For evere shul ye lese,
And lyven as levitici, etc.”[1120]
But while the people greeted these assaults with the keenest pleasure, they were attached to the old observances, and were in no haste to see the predictions of the poet fulfilled. A little sharp persecution was sufficient to suppress all outward show of Lollardry, and there was no chance in England for the fierce revolutionary enthusiasm of the Taborites.
As the sixteenth century opened, John Colet did good work in disturbing the stagnation of the schools by his contempt for the petrified theological science of the schoolmen. His endeavor to revert to the Scriptures as the sole source of religious belief was a step in advance, while he was unsparing in his denunciations of the corruptions which were as rife in the English church as we have seen them elsewhere. Yet Colet, though at one time taxed with heretical leanings, kept carefully within the pale of orthodoxy, and seems never to have entertained the idea that the evils which he deplored were to be attacked save by a renewal of the fruitless iteration of obsolete canons.[1121] Perhaps, however, his friend and disciple, Sir Thomas More, is the best example of this frame of mind in England’s worthiest men, the besetting weakness of which made the Anglican reformation a struggle whose vicissitudes can scarce be said to have even yet reached their final development.
Before Luther had raised the standard of revolt, More keenly appreciated the derelictions of the church, and allowed his wit to satirize its vices with a freedom which showed the scantiest respect for the sanctity claimed by its hierarchy.[1122] Yet when Luther came with his heresies to sweep away all abuses, More’s gentle and tender spirit was roused to a vulgarity of vituperation which earned for him a distinguished place among the foul-mouthed polemics of the time, and which is absolutely unfit for translation.[1123] As regards ascetic observances, before the Lutheran movement, More seems to have inclined towards condemning all practices that were not in accordance with human nature, though he appears willing to admit that there may be some special sanctity, though not wisdom, in conquering nature.[1124] After the commencement of the Reformation, however, his views underwent a reaction, and he not only defended monastic vows, but he even went so far as to argue that by the recent marriages of the Saxon reformers God had manifested his signal displeasure, for in the old law true priests could be joined only to the chastest virgins, while God permitted these false pastors to take to wife none but public strumpets.[1125] If he accused Luther of sweeping away the venerable traditions of man and of God,[1126] he showed how conscientious was this rigid conservatism when he laid his head upon the block in testimony for the principal creation and bulwark of tradition—the papal supremacy.
A community thus halting between an acute perception of existing evils and a resolute determination not to remove them was exactly in the temper to render the great movement of the sixteenth century as disastrous to themselves as possible. How to meet the inevitable under such conditions was a problem which well might tax the acutest intellect, and Wolsey, whose fate it was to undertake the task, seems to have been inspired with more than his customary audacious ingenuity in seeking the solution.
Wolsey himself was no ascetic, as the popular inscription over the door of his palace—“Domus meretricium Domini Cardinalis”—sufficiently attests. A visitation of the religious houses undertaken in 1511 by Archbishop Warham had revealed all the old iniquities without calling forth any remedy beyond an admonition.[1127] In 1518, Wolsey himself had attempted a systematic reformation in his diocese of York, and had revived the ancient canons punishing concubinage among his priesthood;[1128] and in 1519 we find him applying to Leo X. for a Bull conferring special power to correct the enormities of the clergy.[1129] When, in 1523, he proposed a general visitation for the reformation of the ecclesiastical body, Fox, Bishop of Winchester, urged it as in the highest degree necessary, stating that he himself had for three years been devoting all his energies to restore discipline in his diocese, and that his efforts had been so utterly fruitless that he had abandoned all hope of any change for the better.[1130] Cranmer, indeed, in his “Confutation of Unwritten Verities,” had no hesitation to say that “within my memory, which is above thirty years, and also by the information of others that be twenty years elder than I, I could never perceive or learn that any one priest, under the pope’s kingdom, was ever punished for advoutry by his ordinary.”[1131] It may readily be believed, therefore, that Wolsey fully recognized the utter inefficiency of the worn-out weapons of discipline. Yet he was too shrewd a statesman not to foresee that reformation from within or from without must come, and, in taking the initiative, he commenced by quietly and indirectly attacking the monastic orders. As a munificent patron of letters, it was natural that he should emulate Merton and Wykeham in founding a college at Oxford; and “Cardinal’s College,” now Christ Church, became the lever with which to topple over the vast monastic system of England.
The development of the plan was characteristically insidious. By a Bull of April 3d, 1524 (confirmed by Henry, May 10th), Clement VII. authorized him to suppress the priory of St. Frediswood at Oxford, and to remove the monks for the purpose of converting it into a “Collegium Clericorum Seculorum.”[1132] This was followed by a Bull, dated August 21st of the same year, empowering him as legate to make inquisition and reformation in all religious houses throughout the kingdom, to incarcerate and punish the inmates, and to deprive them of their property and privileges, all grants or charters to the contrary notwithstanding.[1133] The real purport of this extraordinary commission is shown by the speedy issue of yet another Bull, dated September 11th, conceding to him the confiscation of monasteries to the amount of 3000 ducats annual rental, for the endowment of his college, and alleging as a reason for the measure that many establishments had not more than five or six inmates.[1134]
The affair was now fully in train, and proceeded with accelerating momentum. On the 3d of July, 1525, Henry confirmed the incorporation of the college; his letters-patent of May 1st, 1526, enumerate eighteen monasteries suppressed for its benefit, while other letters of May 10th grant seventy-one churches or rectories for its support, and yet other grants are alluded to as made in letters which have not been preserved.[1135] In 1528 these were followed by various other donations of religious houses and manors; and during the same year Wolsey founded another Cardinal’s College at Ipswich, which became a fresh source of absorption.[1136]
Had Henry VIII. entertained any preconceived design of suppressing the religious houses, his impatient temper would scarcely have allowed him to remain so long a witness of this spoliation without taking his share and carrying the matter out with his accustomed boldness and disregard of consequences. At length, however, he claimed his portion, and procured from Clement a Bull dated November 2d, 1528, conceding to him, for the benefit of the old foundations of the King’s Colleges at Cambridge and Windsor, the suppression of monasteries to the annual value of 8000 ducats.[1137] This was followed by another, a few days later, empowering Wolsey and Campeggi, co-legates in the affair of Queen Katharine’s divorce, to unite to other monasteries all those containing less than twelve inmates—thus suppressing the latter, of which the number was very large.[1138] Another Bull of the same date (November 12th) attacked the larger abbeys, which had thus far escaped. It ordered the two cardinals, under request from the king, to inquire into the propriety of suppressing the rich monasteries enjoying over 10,000 ducats per annum, for the purpose of converting them into bishoprics, on the plea that the seventeen sees of the kingdom were insufficient for the spiritual wants of the people.[1139] The report of the cardinals apparently seconded the views of Henry, for Clement granted to them, May 29th, 1529, the power of creating and arranging bishoprics at their discretion, and of sacrificing additional monasteries when necessary to provide adequate revenues.[1140] It is probable that the monks who had been unceremoniously deprived of their possessions did not in all cases submit without resistance, for the Bull of November 12th, 1528, suppressing the smaller houses, was repeated August 31st, 1529, with the suggestive addition of authority to call in the assistance of the secular arm.[1141]