1976) The English Catholic Community 1570-1850, New York, NY: Ox-

ford University Press. Burke V (1972) Catholic Recusancy in Elizabethan Worcestershire. MA Thesis,

University of Birmingham, UK. Butler A (1974) Clemence Tresham of Rushton and Syon. Northamptonshire

Past and Present 5: 91-93. Cogan S (2009) Reputation, Credit, and Patronage: Throckmorton Men and

Women, c. 1560-1620. In Marshall P and Geoffrey S (eds) Catholic Gentry in English Society: the Throckmortons of Coughton Court from Reformation to Emancipation. Farnham: Ashgate.

Cogan S (2012) Catholic Gentry, Family Networks and Patronage in the English Midlands. PhD Thesis, University of Colorado, USA.

Corens L (2012) Sermons, Sodalities, and Saints: the Role of Religious Houses for the English Expatriate Community. In De Maeyer J, Mangion

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C, and Suenens K (eds) Female Religious across the North Sea. Monastic Inter-actions between the British Isles and the Low Countries. Trajecta: 21.

Edwards F (2002) Plots and Plotters in the Reign of Elizabeth I. Dublin: Four Courts Press.

Finch M (1956) The Wealth of Five Northamptonshire Families, 1540-1640. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press.

Gibbons K (2011) English Catholic Exiles in Late Sixteenth Century Paris. Suffolk: The Boydell Press.

Gilbert CD (1991) Catholics in the Diocese of Worcester, 1580-1. Midland Catholic History 1: 19-27.

Hasler PW (1981) The House of Commons, 1558-1603 volume 1. History of Par-liament Trust.

Hodgetts M (1965) A Certificate of Warwickshire Recusants, 1592: Part I, Worcester Recusant 5: 18-44.

Hogge A (2005) Forbodden Priests and the Hatching of the Gunpowder Plot. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

Lake P and Questier M (2011) The Trials of Margaret ClitherowPersecution, Mar-tyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England. London: Blooms-bury.

Mush J (1849) Life and Death of Margaret Clitherow, the Martyr of York. Richard-son.

Neale JE (1969) Elizabeth I and her Parliaments volume 2: 1584-1601. London: Jonathan Cape.

Nichols M (1991) Investigating the Gunpowder Plot. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Questier M (2006) Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage and Religion, c. 1550-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rowlands M (1985) Recusant Women 1560-1640. In Mary Prior (ed), Women in English Society 1500-1800. London: Methuen, pp. 149-180.

Scarisbrick J (1984) The Reformation of the English People. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers.

Sena M (2000) William Blundell and the Catholic dissent in post-Reformation England. In Shepard A and Withington P (eds) Communities in Early Mod-ern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 54-76.

Shagan E (2009) Catholics and the Protestant Nation: Politics and Identity in Early Modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Sheils W (2004) Whitgift, John (1530/31(?)-1604). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography 58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 721.

Shepard A and Withington P (2000) Communities in Early Modern England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.



Styles P (1945) Spernall, in A History of the County of Warwick: volume 3, Barlichway Hundred, Victoria County History pp. 172-174; http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol3/pp172-174, accessed 9 March 2015.

Wake J (1953) The Brudenells of Deene. London: Carriel and Company. Walker C (2004) Shirley, Elizabeth (1564/5-1641). Oxford Dictionary of National

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DOI 10.1515/perc-2015-0006


POLEMICS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF

INFANT BAPTISM IN THE EARLY RESTORATION

JONATHAN WARREN*

University of Texas

ABSTRACT. The English Civil War brought an end to government censorship of nonconformist texts. The resulting exegetical and hermeneutical battles waged over baptism among paedobap-tists and Baptists continued well into the Restoration period. A survey of the post-Restoration polemical literature rfeature of these tracts. Dissenting paedobaptists believed that Baptists would inevitably become Quakers, despising baptism altogether, and that the resulting social instability would allow the tyranny of Roman Catholicism to reemerge in England. Baptists for their part compared the tyranny of paedobaptist argumentation to the tyranny exercised by Roman Catholics. Anti-Quakeriana and Anti- polemical warfare; 2) the exegesis of biblical texts underlying infant baptism revealed contrary understandings of how the bible fit together as a whole. Baptists tended to read Old and New Testaments disjunctively, whereas paedobaptists saw continuity absent explicit abrogation; 3) scholastic theology contin-ued to undergird the arguments of all parties. Especially relevant to this discussion was debate

of baptism. Here exegetical and hermeneutical disputes were also relevant. This study reveals that patterns of reading Scripture in each community were in-

was bound to be unavailing. KEY WORDS: Restoration, Baptism, Paedobaptists, Baptists, Exegesis

equate justification. Moderate Puritan nonconformists routinely excoriated Baptists and Quakers, but their opposition to the salvific efficacy of the sac-raments seemed to undermine their own practice of infant baptism. As Thomas Bedford, a leading Puritan advocate of baptismal regeneration, put

