The Eve of the Reformation

“Now, as touching the second point – namely, that people take the images for the saints themselves, I trust there is no man so mad, or woman either, that they do not know live men from dead stones, and a tree from flesh and bone. And when they prefer our Lady at one pilgrimage place before our Lady at another, or one rood before another, or make their invocations and vows some to the one and some to the other, I ween it easy to perceive that they mean nothing else than that our Lord and our Lady, or rather our Lord for our Lady, shows more miracles at the one than the other. They intend in their pilgrimages to visit, some one place and some another, or sometimes the place is convenient for them, or their devotion leads them; and yet (this is) not for the place, but because our Lord pleases by manifest miracles to provoke men to seek Him, or His Blessed Mother, or some Holy Saint of His, in these places more especially than in some others.”

“This thing itself proves also that they do not take the images of our Lady for herself. For if they did, how could they possibly in any wise have more mind to one of them than to the other? For they can have no more mind to our Lady than to our Lady. Moreover, if they thought that the image at Walsingham was our Lady herself then must they needs think that our Lady herself was that image. Then, if in like manner they thought that the image at Ipswich was our Lady herself, and as they must then need think that our Lady was the image at Ipswich, they must needs think that all these three things were one thing… And so by the same reason they must suppose that the image at Ipswich was the self-same image as at Walsingham. If you ask any one you take for the simplest, except a natural fool, I dare hold you a wager she will tell you ‘nay’ to this. Besides this, take the simplest fool you can find and she will tell you our Lady herself is in heaven. She will also call an image an image, and she will tell you the difference between an image of a horse and a horse in very deed. And this appears clearly whatever her words about her pilgrimage are calling, according to the common manner of speech, the image of our Lady, our Lady. As men say, ‘Go to the King’s Head for wine,’ not meaning his real head, but the sign, so she means nothing more in the image but our Lady’s image, no matter how she may call it. And if you would prove she neither takes our Lady for the image, nor the image for our Lady – talk with her about our Lady and she will tell you that our Lady was saluted by Gabriel; that our Lady fled into Egypt with Joseph; and yet in the telling she will never say that ‘our Lady of Walsingham,’ or ‘of Ipswich,’ was saluted by Gabriel, or fled into Egypt. If you would ask her whether it was ‘our Lady of Walsingham,’ or ‘our Lady of Ipswich,’ that stood by the cross at Christ’s Passion, she will, I warrant you, make answer that it was neither of them; and if you further ask her, ‘which Lady then,’ she will name you no image, but our Lady who is in heaven. And this I have proved often, and you may do so, too, when you will and shall find it true, except it be in the case of one so very a fool that God will give her leave to believe what she likes. And surely, on this point, I think in my mind that all those heretics who make as though they had found so much idolatry among the people for mistaking (the nature) of images, do but devise the fear, to have some cloak to cover their heresy, wherein they bark against the saints themselves, and when they are marked they say they only mean the wrong beliefs that women have in images.”298

As regards the third point – namely, that honour is sometimes shown to the saints and their images in “a superstitious fashion with a desire of unlawful things,” More would be ready to blame this as much as any man if it could be shown to be the case. “But I would not,” he says, “blame all things which are declared to be of this character by the new teachers. For example, to pray to St. Apollonia for the help of our teeth is no witchcraft, considering that she had her teeth pulled out for Christ’s sake. Nor is there any superstition in other suchlike things.” Still, where abuses can be shown they ought to be put down as abuses, and the difference between a lawful use and an unlawful abuse recognised. But because there may be abuses done on the Sunday, or in Lent, that is no reason why the Sunday observance, or the fast of Lent, should be swept away.299 “In like manner it would not be right that all due worship of saints and reverence of relics, and honour of saints’ images, by which good and devout folk get much merit, should be abolished and put down because people abuse” these things. “Now, as touching the evil petitions,” he continues, “though they who make them were, as I trust they are not, a great number, they are not yet so many that ask evil petitions of saints as ask them of God Himself. For whatsoever such people will ask of a good saint, they will ask of God Himself, and where as the worst point it is said, ‘that the people do idolatry in that they take the images for the saints themselves, or the rood for Christ Himself,’ – which, as I have said, I think none do; for some rood has no crucifix thereon, and they do not believe that the cross which they see was ever at Jerusalem, or that it was the holy cross itself, and much less think that the image that hangs on it is the body of Christ Himself. And though some were so mad as to think so, yet it is not ‘the people’ who do so. For a few doddering dames do not make the people.”300

