The Eve of the Reformation

The contents of the first-named tract, the Pars Oculi Sacerdotis, show how very useful a manual it must have been to assist the clergy in their ministrations. It consists of three parts: the first portion forms what would now be called the praxis confessarii, a manual for instructing priests in the science of dealing with souls, and giving examples of the kind of questions that should be asked of various people, for example, of religious, secular priests, merchants, soldiers, and the like. This is followed by a detailed examination of conscience, and pious practices are suggested for the priest to recommend for the use of the faithful. For example, in order that the lives of lay people might be associated in some way with the public prayer of the church, the Divine office, the priest is advised to get his penitents to make use of the Pater and Creed, seven times a day, to correspond with the canonical hours. Those having the cure of souls are reminded that it is their duty to see that all at least know the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, and the Hail Mary by heart, and they are urged to do all in their power to inculcate devotions to our Lady, Patron Saints, and the Guardian Angels.

The second part of the Dextra Pars Oculi deals minutely and carefully with the instructions which a priest should give his people in their religion, and this includes not only points of necessary belief and Christian practice, but such matters as the proper decorum and behaviour in Church, and the cemetery, &c. The materials for these familiar instructions are arranged under thirty-one headings, and following on these are the explanations of Christian faith and practice to be made in the simple sermons the clergy were bound to give to their people quarterly. The third part, called the Sinistra Pars Oculi, is an equally careful treatise on the sacraments. The instructions on the Blessed Eucharist are excellent, and in the course of them many matters of English religious practice are touched upon and the ceremonies of the Mass are fully explained.307

It is obvious that much of the real religious instruction in pre-Reformation days, as indeed in all ages, had to be given at home by parents to their children. The daily practices by which the home life is regulated and sanctified are more efficacious in the formation of early habits of solid piety and the fear of God in the young than any religious instructions given at school or at Church. This was fully understood and insisted upon in pre-Reformation books of instruction. Such, for example, is the very purpose of Richard Whitford’s book, called A werke for Housholders, or for them that have the guyding or governance of any company, printed by Wynkyn de Worde in 1534, and again by Robert Redman in 1537. After reminding his readers that life is short, and that it is impossible for any man to know when he shall be called upon to give an account of his stewardship, he turns to the consideration of the Christian’s daily life. Begin the day well, he says; on first awakening, turn your thoughts and heart to God, “and then use by continual custom to make a cross with your thumb upon your forehead or front, whilst saying these words, In nomine Patris; and another cross upon your mouth, with these words, Et filii; and then a third cross upon your breast, saying, Et spiritus Sancti.” After suggesting a form of morning and evening prayer, and urging a daily examination of conscience, he continues: Some may object that all this is very well for religious, or people secluded from the world, “but we lie two or three sometimes together, and even in one chamber divers beds, and so many in company, that if we should use these things in the presence of our fellows some would laugh us to scorn and mock at us.” But to this objection Whitford in effect replies that at most it would be a nine days’ wonder, and people would quickly be induced to follow an example of such a good Christian practice if set with courage and firmness.308

Speaking of the duty of instructing others, “the wretch of Syon,” as Whitford constantly calls himself, urges those who can read to use their gifts for the benefit of others not so fortunate. They should get their neighbours together on holidays, he says, especially the young, and teach them the daily exercise, and in particular the “things they are bound to know or can say: that is the Paternoster, the Ave, and the Creed.” Begin early to teach those that are young, for “our English proverb saith that the young cock croweth as he doth hear and learn of the old.” Parents, above all things, he urges to look well after their children and to take care of the company they keep. Teach them to say their grace at meals. “At every meal, dinner or supper, I have advised, and do now counsel, that one person should with loud voice say thus, ‘Paternoster,’ with every petition paraphrased and explained, and the Hail Mary and Creed likewise. This manner of the Paternoster, Ave, and Creed,” he says, “I would have used and read from the book at every meal, or at least once a day with a loud voice that all the persons present may hear it.” People are bound to see that all in their house know these prayers and say them.309

