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The Virgin Mary in the Reign of Mary Tudor
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
Evidence of devotion to the Virgin Mary in the restored Catholic Church of the reign of Mary Tudor survives in numerous religious texts published from 1553 to 1558. These sermons, catechetical texts, primers, and books of devotion and polemic were written to aid the restoration of early modern Catholicism in England after twenty years of religious tumult. By considering how these texts treat devotion to Mary, it is possible to answer two questions. First, was the cult of the saints in Marian England, particularly that of the Virgin, ‘one of [t]he abiding casualties of the preceding reformations’, as Ronald Hutton has argued from the few gilds and pilgrimage centres restored during this period? Secondly, does devotion to the Virgin present any clues as to the nature of the Marian Church? Did it hark back to the Church of the 1520s? Did it embrace much evangelical belief and eschew much traditional religion, as Lucy Wooding argues in her recent monograph? Or was it akin to the Catholic Reformation in Europe? In order to answer these questions, it would be useful to begin by evaluating two texts that possessed semi-official status in the Marian Church, the use and frequent printing of which were encouraged by the likes of Cardinal Pole: Bishop Edmund Bonner of London’s catechetical work, A Profitable Doctryne, and the Wayland Primer, both printed in 1555.
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References
1 Hutton, Ronald, ‘The local impact of the Tudor Reformations’, in Haigh, C., ed., The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987), 131.Google Scholar
2 Wooding, Lucy, Rethinking Catholicism in Reformation England (Oxford, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I use the term ‘evangelical’ rather than ‘Protestant’, largely because the sharp distinctions between Catholics and Protestants were only beginning to be drawn during Mary’s reign. See MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ‘Henry VIII and the early Reformation’, in idem, ed., The Reign of Henry VIII: Politics, Policy and Piety (1995), 168–9.Google Scholar
3 On the status of these works in the Marian church, see Duffy, Eamon, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580 (New Haven and London, 1992), 534–9.Google Scholar
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6 Ibid., sigs Bbb1r-Bbb2r.
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12 The Primer in Latin and Englishe (after the use of Sarum) with many Godlye and Deuoute Prayers (1555), sig. Cc2r.
13 Ibid., sigs P4V-P5V.
14 Ibid., sig. &4r.
15 Ibid., sigs G2V, A1r, C2v, G1v, 14r, H3v, L4v; Primer, sig. C7v.
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17 Ibid., 564.
18 John White, Diacosio-Martyrion id est ducentum virorum testimonium, de veritatis Corporis, et Sanguinis Christi, in Eucharistia (1553), fols 61v-62r: ‘Nulli profusae pietatis uiscera clausit. / Quam non audiuit? Quam reppulit ille piarum[?]’. ‘Prima incamati loetissima nuncia Christi / Audijt angelicis uirgununcula credula uerbis. / Prima, recens nato, lac, & cunubula, prebet. / Atque parentalem implet sollicitudine curam. / Portat, & exigui tegit hune uelime panni, / Omnia qui tegit, & retegit mortalia nutu’.
19 John Gwynneth, A Brief Declaration of the Notable Victory geuen of God to oure soueraygne Ladye Quene Marye (1553), sigs D2v, D7v; idem, A Declaracion of the State wherin all Heretikes dooe leade their Liues (1554), sigs 46v-46r [sic. recte 47r]; A Plaine and Godlye Treatise, Concernynge the Masse & Blessed Sacrament of the Aulter, for the Instruction of the Symple and Vnlearned People (?1557), sig. G3r.
20 John Angel, Agrement of the Holye Fathers and Doctors of the Churche vpon the Cheifest Articles of the Christian Religion (? 1555), fol. 91r-v.
21 Cuthbert Tunstall, Certaine Godly and Deuout Prayers. Made in Latin by… Cuthbert Tunstall, … and Translated into Englishe by Thomas Paynell (1558), sig. A6v.
22 Ibid., sigs D2r-D3r.
23 John Redman, A Compendious Treatise called the Complaint of Grace (?1556), sig. E3r.
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29 Ibid., sigs D2v, K7r-v, F7v-F8r, 18r-v.
30 Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, 563.
31 John Proctor, The Waie Home to Christ and Truth leadynge from Anticrist and Errour (1556), sig. D1v, cf. sig. A3r.
32 John Christopherson, An Exhortation to all Menne to Take Heede agaynst Rebellion (1554), sig. M1v; cf. sigs Ff5v-Ff6r.
33 Gwynneth, A Brief Declaration, sigs C6v-D4r.
34 Ibid., sigs A8v-B1v, B3V, B6v, C7v-D4r.
35 Ibid., sigs B6r-v.
36 Miles Hogarde, A Treatise declaring howe Christ by Peruerse Preachyng was Banished out of this Realme: And howe it hath pleased God to brynge Christ home againe by Mary our Moost Gracious Quene (1554), sig. A2v.
37 Idem, A new ABC paraphrasticallye applied, as the State of the Worlde dothe at this Daye require (1557), sig. B1v.
38 Leonard Stopes, An Ave Maria in Commendation of our most Uertuous Queene (1553).
39 Daniel Bennet Page, ‘Uniform and catholic: church music in the reign of Mary Tudor (1553-1558)’ (Brandeis University, PhD thesis, 1996), 342, 180-3, 208-15, 236-7.
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41 Wooding, Rethinking Catholicism, 177.
42 Regarding generational differences, Tunstall and Edgeworth were born between 1474 and 1488. Redman, Bonner, and Peryn were born about 1499-1500. White and Brooks were born between 1510 and 1512. Proctor, Christopherson, and Pollard seem to have been born about 1520. The dates of birth for Hogarde, Gwynneth, Angel, and Stopes remain uncertain.
43 Brooks, James, A Sermon very Notable, Fruicteful, and Godlie (1554), sig. E4r.Google Scholar
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