It is hard to imagine any teaching about the use and abuse of images clearer than that which is contained in the foregoing passages from Sir Thomas More’s writings. The main importance of his testimony, however, is not so much this clear statement of Catholic doctrine on the nature of devotion to images, as his positive declaration that there were not such abuses, or superstitions, common among the people on the eve of the religious changes, as it suited the purpose of the early reformers to suggest, and of later writers with sectarian bias to believe.

For evidence of positive and distinct teaching on the matter of reverence to be shown to images, and on its nature and limits, we cannot do better than refer to that most popular book of instruction in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, already referred to, called Dives et Pauper, a treatise on the Ten Commandments. It was multiplied from the beginning of the fifteenth century in manuscript copies, and printed editions of it were issued from the presses of Pynson, Wynkyn de Worde, and Thomas Berthelet. These editions published by our early printers are sufficient to attest its popularity, and the importance attached to it as a book of instruction by the ecclesiastical authorities on the eve of the Reformation.

This is how the teacher lays down the general principle of loving God: “The first precept of charity is this: Thou shalt love the Lord God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, with all thy might. When He saith thou shalt love thy God with all thy heart, He excludeth all manner of idolatry that is forbidden by the first commandment; that is, that man set not his heart, nor his faith, nor his trust in any creature more than in God, or against God’s worship… God orders that thou shouldst love Him with all thy heart, that is to say, with all thy faith, in such a way that thou set all thy faith and trust in Him before all others, as in Him that is Almighty and can best help thee in thy need.” Later on, under the same heading, we are taught that: “by this commandment we are bound to worship God, who is the Father of all things, who is called the Father of mercies and God of all comfort. He is our Father, for He made us of nought: He bought us with His blood, He findeth us all that we need, and much more, He feedeth us. He is our Father by grace, for by His grace He hath made us heirs of heavenly bliss. Was there ever a father so tender of his child as God is tender of us? He is to us both father and mother, and therefore we are bound to love Him and worship Him above all things.”301

Under the first commandment the whole question as to images, and the nature of the reverence to be paid to them, is carefully considered, and the matter put so plainly, that there is no room for doubt as to the nature of the instructions given to the people in pre-Reformation days. Images, the teacher explains, are ordered for three great ends, namely: “To stir men’s minds to meditate upon the Incarnation of Christ and upon His life and passion, and upon the lives of the saints;” secondly, to move the heart to devotion and love, “for oft man is stirred more by sight than by hearing or reading;” thirdly, they “are intended to be a token and a book to the ignorant people, that they may read in images and painting as clerks read in books.”

And in reply to a question from Dives, who pretended to think that it would be difficult to read a lesson from any painting, Pauper explains his meaning in calling them “books to the unlearned.” “When thou seest the image of the crucifix,” he says, “think of Him that died on the cross for thy sins and thy sake, and thank Him for His endless charity that He would suffer so much for thee. See in images how His head was crowned with a garland of thorns till the blood burst out on every side, to destroy the great sin of pride which is most manifested in the heads of men and women. Behold, and make an end to thy pride. See in the image how His arms were spread abroad and drawn up on the tree till the veins and sinews cracked, and how His hands were nailed to the cross, and streamed with blood, to destroy the sin that Adam and Eve did with their hands when they took the apple against God’s prohibition. Also He suffered to wash away the sin of the wicked deeds and wicked works done by the hands of men and women. Behold, and make an end of thy wicked works. See how His side was opened and His heart cloven in two by the sharp spear, and how it shed blood and water, to show that if He had had more blood in His body, more He would have given for men’s love. He shed His blood to ransom our souls, and water to wash us from our sins.”