-Bap-tism, when they can show us no good that cometh by it? (Bedford 1638: 92). Debates between Baptists and paedobaptists convulsed the country from the lifting of censorship in the early 1640s until the Restoration. Paul Lim notes

* JONATHAN WARREN (PhD 2014, Vanderbilt University) is a campus minister within

the InterVarsity Texas Christian Scholars Network at the University of Texas at Austin. Email: jwarren4@ gmail.com.

98 JONATHAN WARREN


that the London bookseller George Thomason collected over 125 tracts writ-ten between 1642-ers, however, the debates did not cease with the Restoration. The writings of the Particular Baptists, especially those of Henry Danvers, and General Bap-tists, especially Thomas Grantham, provided renewed vigor to the debate.

The polemical, exegetical, and doctrinal context of these post-Restoration debates over baptism among Dissenters will be evaluated thematically below. The following themes emerge in the literature: first, each side, paedobaptist and anti-paedobaptist, polemically imaged the other as giving rise to mon-strous distortions of true Christianity. In the case of paedobaptists, the Bap-tists represented a slippery slope to Arminianism, Quakerism and finally to Ranterism and Familism and so to civil disorder and chaos. By no means was this a new argument: as Paul Lim has indicated, it was commonly made in the 1640s as well. The Presbyterians had early on established the theme:

-Presbyterianism, then all hell will break loose! (Lim 2012: 90). The paedobaptists of Presbyterian and Independent leanings followed suit in making this charge in the 1670s and 1680s. Likewise, the Baptists ex-coriated paedobaptists for failing to be fully Protestant and allowing Popery in through the back door. As Henry Dan hey] separate from Rome as the false Church, and yet own their Baptisme(Danvers 1673: 258).

Secondly, there were three key exegetical foci of the debate: the meaning of the Abrahamic covenant in Genesis 17, the meaning of hagia in 1 Corinthi-

about these three exegetical touch points informed much of the debate be-tween paedobaptists and Baptists. There was in addition a corresponding hermeneutical dispute about how to read the antitype to circumcision in the Old Testament and its connection to the Covenant of Grace. For most pae-dobaptists, this was the dispositive i f God hath now since Christ is come, nulled and repealed this Covenant with Abraham and his Seed, I say, if this can be infallibly proved, the controversie between

1688: 7). In particular, although all the paedobaptists and Baptists believed in a regulative use of Scripture, such that one had to have a warrant for eve-

saw between circumcision and baptism meant that they were looking for an he

typological reading of Scripture. Thirdly, there was a corresponding philosophical issue. These divines,

disconnected though many of them were from the intellectual life of London,

99


Oxford, and Cambridge, were still steeped in the vocabulary of Protestant

Church of England had different answers to these questions, but Dissenting

ter of baptism in paedobaptist terms from the Baptist matter an interesting

ducted was a different matter, with different biblical metaphors undergirding the paedobaptist and the Baptist answers to the question. Of Quakerism, Popery, and the Slippery Slope In 1676, George Fox dashed off a broadside in which he thundered against externals in worship:

So see and examine, if this hath not been your own Condition, like the Jews: For your several sorts of Crossing and Sprinklings, and Washings with outward Water, that is used in Christendom by the Priests, which they call Baptism, doth not bring

Baptism with his Spirit doth (Fox 1676: 7).

All Protestantism had an iconoclastic edge to it, concerned as it was in its in-ception that certain traditions, doctrines, and practices were unfaithful to the apostolic witness in Scripture. The key lay in determining just how much iconoclasm was consistent with civic order and a certain degree of hierarchy in the offices of the church.