Very strongly indeed does Whitford in this volume write against belief in charms and giving way to superstitions. There is no question about his strong condemnation of anything, however slight, which might savour of reliance on these external things, and as an instance of what he means, he declares that the application of a piece of bread, with a cross marked upon it, to a tooth to cure its aching, savours of superstition, as showing too great a reliance on the material cross. In the same place our author urges parents to correct their children early for any use of oaths and strong expressions. “Teach your children,” he says, “to make their additions under this form: ‘yea, father,’ ‘nay, father,’ ‘yea, mother,’ ‘nay, mother,’ and ever to avoid such things as ‘by cock and pye,’ and ‘by my hood of green,’ and such other.”310

Finally, to take but one more example of the advice given in this interesting volume to parents and others having the charge of the young, Whitford says: “Teach your children to ask a blessing every night, kneeling, before they go to rest, under this form: ‘Father, I beseech you a blessing for charity.’” If the child is too stubborn to do this, he says let it “be well whisked.” If too old to be corrected in this way, let it be set out in the middle of the dining-room and made to feed by itself, and let it be treated as one would treat one who did not deserve to consort with its fellows. Also teach the young “to ask a blessing from every bishop, abbot, and priest, and of their godfathers and godmothers also.”311

In taking a general survey of the books issued by the English presses upon the introduction of the art of printing, the inquirer can hardly fail to be struck with the number of religious, or quasi-religious, works which formed the bulk of the early printed books. This fact alone is sufficient evidence that the invention which at this period worked a veritable revolution in the intellectual life of the world, was welcomed by the ecclesiastical authorities as a valuable auxiliary in the work of instruction. In England the first presses were set up under the patronage of churchmen, and a very large proportion of the early books were actually works of instruction or volumes furnishing materials to the clergy for the familiar and simple discourses which they were accustomed to give four times a year to their people. Besides the large number of what may be regarded as professional books chiefly intended for use by the ecclesiastical body, such as missals, manuals, breviaries, and horæ, and the prymers and other prayer-books used by the laity, there was an ample supply of religious literature published in the early part of the sixteenth century. In fact, the bulk of the early printed English books were of a religious character, and as the publication of such volumes was evidently a matter of business on the part of the first English printers, it is obvious that this class of literature commanded a ready sale, and that the circulation of such books was fostered by those in authority at this period. Volumes of sermons, works of Instruction on the Creed and the Commandments, lives of the saints, and popular expositions of Scripture history, were not only produced but passed through several editions in a short space of time. The evidence, consequently, of the productions of the first English printing-presses goes to show not only that religious books were in great demand, but also that so far from discouraging the use of such works of instruction, the ecclesiastical authorities actively helped in their diffusion.

In considering the religious education of the people in the time previous to the great upheaval of the sixteenth century, some account must be taken of the village mystery plays which obviously formed no inconsiderable part in popular instruction in the great truths of religion. The inventories of parish churches and the churchwardens’ accounts which have survived show how very common a feature these religious plays formed in the parish life of the fifteenth century, and the words of the various dramas, of which we still possess copies, show how powerful a medium of teaching they would have been among the simple and unlettered villagers of Catholic England, and even to the crowds which at times thronged great cities like Coventry and Chester, to be present at the more elaborate plays acted in these traditional centres of the religious drama.

As to their popularity there can be no question. Dramatic representations of the chief events in the life of our Lord, &c., were commonly so associated with the religious purposes for which they were originally produced, that they were played on Sundays and feast days, and not infrequently in churches, church porches, and churchyards. “Spectacles, plays, and dances that are used on great feasts,” says the author of Dives et Pauper, quoted above, “as they are done principally for devotion and honest mirth, and to teach men to love God the more, are lawful if the people be not thereby hindered from God’s service, nor from hearing God’s word, and provided that in such spectacles and plays there is mingled no error against the faith of Holy Church and good living. All other plays are prohibited, both on holidays and work days (according to the law), upon which the gloss saith that the representation in plays at Christmas of Herod and the Three Kings, and other pieces of the Gospel, both then and at Easter and other times, is lawful and commendable.”