But whilst the instructor teaches the way in which the crucifix may be a book full of deep meaning to the unlearned, he is most careful to see that the true signification of the image is not misunderstood. In language which for clearness of expression and simplicity of illustration cannot be excelled, he warns Dives not to mistake the real nature of the reverence paid to the symbol of our redemption. “In this manner,” he says, “read thy book and fall down to the ground and thank thy God who would do so much for thee. Worship Him above all things – not the stock, nor the stone, nor the wood, but Him who died on the tree of the cross for thy sins and thy sake. Thou shalt kneel if thou wilt before the image, but not to the image. Thou shalt do thy worship before the image, before the thing, not to the thing; offer thy prayer before the thing, not to the thing, for it seeth thee not, heareth thee not, understandeth thee not: make thy offering, if thou wilt, before the thing, but not to the thing: make thy pilgrimage not to the thing, nor for the thing, for it may not help thee, but to Him and for Him the thing represents. For if thou do it for the thing, or to the thing, thou doest idolatry.”

This plain teaching as to the only meaning of reverence paid to images, namely, that it is relative and intended for that which the image represents, our author enforces by several examples. Just as a priest when saying mass with a book before him, bends down, holds up his hands, kneels, and performs other external signs of worship, not to the book, but to God, “so should the unlettered man use his book, that is images and paintings, not worshipping the thing, but God in heaven and the saints in their degree. All the worship which he doth before the thing, he doth, not to the thing, but to Him the thing represents.”

The image of the crucified Saviour on the altar is specially intended, our author says, to remind all that “Mass singing is a special mind-making of Christ’s passion.” For this reason, in the presence of the crucifix, the priest says “his mass, and offers up the highest prayer that Holy Church can devise for the salvation of the quick and the dead. He holds up his hands, he bows down, he kneels, and all the worship he can do, he does – more than all, he offers up the highest sacrifice and the best offering that any heart can devise – that is Christ, the Son of the God of heaven, under the form of bread and wine. All this worship the priest doth at mass before the thing – the crucifix; and I hope there is no man nor woman so ignorant that he will say that the priest singeth his mass, or maketh his prayer, or offers up the Son of God, Christ Himself, to the thing… In the same way, unlettered men should worship before the thing, making prayer before the thing, and not to the thing.”

One of the special practices of the mediæval church to which the English reformers objected, and to which they gave the epithet “superstitious,” was the honour shown to the cross on Good Friday, generally known as “the creeping to the cross.” The advocates of change in insisting upon this time-honoured ceremony being swept away, claimed that in permitting it the Church had given occasion to wrong ideas of worship in the minds of the common people, and that the reverence shown to the symbol of our redemption on that occasion amounted practically to idolatry. In view of such assertions, it is not without interest to see how Pauper in this book of simple instructions treats this matter. “On Good Friday especially,” says Dives, “men creep to the cross and worship the cross.” “That is so,” replies the instructor, “but not in the way thou meanest. The cross that we creep to and worship so highly at that time is Christ Himself, who died on the cross on that day for our sin and our sake… He is that cross, as all doctors say, to whom we pray and say, ‘Ave crux, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, thou cross, our only hope.’” But rejoins Dives, “On Palm Sunday, at the procession the priest draweth up the veil before the rood and falleth down to the ground with all the people, saying thrice thus, ‘Ave Rex noster,’ ‘Hail, be Thou our King.’ In this he worships the thing as King! Absit!” “God forbid!” replies Pauper, “he speaks not to the image that the carpenter hath made and the painter painted, unless the priest be a fool, for the stock and stone was never king. He speaketh to Him that died on the cross for us all – to Him that is King of all things… For this reason are crosses placed by the wayside, to remind folk to think of Him who died on the cross, and to worship Him above all things. And for this same reason is the cross borne before a procession, that all who follow after it or meet it should worship Him who died upon a cross as their King, their Head, their Lord and their Leader to Heaven.”