Almost everyone agreed that Quakers were the chief fomenters of public disorder with their putative rejection of the authority of Scripture and their curiously Ranter-

-Quaker pamphlet urged (Anonymous 1674: 14). Their rejection of all external forms in worship, and in particular the

ly

mous 1674: 40). And so the most effective way for moderate Dissenters to

Quakerism and to the breakdown of society. The charge usually revolved

their hearts were schismatic, so they were instable and incapable of submission to just authority and so would inevitably destroy order alto-gether. Antinomianism and spiritual despair usually followed the foray into Anabaptism according to paedobaptists. Giles Firmin, a Restoration Presby-

eard among them besides these: out of whose Hive the Quakers

100 JONATHAN WARREN


greater part, is well known: going from Gospel Light to Natural Light, and

Interchangeable with the Quakers in the polemical literature were the Muenster and Leyden rebels. In the imagination of most Protestants, these were Anabaptists whose enthusiasm had reached new heights in their apoca-lyptic language, conquest of cities, and institution of polygamy, abolition of private property, and other evils. A whole range of apocryphal stories about the Anabaptists emerged from the pens of the Presbyterian and Independent pugilists. Henry Danvers, the Particular Baptist, chastised the exaggeration

Edwards in his Gangraene be to be believed (which it may be other Nations do that have got it) what Monsters of Men hath he represented the Independents and Anabaptists to be: Or Mr. Baxter himself to be credited in that horrid Calumney of the Anabaptists, Baptizing naked

What unnatural Brutes would they be esteemed? (Dan-vers 1673: 325).

It was easy enough for moderate Dissenters to make the association of anti-paedobaptism with the other range of bizarre behaviors practiced by the Muenster and Leyden rebels, but Baptists like Henry Danvers did not do

tion. In Treatise of Baptism baptists in Germany can that justly be reflected upon the Principle, and upon the Innocent in other parts of the world, that hate and abhor all such ways and courses? (Danvers 1673: 327). The paedobaptists seized upon the fact that Danvers tried to resuscitate the memory of the Muenster radicals as a sign that he wanted the same to occur in England. Obediah Wills was only to happy to show his readers how disturbing the Ger-man Anabaptists were:

Munzer and John of Leyden, with the rest of that

Faction, though he doth pertinaciously persist against the clearest evidences, in palliating or rather denying the horrid crimes laid to their charge, and withal (very disingenuously) reflects dishonour upon those of the Reformation, I shall not be at so much expence of time and Paper as to expose his gross aberrations herein, but quietly permit him to injoy the comfort and honour of such witnesses (Wills 1675: 154).

The ultimate telos of public disorder, the Puritans as good classicists knew, was tyranny. The most proximate tyranny they could think of was Popery, and so they urged the Baptists to cease their fissiparous tendencies lest the whole nation be placed back under the yoke of Catholicism. A anonymous pamphleteer urged,

101


Shall it ever be the Character of the Non-Conformists, the more Liberty they have, the more they will Divide & break one another? If this be Non-Conformity, Lord deliver every good Christian from it. Do you long to be hurried together into Pris-ons again? Will no place Unite you, but a nasty Dungeon? Nothing Sodder you but Persecution? Oh beware, beware; the next time he may Chastise you with Fag-gots, with Scorpions, with Devils; and do not think if once you are under Hatches

(you know not how soon) be doing Pennance together in Popish Limb (Anony-mous 1674: 48).

The paedobaptists were at times willing to take some measure of responsibil-ity for the rise of Anabaptistry themselves, at least rhetorically. Giles Firmin

even good Men did not improve their Father-Abrahams-Covenant, nor their Infant-Baptism Covenantof infant baptism had lost its plausibility (Firmin 1684: 4, 6-7, 9). A pamphlet written in 1678 lamented the rise of the secof Socinians, who decry, disclaim (yea disdain) all Water-

of Infant Baptism, because they themselves have no more found (and others

(Anonymous 1678: 9, 31-2, 43). The pamphlet gave a detailed list of ways that -

1678: 23). In this more self-reflective, penitential key, the paedobaptists could acknowledge that it was in many cases a search for purity that motivated the Baptists in re-baptizing and in gathering churches.

Moreover, some paedobaptist pugilists like Richard Baxter were willing

called Anabaptists among us: The one sort are sober Godly Christians, who when they are rebaptized to satisfie their Consciences, live among us in Chris-tian love and peace [ ]. The other sort hold it unlawful to hold Communion with such as are not of their mind and way, and are schismatically trouble-

them to nothing more than to rent, and tear, and divide the Church: The Zeal for their Opinion hath and doth still prove the greatest hindrance to the

tists their convictions about how and when to administer the rite per se so long as they did not separate from lawful churches (Wills 1674: 295). Hence Wills praised the Particular Baptist John Bunyan for his willingness to commune with paedobaptists in his church, at least for the sake of putting Danvers in his place (Wills 1674: 351). Aside from these caveats, however, paedobaptists by and large were certain that it was a peculiar distemper that led Baptists to separate from the godly, and that this schismatic tendency would lead them

102 JONATHAN WARREN


to Quakerism, Ranterism, and beyond, resulting in a new Popish tyranny over the nation.