A few examples of the kind of teaching imparted in these plays will give a better idea of the purpose they served in pre-Reformation days than any description. There can be no reasonable doubt that such dramatic representations of the chief mysteries of religion and of scenes in the life of our Lord or of His saints served to impress these truths and events upon the imaginations of the audiences who witnessed them, and to make them vivid realities in a way which we, who are not living in the same religious atmosphere, find it difficult now to understand. The religious drama was the handmaid of the Church, and was intended to assist in instructing the people at large in the truths and duties of religion, just as the paintings upon the walls of the sacred buildings were designed to tell their own tale of the Bible history, and form “a book” ever open to the eyes of the unlettered children of the Church, easy to be understood, graphically setting forth events in the story of God’s dealings with men, and illustrating truths which often formed the groundwork for oral instruction in the Sunday sermon.

Whatever we may be inclined to think of these simple plays as literary works, or however we may be inclined now to smile at some of the characters and “situations,” as to the pious spirit which dictated their composition and presided over their production there can be no doubt. “In great devotion and discretion,” says the monk and chronicler, “Higden published the story of the Bible, that the simple in their own language might understand.”312

This was the motive of all these mediæval religious plays. As a popular writer upon the English drama says: “There is abundant evidence that the Romish ecclesiastics in the mystery plays, especially that part of them relating to the birth, passion, and resurrection of Christ, had the perfectly serious intention of strengthening the faith of the multitude in the fundamental doctrines of the Church, and it seems the less extraordinary that they should have resorted to this expedient when we reflect that, before the invention of printing, books had no existence for the people at large.”313

The subjects treated of in these plays were very varied, although those which were performed at the great feasts of Christmas and Easter generally had some relation to the mystery then celebrated. In fact, the mystery plays of the sacred seasons were only looked upon as helping to make men realise more deeply the great drama of the Redemption, the memory of which was perpetuated in the sequence of the great festivals of the Christian year. In such a collection as that known as the Towneley Mysteries, and published by the Surtees Society, we have examples of the subjects treated in the religious plays of the period. The collection makes no pretence to be complete, but it comprises some three and thirty plays, including such subjects as the Creation, the death of Abel, the story of Noah, the sacrifice of Isaac and other Old Testament histories, and a great number of scenes from the New Testament, such as the Annunciation, the Visitation, Cæsar Augustus, scenes from the Nativity, the Shepherds and the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, various scenes from the Passion and Crucifixion, the parable of the Talents, the story of Lazarus, &c.

Any one who will take the trouble to read these plays as they are printed in this volume cannot fail to be impressed not only with the vivid picture of the special scene in the Old or New Testament that is presented to the imagination, but by the extensive knowledge of the Bible which the production of these plays must have imparted to those who listened to them, and by the way in which, incidentally, the most important religious truths are conveyed in the crude and rugged verse. Again and again, for instance, the entire dependence of all created things upon the Providence of Almighty God is declared and illustrated. Thus, the confession of God’s Omnipotence, put into the mouth of Noah at the beginning of the play of “Noah and his Sons,” contains a profession of belief in the Holy Trinity and in the work of the three Persons: it describes the creation of the world, the fall of Lucifer, the sin of our first parents, and their expulsion from Paradise. In the story of Abraham, too, the prayer of the patriarch with which it begins:

“Adonai, thou God very,Thou hear us when to Thee we call,As Thou art He that best may,Thou art most succour and help of all,”

gives a complete résumé of the Bible history before the days of Abraham, with the purpose of showing that all things are in the hands of God, and that complete obedience is due to Him by all creatures whom He has made.

