Eric Josef Carlson

Clerical Marriage and the English Reformation

The abolition of clerical celibacy in England was, according to its first great modern student, Henry Charles Lea, “a process of far more intricacy than in any other country which adopted the Reformation.” Since Lea wrote, historians have come to accept an outline of that process. According to this standard view, it was Henry VIII, acting out of his own personal conservatism, who retained and defended mandatory celibacy in the first stage of the English Reformation. Once the king had died and his leaden foot was removed from the brake, the clergy were able to overwhelm ineffective conservative opposition in the Edwardian government and legalize clerical marriage. The gains of the Edwardian years gave way before the reaction of the Marian period, and they were not reinstated after Marys death because of the anticonnubial tastes and religious conservatism of Elizabeth I. Throughout this period, so the story goes, the clergy (a majority of them, at least) struggled for the right and privilege of marriage, only to find royal resistance (except briefly under Edward VI) impossible to overcome. This traditional outline is misleading in several respects. Elizabeth Is attitude toward the marriage of the clergy is far more complex than has been recognized. Specific regulations of such unions developed from her desire to establish an ordered church worthy of popular respect and cannot simply be ascribed to a general, almost pathological, personal distaste for marriage or quirky personal religious views.

Preaching during the English Reformation

Introduction 1. For all Christian souls 2. Pulpit men 3. Flocking companies of friars 4. The name of Jesus Bibliography.

Good Pastors or Careless Shepherds? Parish Ministers and the English Reformation

The post-Reformation English parish clergy were not pastoral failures or ‘careless shepherds’ who were forced by parishioners to change their doctrine and tactics. From the beginning, the reformed church taught an ideal of ministry that was extremely sensitive to its audience. This ideal emphasized preaching a balance of repentance and mercy and rejected divisive behaviour such as attacking individual sinners from the pulpit. Moreover, preaching was not the only activity required of godly ministers. They were also expected to be ‘good pastors’ and act as peacemakers and sources of hospitality. Divisive and unpopular ministers existed, but they can be explained by incompetence and failure to follow the norms set out by the church. This article argues that the changes in the quality of parish ministry which took place during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were affected more by the churchs attempt to spread the word about its own expectations than pressure from the laity.

Marriage and the English Reformation.

Preface. Part I: The European and English Medieval Background: 1. From Celibacy to Fecundity: The European Reformation of Marriage. 2. Church, Crown, Lordship and Marriage in Medieval England. Part II: Marriage and the English Reformers: 3. Theology, Ritual and Clerical Marriage. 4. Canon Law. 5. Extraparliamentary Pressure. Part III: 6. Marriage Law and Marriage Pressure. 7. Church Courts and English Communities. Selected Bibliography. Index.