By no means, however, were the paedobaptists alone in employing slip-pery slope arguments against their opponents. Already in 1663, the General

Church of Rome could not be the true church because it lacked true baptism,

Antient Primitive or Ap Only churches which possessed the latter, namely the Baptist churches, were true churches (Grantham 1663: 41-2, 58). By 1671 he was applying these arguments to all paedobaptists, particularly Presbyterians and Congregation-alists. Although they thought they were deriving the doctrine from Scripture,

tham 1671: 61). The reason it became normative in the Popish churches was that it was

paedobaptism was at first urged, are now in a manner wholly declined, and new grounds daily invented whereon to build it, which are no sooner laid,

By hold-ing on to the practice, and by holding on to the than trine immersion, the paedobaptists opened the door to Popery. Against the Anglican apologist Edward Stillingfleet, Grantham argued that any clari-fication sought outside of Scripture in the tradition to confirm the practice of

ltogether unlike a Protestant: what are the Sacraments darkly laid down in the Scripture that we know not when and to whom they

to tradition here would be t

At times Grantham could suggest an analogy between the tyranny en-gaged in by both Presbyterians and Catholics. In one of the quaeries sent to him by Presbyterians, the interlocutor most all churches on earth, to which Grantham replied that this was exactly the same question put to Luther by the Catholics, and that the Presbyterians

6).

wicked men and Ministers in the Lords supper, and in their Parish-worship,

sinister Jesuits who said the same thing (Danvers 1675a: 195). Against the Presbyterian claims that the schism of the Baptists was aiding the Papists,

103


Paedobaptist, then come the Quakers and plead, That though they do indeed deny our Faith towards God, or the Lord Jesus Christ, as our own carnal imagination;

and urge that our separation from them is unwarrantable

Henry Danvers, writing against Richard Baxter, was willing to call him a crypto-because And that not only for the doctrine of

s 1675a: 218-19). Not

-1; Danvers 1676: 13). Both paedobaptists and Baptists, then, were willing to invoke the specter of Popery against each other. By weakening Dissenting churches, either by schism or by impurity, respectively, each side was creating the conditions within which Catholics could return to power within England and establish a new sort of tyranny. Exegetical and Hermeneutical Disputes

in extenso and by continuous exposi-

-

and Heracleon because they had failed to read the text with due subtlety and understanding. But once the problem-solving function of exegesis was rec-

gh few Reformed theologians would iden-

agree that prayerful, virtuous reading was necessary to properly understand the text of Scripture and that the meaning of particular passages was the hinge upon which controversy about paedobaptism turned.

The texts at issue in the controversy between the Baptists and the paedo-baptists were the same that informed the controversy that emerged in the 1640s: Genesis 17, 1 Corinthians 7, and Matthew 28. Both Baptists and pae-dobaptists agreed that in order for infant baptism to be licit, there had to be warrant jure divino from Scripture, but they disagreed about what that might mean. Baptists like Danvers and Grantham demanded an express dominical command for f Infants Baptism had been any Appointment or Ordinance of Jesus Christ, there would have been some Precept, Command, or Example in the Scripture to warrant the same, but in as much as the Scripture is wholly silent therein, there being not one Syllable to be found in all the New Testament about any such practice, it may well be concluded to be no Ordinance of Jesu -8; see also Grantham

104 JONATHAN WARREN


1671: 40). Paedobaptists urged, with greater subtlety, that one could make a

practice by appealing to the continuity between Old and New Testaments (see Muller 1994; Firmin 1684: 13). Obediah Wills argued, for example, that

[a] thing may be commanded in Scripture implicitly, and by good consequence; and what is thus commanded, is as valid and obliging, as if it were in so many letters and syllables; and thus we affirm Infant-Baptism commanded. There are in Scripture clear Grounds and Principles from whence by just and warrantable Consequences it may be deducted, that the Children of Believers have right to Baptism (Wills 1674: 137).

The exposition of these texts and the sense on the part of paedobaptists that baptism of the children of believing parents could be sustained as an implicit command required belief in the continuity of the covenant of grace, the meaning of the seal of baptism and the benefits conferred by it, and the ty-pological relationship between circumcision and baptism, all of which were contested by the Baptists.