The same teaching as to the entire dependence of the Christian for all things upon God’s Providence appears in the address of the soul to its Maker in the “morality” of Mary Magdalene, printed by Mr. Sharpe from the Digby Manuscript collection of religious plays: —

“Anima:‘Sovereign Lord, I am bound to Thee;When I was nought, Thou made me thus glorious;When I perished through sin, Thou saved me;When I was in great peril, Thou kept me, Christus;When I erred, Thou reduced me, Jesus;When I was ignorant, Thou taught me truth;When I sinned, Thou corrected me thus;When I was heavy, Thou comforted me by truth (i. e. Thy mercy);When I stand in grace, Thou holdest me that tide;When I fall, Thou raisest me mightily;When I go well, Thou art my guide;When I come, Thou receivest me most lovingly;Thou hast anointed me with the oil of mercy;Thy benefits, Lord, be innumerable:Wherefore laud endless to Thee I cry;Recommending me to Thy endless power endurable.’”

The more these old plays which delighted our forefathers are examined, the more clear it becomes that, although undoubtedly unlearned and unread, the people in pre-Reformation days, with instruction such as is conveyed in these pious dramas, must have had a deeper insight into the Gospel narrative, and a more thorough knowledge of Bible history generally, not to speak of a comprehension of the great truths of religion, than the majority of men possess now in these days of boasted enlightenment. Some of the plays, as for example that representing St. Peter’s fall, exhibit a depth of genuine feeling, of humble sorrow, for instance, on the part of St. Peter, and of loving-kindness on the part of our Lord, which must have come home to the hearts as well as to the minds of the beholders. At the same time, the lesson deduced by our Saviour from the apostle’s fall, namely, the need of all learning by their own shortcomings to be merciful to the trespasses of others, must have impressed itself upon them with a force which would not easily have been forgotten.

In that most popular of all representations – that of Doomsday – “people learnt that before God there is no distinction of persons, and that each individual soul will be judged on its own merits, quite apart from any fictitious human distinctions of rank, wealth, or power.” Thus, as types, appear a saved pope, emperor, king and queen, and amongst the damned we also find a pope, emperor, king and queen, justiciar and merchant. And the words of thankfulness uttered by the Pope that has obtained his crown betrays “no self-satisfaction at the attainment of salvation; on the contrary, the true ring of Christian humility betokens a due appreciation of God’s unutterable holiness, and our unworthiness to stand before His face till the uttermost blemish left by sin has been wiped away” by the healing fires of Purgatory. No less clearly is the full doctrine of responsibility taught in the lament of the Pope, who is represented as having lost his soul by an evil life, and as being condemned to eternal punishment. The mere fact of a pope being so represented was in itself, when the Office was held in the highest regard, a lesson of the highest importance in the teaching of the true principles of holiness. In a word, these mystery plays provided a most useful means of impressing upon the minds of all the facts of Bible history, the great truths of religion, and the chief Christian virtues. The people taught in such a school and the people who delighted in such representations, as our forefathers in pre-Reformation days unquestionably did, cannot, even from this point of view alone, be regarded as ignorant of scriptural or moral teaching.