Equally clear is the author of Dives et Pauper upon the distinction between the worship to be paid to God and the honour it is lawful to give to His saints. It is, of course, frequently asserted that the English pre-Reformation church did not recognise, or at least did not inculcate, this necessary difference, and consequently tolerated, even if it did not suggest, gross errors in this matter. No one who has examined the manuals of instruction which were in use on the eve of the Reformation can possibly maintain an opinion so opposed to the only evidence available. In particular, the real distinction between the supreme worship due to God alone, and the honour, however great, to be paid to His creatures is drawn out with great care and exactness in regard to the devotion paid to our Lord’s Blessed Mother. Thus, after most carefully explaining that there are two modes of “service and worship” which differ not merely in degree, but in kind and nature, and which were then, as now, known under the terms latria and dulia, our author proceeds, “Latria is a protestation and acknowledgment of the high majesty of God; the recognition that He is sovereign goodness, sovereign wisdom, sovereign might, sovereign truth, sovereign justice; that He is the Creator and Saviour of all creatures and the end of all things; that all we have we have of Him, and that without Him we have absolutely nothing; and that without Him we can neither have nor do anything, neither we nor any other creature. This acknowledgment and protestation is made in three ways: by the heart, and by word, and by deed. We make it by the heart when we love Him as sovereign goodness; when we love Him as sovereign wisdom and truth, that may not deceive nor be deceived; when we hope in Him and trust Him as sovereign might that can best help us in need; as sovereign greatness and Lord, who may best yield us our deserts; and as sovereign Saviour, most merciful and most ready to forgive us our misdeeds… Also the acknowledgment is done in the prayer and praise of our mouths… For we must pray to Him and praise Him as sovereign might, sovereign wisdom, sovereign goodness, sovereign truth; as all-just and merciful as the Maker and Saviour of all things, &c.

“And in this manner we are not to pray to or praise any creature. Therefore, they who make their prayers and their praises before images, and say their Paternoster and their Ave Maria and other prayers and praises commonly used by holy Church, or any such, if they do it to the image, and speak to the image, they do open idolatry. Also they are not excused even if they understand not what they say, for their lights, and their other wits, and their inner wit also, showeth them well that there ought that no such prayer, praise, or worship be offered to such images, for they can neither hear them, nor see them, nor help them in their needs.”

Equally definite and explicit is another writer, just on the eve of the Reformation. William Bond, the brother of Sion, in 1531 published his large volume of instructions called The Pilgrymage of Perfeccyon, to which his contemporary, Richard Whitford, refers his readers for the fullest teaching on sundry points of faith and practice. In setting forth the distinction between an image and an idol this authority says, “Many nowadays take the Scripture wrongly, and thereby fall into heresy as Wycliffe did with his followers, and now this abominable heretic, Luther, with his adherents… And (as I suppose) the cause of their error is some of these following: – First, that they put no difference between an idol and an image; secondly, that they put no difference between the service or high adoration due to God, called in the Greek tongue latria, and the lower veneration or worship exhibited and done to the saints of God, called in Greek dulia… The veneration or worship that is done to the images (as Damascene, Basil, and St. Thomas say) rest not in them, but redound unto the thing that is represented by such images: as for example, the great ambassador or messenger of a king shall have the same reverence that the king’s own person should have if he were present. This honour is not done to this man for himself, or for his own person, but for the king’s person in whose name he cometh, and all such honour and reverence so done redoundeth to the king and resteth in him… So it is in the veneration or worshipping of the images of Christ and His saints. The honour rests not in the image, nor in the stock, nor in the stone, but in the thing that is represented thereby.” According to St. Thomas, he says the images in churches are intended to “be as books to the rude and unlearned people,” and to “stir simple souls to devotion.”302

Bond then draws out most carefully the distinction which the Church teaches as to the kinds of honour to be given to the saints. “Our lights, oblations, or Paternosters and creeds that we say before images of saints,” he says, “are as praisings of God, for His graces wrought in His saints, by whose merits we trust that our petitions shall be the sooner obtained of God… We pray to them, not as to the granters of our petitions, but as means whereby we may the sooner obtain the same.”303