Some paedobaptists on one level tried to meet Baptists on their own ground, to give them an express command for the baptism of infants, by ad-

Go ye therefore, and disciple all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost

text included infants as disciples to be baptized (Baxter 1675: 209). That in-fants Ideots having not

[a]s a mans hand or foot doth not understand by teaching, and yet is part of a Disciple Infants understand not, and yet are Infant Disciples,

as being naturally so much appertaining to their Parents, that by Gods Law the Par-ents Will goeth for theirs in consenting for their good. They are Subjects before they obey and so they are Disciples before they learn; and made such by that teaching which made their Parents such, and taught them to dedicate them to God (Baxter 1676: 18-19).

are called with him the Root and Branches going together, and they Mem-

acquired the right to baptism as disciples (Firmin 1688: 30). Other paedo-baptists like Joseph Whiston disagreed with this approach, arguing that the

tion. Paedobaptists like Whiston believed that the only availing argument was the indirect one from good and necessary consequence (Whiston 1675: 29).

105


Baptists, presupposing that discipleship required actual teaching and thus the ability to understand in the subject, easily rejected this explicit command.

tual faith they have none, for they have no acts of under-

ing to actual teaching or learning from another, then no infant ought to be

(Grantham 1674: 10-11).

catechumens, not disciples capable of baptism (Danvers 1673: 48, 108). Applying the argument from good and necessary consequence, Joseph

Whiston countered the Baptist insistence upon reasonable assent by distin-guishing between different ends of baptism, and he argued that infants were

baptizing infants on the grounds that they are incapable of some ends of bap-

-1). Baptists re-mained unconvinced because they rejec

Paedobaptists also tried to show that the Baptist rejection of an independ-

ent command for baptism was self-defeating. there is no express Command or Exam

Mary and the other and continued steadfastly in the Apostles

Doctrine and Fellowship, and breaking of Bread and Prayers, Chap. 2.42. 44.

1 Corinthians 11 also provided a warrant for women taking the Lords Sup-per. If as good a warrant for infant baptism could be adduced, he would ac-cept it (Danvers 1673: 105-6). Richard Blinman, writing under the pseudo-

there is for Objections

Command will afford you, for Womens receiving the Lords Supper, you must deduce, by way of consequence, and that very darkly too, from what you

Blinman 1674: 2, 75). The women were not expressly referred to as believers in Acts 1:14, the assembly mentioned in 2:42-4, in which the break-ing of bread is mentioned, is not the same assembly as 1:14 and does not expressly mention the women, and moreover, the gender of the Greek phrase in 2:44, pantes de hoi pisteuontes, limits the referent of those who were

106 JONATHAN WARREN


breaking bread to the men (Blinman 1674: 3-4). Likewise with other texts Danvers adduces to prove the institution explicitly. The term anthropos in 1 Corinthians 11 can have a general signification, but when paired with mas-culine nouns it referred to men (Blinman 1674: 8-9). Thus to infer that women were part of the assembly breaking bread together, one had to do so implicitly, by good and necessary consequence. By analogy, one must also allow arguments for the inference by good and necessary consequence for baptism (Blinman 1674: 76).

a sense the treatise also missed the point, which was that Baptists rejected the continuity in the covenant of grace asserted by paedobaptists between the Abrahamic and Christic administrations. When pressed to defend the prac-tice of infant baptism, paedobaptists univocally pointed to the institution of circumcision in Genesis 17 as the confirmation that the children of believing parents belonged in the covenant with their parents and so should receive

Dispensation, differs not at all from the Old; in regard of the matter or sub-jects the Church is constituted or made up of; they were then the spiritual seed of Abraham, 45). The argument here depended upon the continuity of the covenant of grace between the two Testaments: circumcision sealed the covenant in the Abrahamic and Israelite administrations of the covenant of grace in the same way that baptism sealed the covenant of grace in its Christic administration. As Ginances in different dispensations for the covenant of grace (Firmin 1688: 28).

