Before The Reformation

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 17, 21 January 1939, Page 10 (Supplement)

Before The Reformation

Books In Review

JT was not only the divorce of Henry VIII. that led to the reformation in England. There were other causes. One of them ivas the excessive taxation imposed by the authorities in Rome, and the consequent impoverishment of the realm. Another was the appointing of bishops as chief officers of State. These appointments took them away from their dioceses and their spiritual duties, and made them the creatures of the king. They led, too, to abuses. One great abuse in the years prior to the reformation was that of heaping benefices on favoured minors— mere boys. Added to this was the fact that whilst there were men in the Church of outstanding scholarship as well as deep piety, there were others who were lacking both in academic and spiritual qualifications. And yet the Reformation was more—far more than -a religious movement, and it was due to more than ecclesiastical abuses. It was a political, social and economic movement. and was, to some extent, due to political and social changes that were taking place, and for which the Church was only ' partially responsible. The medieval system was breaking up in ISngland as well as elsewhere, the new learning was taking' the place of the old, and men: were becoming ..politically - minded and individualistic. These were factors in the case. They and the other factors are well brought out in a book that was recently published by MacmillanV It is the work

of Dr. H. Mavnard Smith, Canon of Gloucester, and is called "Pre-Kcforma-tion England." The two parto into which it is divide<l give a survey, more especially tlie first part, of the historical situation in the years beginning with the death in 1509 of Henry VII. on to the ye'ar 1521, when the "Assertio . Septem. Sacramentorum" was published. (It is discussed in several pages by Dr.. Maynard Smith.) The survey includes an inquiry regarding the Church and the repute in which the clergy were held, the nature of the popular religion, the superstitions that were prevalent, and

the relations between the Church and the State. It also deals with scholasticism, lollardry, the mystics, the humanists, and the growth of vernacular literature. It is all ably done, and in considerable detail, a*> well"" as with a clarity that makes the book pleasant to read. Dr. Maynard Smith corrects wrong ideas that are held about the monasteries such as that; they were the only institutions that made provision for the education of the poor, and about the clergy being in general immoral, though he admits that concubinage was practised- to a considerable extent. As he points out, however, those who did practise it were

faithful to the woman of their choice. He emphasises, too, the part the Friars played in popularising religion and ill bringing about a spiritual revolution in the popular outlook and the part Roman Catholics who were other than Friars played in bringing about the Reformation. He does not seem to have much love for Erasmus, and takes delight in drawing attention to the inconsistency of some of his strictures on the clergy, and to the want of qualification lie had for certain of the opinions he expressed. 33ut, taken altogether, he is impartial in his references to other writers, at any rate, fair. And he is open-minded, as, for example, in discussing the alleged miracles leading to canonisation. Headers will Jind the book a mine of information, and a notable addition to the books that deal with the earlier years of the sixteenth century in England, and that s'eek to show what England was then like.