Speaking specially of the reverence shown to the crucifix, our author uses the teaching of St. Thomas to explain the exact meaning of this honour. “The Church in Lent, in the Passion time,” he continues, “worships it, singing, ‘O crux ave, spes unica,’ ‘Hail, holy cross, our only hope.’ That is to be understood as ‘Hail, blessed Lord crucified, Who art our only hope’ – for all is one worship and act. Christ, our Maker and Redeemer, God and man in one person, is of duty worshipped with the high adoration only due to God, called latria. His image also, or his similitude, called the crucifix, is to be worshipped, just as the Blessed Sacrament is adored with the worship of latria.”304

To this testimony may be added that of another passage from Sir Thomas More. He was engaged in refuting the accusation made by Tyndale against the religious practices of pre-Reformation days, to which charges, unfortunately, people have given too much credence in later times. “Now of prayer, Tyndale says,” writes More, “that we think no man may pray but at church, and that (i. e. the praying before a crucifix or image) is nothing but the saying of a Paternoster to a post. (Further) that the observances and ceremonies of the Church are vain things of our own imagination, neither needful to the taming of the flesh, nor profitable to our neighbour, nor to the honour of God. These lies come in by lumps; lo! I dare say that he never heard in his life men nor women say that a man might pray only in church. Just as true is it also that men say their Paternosters to the post, by which name it pleases him of his reverent Christian mind to call the images of holy saints and our Blessed Lady, and the figure of Christ’s cross, the book of His bitter passion. Though we reverence these in honour of the things they represent, and in remembrance of Christ do creep to the cross and kiss it, and say Paternoster at it, yet we say not our Paternoster to it, but to God; and that Tyndale knows full well, but he likes to rail.”305

Finally a passage on the subject of pre-Reformation devotion to the saints and angels, from the tract Dives et Pauper, may fitly close this subject. “First,” says the author, “worship ye our Lady, mother and maid, above all, next after God, and then other saints both men and women, and then the holy angels, as God giveth the grace. Worship ye them not as God, but as our tutors, defenders and keepers, as our leaders and governors under God, as the means between us and God, who is the Father of all and most Sovereign Judge, to appease Him, and to pray for us, and to obtain us grace to do well, and for forgiveness of our misdeeds… And, dear friend, pray ye heartily to your angel, as to him that is nearest to you and hath most care of you, and is, under God, most busy to save you. And follow his governance and trust in him in all goodness, and with reverence and purity pray ye to him faithfully, make your plaints to him, and speak to him homely to be your helper, since he is your tutor and keeper assigned to you by God. Say oft that holy prayer, Angele qui meus est, &c.”

This prayer to the Guardian Angel, so highly commended, was well known to pre-Reformation Catholics. Generations of English mothers taught it to their children; it is found frequently recommended in the sermons of the fifteenth century, and confessors are charged to advise their penitents to learn and make use of it. For the benefit of those of my readers who may not know the prayer, I here give it in an English form, from a Latin version in the tract Dextra Pars Oculi, which was intended to assist confessors in the discharge of their sacred ministry —

“O angel who my guardian art,Through God’s paternal love,Defend, and shield, and rule the chargeAssigned thee from above.From vice’s stain preserve my soul,O gentle angel bright,In all my life be thou my stay,To all my steps the light.”

It is, of course, impossible here to do more than refer to the books of instruction, and those intended to furnish the priests on the eve of the Reformation with material for the familiar teaching they were bound to give their people. Such works as Walter Pagula’s Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, and the Pupilla Oculi of John de Burgo, both fourteenth-century productions, were in general use during the fifteenth century among the clergy. The frequent mention of these works in the inventories and wills of the period shows that they were in great demand, and were circulated from hand to hand, whilst an edition of the latter, printed in 1510 by Wolffgang, at the expense of an English merchant, William Bretton, attests its continued popularity. In a letter from the editor, Augustine Aggeus, to Bretton, printed on the back of the title-page, it is said that the Pupilla was printed solely with the desire that the rites and sacraments of the church might be better understood and appreciated, and to secure “that nowhere in the English Church” should there be any excuse of ignorance on those matters.306