The paedobaptists sought further confirmation from 1 Corinthians 7:14, which suggested that the children hagia) and which the paedobaptists interpreted as meaning that they belonged in the covenant with their parents. Obediah Wills claimed that this term did not mean regen-

elieving Parent, are holy with a holiness-relation put upon them, and separation to God, as his peculiar people, by virtue of which, they have a right to the external priv-ileges of the Covenant, whereof they are as capable as the children of the faithful Israelitesments was such that one would expect to find an express command from Christ not to baptize infants rather than a positive command for its institu-

New Testament doth give us clear Texts to prove the Church-membership of believing Parents; you cannot give us clearer Texts for their unchurching, un-less you give us express Scriptures

Henry Danvers, like Thomas Grantham, Knollys Hanserd, and other Baptists insisted that the Old Testament type did not find its fulfillment in

107


Baptism in the New Testament. They did not agree exactly on how to con-ceive of the relationship between the Abrahamic covenant and the covenant of grace under Christ, but they agreed upon a disjunction between them. For

Israelites

preceded circumcision, but it was not administered to infants as a seal of their faith, first because it was nowhere called a seal in the New Testament (it is

natural Linage, and posterity of Abraham good and bad, without any such limitation, as was put on Baptis -7, 219; see also De Laune 1677: 15-16). The disjunction was sharp, because baptism followed

reof it is a lively

to all without regard to regeneration. Moreover, there was a disjunction in the kind of sign baptism was in comparison with circumcision. Circumcision

not improper for Infants; because it left a signal impression in their flesh to be remembred all their days, but so cannot Baptisme be to any In-

tion, because just as baptized infants had to rely upon the testimony of others to do determine the meaning of that baptism, so also did circumcised infants rely on the testimony of others to know what the meaning of their circumci-sion was (Firmin 1684: 48).

There was in reality no sense osince for them the only seal in the New Testament was the Holy Spirit (Dan-vers 1673: 218, 221). Baptism was a figure or sign representing to one already regenerate the mystery of salvation that had taken place inside of him or her (De Laune 1677: 17-18). As such, there was no positive benefit to be had from an infant receiving it; it did not regenerate nor confer any grace in and of itself. The Dissenting paedobaptists, as anti-sacramentalists themselves, were uncertain about how to articulate what efficacy baptism had for the infant (see Holifield 1974: 76). They allowed that grace might be communicated through it in the case of elect infants, but this certainly did not happen in every case. Some of them talked about it as the entrance or initiatory rite into the church, but this formulation did not receive universal acceptance either. They all insisted, however, that a seal was something other than a mere sign (see, for instance, Firmin 1684: 69). On this point, Baptists and paedobaptists were deeply divided.

Although paedobaptists were ostensibly making doctrinal inferences from objective canonical exegesis, as Paul Lim has indicated analogously in the context of antitrinitarian disputes in the 1670s and 1680s, the paedobaptist

108 JONATHAN WARREN


were suspect to the paedobaptists because they were offering a novel reading of the text of Scripture, as Giles Firmin indicated in The Plea of the Children:

Christ should Promise his Spirit to the Church, and that good Spirit should suffer both his Martyrs and choice People to err in such a Point (if it be an

sense tantamount to arguing that infant baptism was probably right because it was the longstanding tradition of the church. The paedobaptists now found themselves in the uncomfortable posture of defending the tradition of bap-tizing infants against Baptists who claimed that the plain letter of the text could not sustain it.

Obediah Wills insisted that the Baptist reading was idiosyncratic and novel, and therefore represented a new kind of hermeneutical tyranny akin

have made such inquisition and search into Scripture, that they only have found what is there; what they judge to be the sence of Scripture is so, and we must all come and learn of them what may be inferred from it, what not.

By contrast, the paedobaptists con-tended, they were reading the text of Scripture according to the analogia fidei or analogy of faith, which avoided the extremes of Baptists and the Papists:

I shall readily confess, that Infant-Baptism of Inchurch-Parents, keep us upon the old bottom of that Ancient Covenant of Grace, made with Abraham, and his Church-Seed, as well as his spiritual Seed; and that is no dishonour nor damage to us. But it keeps us not upon the old Romish Antichristian bottom; nor doth it make us symbolize with the Church of Rome, as it is now Antichristian; but the Church of Rome, as it was once Apostolique, planted and watered by the Apostles (Blinman 1674: 215).

The paedobaptists were putatively charitable in this moderate self-fashion-ing: they were willing to keep communion with Anabaptists so long as the latter would not separate, despite differences of opinion on exegesis. Giles

are the Schismatick, for I have kept Communion with a godly Anabaptist; but one tells me, that he desired Communion with one of your Churches, but

(Firmin 1684: 23). Henry Danvers insisted, in his response to Obediah Wills, by contrast, that the only way to justify the paedobaptist position was by pop-ish appeal to tradition:

109


though Mr. Wills affirms that there is such a vast difference betwixt the Church of Rome, and them, in the point of Tradition about Infants Baptisme, wherein he owns them too corrupt; yet for my part I see not, as Mr. Wills represents, the Protestant sentiments about it, where the vast difference lyes, and what reason he had to con-clude, they themselves, that hold with the Fathers herein, are so Orthodox, and the Papists so corrupt, and Heterodox (Danvers 1675c: 73; see also Danvers 1675a: 44, 46-7).