CHAPTER X

PARISH LIFE IN CATHOLIC ENGLAND

To understand the attitude of men’s minds to the ecclesiastical system on the eve of the great religious changes of the sixteenth century, some knowledge of the parochial life of Catholic England is necessary. Under present conditions, when unity has given place to diversity, and three centuries of continuous wrangling “over secret truths which most profoundly affect the heart and mind” have done much to coarsen and deaden our spiritual sense; when the religious mind of England manifests every shade of belief and unbelief without conscious reflection on the logical absurdity of the position, it is by no means easy to realise the influence of a state of affairs when all men, from the highest to the lowest, in every village and hamlet throughout the length and breadth of the land, had but one creed, worshipped their Maker in but one way, and were bound together with what most certainly were to them the real and practical ties of the Christian brotherhood. It is hardly possible to overestimate the effect of surroundings upon individual opinion, or the influence of a congenial atmosphere both on the growth and development of a spirit of religion and on the preservation of Christian morals and religious practices generally. When all, so far as religious faith is concerned, thought the same, and when all, so far as religious observance is concerned, did the same, the very atmosphere of unity was productive of that spirit of common brotherhood, which appears so plainly in the records of the period preceding the religious revolt of the sixteenth century. Those who will read below the surface and will examine for themselves into the social life of that time must admit, however much they feel bound to condemn the existing religious system, that it certainly maintained up to the very time of its overthrow a hold over the minds and hearts of the people at large, which nothing since has gained. Religion overflowed, as it were, into popular life, and helped to sanctify human interests, whilst the affection of the people was manifested in a thousand ways in regard to what we might now be inclined to consider the ecclesiastical domain. Whether for good or evil, religion in its highest and truest sense, at least as it was then understood, was to the English people as the bloom upon the choicest fruit. Whatever view may be taken as to advantage or disadvantage which came to the body politic, or to individuals, by the Reformation, it must be admitted that at least part of the price paid for the change was the destruction of the sense of corporate unity and common brotherhood, which was fostered by the religious unanimity of belief and practice in every village in the country, and which, as in the main-spring of its life, and the very central point of its being, centred in the Church with its rites and ceremonies.

A Venetian traveller at the beginning of the sixteenth century bears witness to the influence of religion upon the English people of that time. His opinion is all the more valuable, inasmuch as he appeals to the experience of his master, who was also the companion of his travels, to confirm his own impressions, and as he was fully alive to the weak points in the English character, of which he thus records his opinion: “The English are great lovers of themselves and of everything belonging to them; they think that there are no other men but themselves and no other world but England. Whenever they see a handsome foreigner they say that ‘he looks like an Englishman,’ or that ‘it is a great pity that he should not be an Englishman,’ and when they partake of any delicacy with a foreigner they ask him whether such a thing is made in his country.”314 In regard to the religious practices of the people, this intelligent foreigner says, “They all attend mass every day, and say many Paternosters in public. The women carry long rosaries in their hands, and any who can read take the Office of Our Lady with them, and with some companion recite it in Church verse by verse, in a low voice, after the manner of churchmen. On Sundays they always hear Mass in their parish church and give liberal alms, because they may not offer less than a piece of money of which fourteen are equivalent to a golden ducat. Neither do they omit any form incumbent on good Christians.”315

In these days perhaps the suggestion that the English people commonly in the early sixteenth century were present daily at morning Mass is likely to be received with caution, and classed among the strange tales proverbially told by travellers, then as now. It is, however, confirmed by another Venetian who visited England some few years later, and who asserts that every morning “at daybreak he went to Mass arm-in-arm with some English nobleman or other.”316 And, indeed, the same desire of the people to be present daily at the Sacrifice of the Mass is attested by Archbishop Cranmer when, after the change had come, he holds up to ridicule the traditional observances previously in vogue. What he specially objected to was the common practice of those who run, as he says, “from altar to altar, and from sacring, as they call it, to sacring, peeping, tooting, and gazing at that thing which the priest held up in his hands … and saying, ‘this day have I seen my Maker,’ and ‘I cannot be quiet except I see my Maker once a day.’”317

If there were no other evidence of the affection of the English people on the eve of the Reformation for their religion, that of the stone walls of the churches would be sufficient to prove the sincerity of their love. In the whole history of English architecture nothing is more remarkable than the activity in church building manifested during the later half of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth centuries. From one end of England to the other in the church walls are to be seen the evidences of thought and skill, labour and wealth, spent freely upon the sacred buildings during a period when it might not unnaturally have been thought that the civil dissensions of the Wars of the Roses, and the consequent destruction of life and property, would have been fatal to enterprise in the field of church building and church decoration and enrichment. It is not in any way an exaggeration to say that well-nigh every village church in England can show signs of this marvellous activity, whilst in many cases there is unmistakable evidence of personal care and thought in the smallest details.