Scripture-knowledge, is

not through the gaudy portals of Philosophy, and artificial ratiocinations, but by an earnest waiting, and address to the Lord in Prayer and Scripture medita-tionat the heart of the controversy elicited rival, mutually incommensurable an-swers from the Baptists and the paedobaptists, and the defensiveness of the paedobaptists indicated the degree to which the polemical ground on paedo-baptism had shifted post-Restoration. The Matter and Form of Baptism The question of who was a fit subject for baptism could, in a sense, be an-swered identically by paedobaptists and Baptist

- were the fit sub-

jects of baptism. That paedobaptists admitted as much led to the embarrass-ing reality that Baptists could ransack paedobaptist writings for support for their own cause. This was an effective rhetorical practice, even though Obe-diah Wills c Baxter, Piscator, Perkins, Pareus, Calvin,

case alters there; for they being taken into the Covenant with their Parent, it is instead of Wills 1674: 283; see also Whiston 1676: 15; Collinges 1681: 27; Petto 1674: 263). As Wills suggests, however, paedobaptists dis-sented from the Baptists by arguing that children were accepted in the cove-nant not in virtue of themselves, but insofar as they were the seed of believing Christians. The agreement upon the question of the matter of baptism, how-ever, seemed dispositive to the Baptists. Danvers wrote that the danger of an impious person baptizing his or her children was so great that the admission that visible saints were the only fit subjects of baptism pulled up the practice

While being careful to distinguish their position from baptismal regener-

ation, paedobaptists wanted to urge that the inclusion of children within the covenant conveyed special privileges to them, such that the seal of the cove-nant should be maintained. Thomas Hooker had earlier distinguished, for

110 JONATHAN WARREN


believing parents (Hooker 1649: 78-9). Wills similarly distinguished between

of access to the gospel and membership in the visible church, but from which it was possible to fall away. Baptism might also convey special grace in some cases, but this could not be guaranteed, as many seeming Christians did in fact exhibit only temporary faith. However, this falling away was not an ar-gument in favor of adult baptism, because adult converts were just as likely to fall away as children raised in the church (Wills 1674: 188).

Although he did not share it, Wills was also willing to distinguish the bap-tismal regeneration proclaimed in the Book of Common Prayer from the Catholic teaching on baptismal regeneration for the sake of polemics (Wills 1674: 268). As a general matter, the paedobaptists found themselves in disa-greement with each other as much as with the Baptists on the question of whether baptism signified entry into the visible church or not. Whereas Hooker, Wills, and others seemed to think this a reasonable expression of what was happening, siding in this sense with the Anglican polemicists against the Baptists, Baxter and Blinman thought that this way of expressing the sense of the rite obfuscated more than illuminated and gave the Baptists an argumentative foothold more than was necessary. For them, children already belonged in the covenant prior to the baptism, and baptism sealed and sol-emnized what was already the case. According to Blinman, for instance,

The End of Baptism I conceive is not, that the Baptized Person, may orderly thereby, have an entrance into the visible Church. Nor was Circumcision of old, the visible door of Entrance into the Old-Testament-Church. For, Baptism pre-supposeth the person to be a Member of the visible Church, and so did Circumci-sion. And though some of those that are for Infant-Baptism, use such expressions; yet I suppose by their discourse in other places, they mean, that it was only a sol-emn establishment and sealing of that Covenant in which they were before (Blin-man 1674: 37; see also Baxter 1656: 73; Baxter 1675: 124-5; Lim 2004: 64-5).

Although the matter of the church was for Blinman and Baxter, as with the

s ex-diate- (Blinman 1674: 54). Baxter preferred to say

-membership con-

owned, the seal is effectual (Baxter 1675: 99). Moreover, the argument that seemed to avail with Danvers and other Baptists, that 1 Corinthians 7 did not provide a sufficient exegetical basis to baptize the infants of believers because some whose children were baptized would prove hypocrites could easily be

crites; and I heartily wish you did not. Do you certainly and infallibly know,

111


that all that are Baptized in your way, are true real Christians, and not Hyp-ocrites? Surely that cannot be kno ee also Baxter 1676: 25; Firmin 1684: 10).

The form of baptism occasioned much greater disagreement. Baptists ar-gued that the only administration of baptism that had warrant from Scripture was a trine immersion of a believing person manifesting repentance, whereas paedobaptists defended the traditional practice of ablution or washing, which

-200; Wills 1674: 242-3). The disagreement largely revolved around the question of what was signified by baptism, and both sides were able to draw upon scriptural imagery to defend their understanding. Both parties were clear that the sign must image the thing signified. For the Baptists, it was clear from Romans

the death, burial, resurrection of Christ, our death to sin, burial, and rising

that could image such a signification was immersion under the water for death, and rising again out of the water for resurrection.

resented in Baptsme, is not simply the blood of Christ, as it washeth us from

and Resurrection in the Baptized, being first buried under Water, and then rising out of it, and this is not in a bare conformity to Christ, but in a repre-sentation of a Com

signified Heart Circumcision, to those that were Circumcised, then it must also signifie Remission of sin and Justification by the Blood of Christ; and

nified cleansing from sin. As such, washing was the appropriate modality of , you

will not easily make clean work of it; and if this your similitude hold, you must not only dip the person you Baptize, but you must rinse or rub him too, to signifie his clean ee also Firmin 1684: 113).

well. Unless one baptized the person naked, one would only be baptizing the

e been baptized naked; likewise it -

Ethiopian Eunuch naked (Blinman 1674: 192, 195; see also Baxter 1676: 37). The paedobaptists, while contending for the traditionalist practice of ablu-tion, also asserted for the most part that the mode was indifferent (Petto 1687: 77). This was, of course, to a great extent moderate self-fashioning, as the

112 JONATHAN WARREN


paedobaptists had no intention of expanding or altering their practice to in-clude immersion, but they allowed that both practices were lawful to demon-

Anabaptists. Conclusion Debates over baptism in the post-Restoration era in many ways perpetuated rancorous disputes that began during the English Civil War. As Paul Lim has written about disputes over ather than the Restoration being a major rupture, thus making it little connected to the bat-tles of the 1640s and 1650s, it is clear that strikingly similar battles were rag-ing in the mid-to the fore the polemical, exegetical, and theological questions at the heart of these debates, however: the causes of societal stability and instability, the proper manner of reading Scripture canonically, and the meaning of the so-

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don. Baxter R (1656) Plain-Scripture Proof of Infants Baptism. London. Baxter R (1675) More Proofs of Infants Church Membership. London. Baxter R (1676) . London. Bedford T (1638) Treatise of the Sacraments. London. Blinman R (1674) An Essay Tending to Issue the Controversie about Infant Baptism.

London. Collinges J (1681) The Improvableness of Water Baptism. London. Danvers H (1673) Treatise of Baptism. London. Danvers H (1675a) A Second Reply. London. Danvers H (1675b) Treatise of Baptism, 3rd edition. London. Danvers H (1675c) Truth and Innocency Vindicated. London. Danvers H (1676) A Third Reply, or a Short Return to Mr. Baxters Brief Answer to

My Second Reply. London. De Laune T (1677) Truth Defended. London. Firmin G (1684) The Plea of the Children of Believing Parents. London. Firmin G (1688) Scripture-Warrant Sufficient Proof of Infant Baptism. London. Fox G (1676) Concerning the True Baptism and the False. London. Grantham T (1663) The Baptist against the Papist. London.

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Grantham T (1671) The Paedobaptists Apology for the Baptized Churches. London. Grantham T (1674) A Religious Contest. London. Grantham T (1676) The Quaeries Examined. London. Grantham T (1678) Christianismus Primitivus. London. Grantham T (1680) The Controversie about Infants Church-Membership and Bap-

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plained. London. Petto S (1687) . London. Whiston J (1675) The Right Method for the Proving Infant-Baptism. London. Whiston J (1676) Infant Baptism from Heaven and not of Men, the Second Part.

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Lim P (2004) Ecclesiology in Its Seventeenth Century Context. Leiden: EJ Brill.

Lim P (2012) Mystery Unveiled: the Crisis of the Trinity in Early Modern England. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Muller R (1994) The Covenant of Works and the Stability of Divine Law in Seventeenth Century Reformed Orthodox: A Study in the Theology of Herman Witsius and Wilhelmus à Brakel. Calvin Theological Journal 29(1): 75-101.

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Perichoresis 13.1 (2015)

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