Two Steps Back? - The Six Articles, 1539

Another post from me about the Reformation, seeing as I’m still reading about it!

Although the practical effectiveness of the Six Articles, passed through parliament in 1539, can be debated, the Articles remain significant as a dramatic shift away from growing evangelicalism in the English Church. Perhaps even more significantly, the Articles were the first major example of Henry VIII taking an aggressively active role in the religion of his country. Henry had always sought a middle way, which is evident in the balanced appointment of clerics to doctrinal discussions and committees: it was generally an equal number of conservatives and evangelicals. The Six Articles follow this trend in that they were meant to eliminate controversy, but Henry’s involvement in the theological debates, rather than merely signing the finished document, was unprecedented.

Before 1539, the reformers had gained victories under the patronage of Anne Boleyn, and later with the 10 Articles and Bishops’ Book, which, although full of compromises, were a step in the right direction. Cromwell also pushed forward with his and Cranmer’s shared goal and made sure there was an English Bible in every parish church. The extremely conservative Six Articles therefore represented a U-turn in religious policy, reaffirming the key doctrines of the Catholic Church, including transubstantiation, clerical celibacy and the necessity of auricular confession. These orthodox affirmations resulted in Bishops Latimer and Shaxton – who had spoken out viciously against the Articles in the House of Lords – resigning their sees; yet another loss for the evangelical cause.

The Articles stated that:

1. Transubstantiation was the definitive Eucharistic doctrine of the Church (though this was only implied – transubstantiation was not explicitly mentioned).
2. Lay people should not receive both parts of the Eucharist (i.e. they could take the bread but not wine).
3. Priests could not marry.
4. Vows of chastity had to be strictly observed.
5. Private masses for both the living and the dead had to be continued.
6. Auricular confession was a necessity.

The Articles took three days to pass through parliament, much to the dismay of Cromwell, who had effectively been shoved to one side by Henry’s sudden assertiveness. The parliamentary session seems to have been only a formality, as the outcome had been clear from the start, and Cromwell and Cranmer could only look on helplessly as Henry’s conservative beliefs made their mark.

For Cranmer in particular, the third article was devastating. The Archbishop had secretly married the niece of a Lutheran theologian in 1532, and the accompanying penalty was death. It was perhaps through concern for his friend that Cromwell amended the article at the last minute to include only known clerical marriages. Nevertheless, the passing of the Articles through Parliament forced Cranmer to send his wife and daughter back to Germany. Henry VIII himself doesn’t seem to have quizzed Cranmer on his marital state until 1543, but he was aware that his chaplain’s conscience was troubled by the acts: he gave Cranmer permission to miss the last day of the vote (which Cranmer refused to do) and later held a feast in the archbishop’s honour at Lambeth.

The Articles can also be seen as a clear shift in diplomatic strategy. With the support of Henry and the continental reformer, Martin Bucer, theologians had received a German Lutheran delegation at Lambeth, partly in an attempt to strengthen ties with the League of Schmalkalden. The key reason for this was the Imperial-French truce, presenting the possibility of French-Imperial-papal alliance against Henry. When the delegation refused to make enough concessions, Henry changed tactics, and seems to have favoured appeasing the Catholics instead. Although not technically foreign policy, as it was governed by England, Calais also proved to be a key stimulant: dissent was growing within the upper secular classes against Archbishop Cranmer’s more outspoken preachers there, which seems to have unnerved Henry about the speed and possible radicalism of reform. Threats from home, therefore, were more important than a possible attack from abroad, especially with the memory of the Pilgrimage of Grace weighing heavily in people’s minds.

The Articles, however, were not a complete loss for the evangelical cause. Even the point about transubstantiation was vague. The reformers at this stage, who had not yet lost their belief in the true presence in the Eucharist, could claim that the Articles still followed their own doctrine, even if the language was aggressively conservative. Cromwell also managed to delay the appointment of commissions and some of the articles either took a long time to enforce, or the initiatives were dropped. In Henry’s more happily evangelical mood following Cromwell’s fall a year later, he lifted the death penalty for married priests (no doubt with sighs of relief from Cranmer) and dropped charges on the 200 or so evangelical Londoners who had been rounded up by Bishop Bonner’s men. The changes the Articles made, therefore, were significant in what they said, rather than what they did to the English Church in practice.

V.G

'My Lord Katie'

I was scrolling back through previous articles on this blog (as you do) and, as someone who’s recently been getting really into all this Reformation stuff, E.C’s post from April on Martin Luther caught my eye. I thought I’d throw in my twopence too.
I could sit here and type out the key elements of Lutheranism (original Lutheranism, I mean – it’s changed a bit since Luther’s day) but something else caught my eye, and that was a short post I found on the women of the Reformation, featuring none other than Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora.

(Before I start, if anyone needs a quick introduction to Luther, this song by the History Teachers does the trick.)

Katharina (or Katherine) von Bora was sent by her father to a Benedictine abbey, aged just five, to receive an education, but was transferred four years later to a Cistercian chapter near Grimma, where she took her vows and became a nun in 1515.

However, Katharina’s religious life was about to be shaken up a whole lot more than merely by a change in chapter. Luther had nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, and before long, religious reform in Germany was underway. This young Cistercian nun got wind of these evangelical ideas and became dissatisfied with life in the abbey. She and eleven other nuns, having sought help from Luther and his fellow reformers beforehand, managed to escape in secrecy, hiding in a fish-filled wagon. (Also, it’s worth noting that smuggling nuns was a capital offence, so hats off to the wagon driver, Leonhard Koppe.)

Because it was against canon law for their families to take these nuns back, Luther had to find jobs or husbands for all of them. He managed that for everyone except Katharina. Determined to set an example of clerical marriage, he married the last runaway nun left.

Luther and Katharina were married at some point in 1525, which definitely raised eyebrows. He hadn’t told his friends that he had planned to marry her.

Luther being Luther, by marrying, had broken the Roman Catholic rule of clerical celebacy. Some priests had – and continued to - marry in secret (perhaps one of the most obvious examples being Thomas Cranmer in 1532) but Luther didn’t. Their original, private wedding ceremony was followed by a much more public one. This was a pretty big deal: one of Luther’s contemporaries, Philipp Melanchthon, saw it as an ‘unlucky deed’ which would bring about the downfall of the Reformation (though he might have just been miffed because he wasn’t invited to the wedding).

Katharina von Bora, painted by Lucas
Cranach the Elder, 1526

Also, as clerical marriage was almost unprecedented, Katharina effectively had to answer one big question: What were clerics’ wives supposed to do?

The answer, it turns out, was an awful lot.
It was said that Martin Luther knew next to nothing about how to run a household - presumably monks didn’t need these skills – so the task fell to his new wife. Katharina was, in essence, the perfect housewife. As well as supporting her husband in the Reformation, she managed to:

• Raise ten children (six of her own, one of her nephews and three others)
• Run the household, including looking after all those theologians and students Luther kept bringing into the house.
• Look after the gardens and livestock.
• Run the brewery. (Monasteries were allowed to brew beer, and Luther House was an old Augustinian cloister. Katharina used this to her advantage.)

Following Luther’s death in 1546, his widow fought tooth and nail for her lands, property and her family. They were a tight unit, and when Chancellor Brück was adamant that her sons should be properly educated away from home, Katharina was having none of it. Brück was eventually forced to give up, and the boys stayed where they were.

What was worse, the remaining Luthers no longer had the money to maintain their house. They were allowed to keep it, and were given money and a farm by the Elector, but with the outbreak of the Schmalkaldic War, the family had to flee. They later returned to find that their farm had been used by the two armies: the buildings had been burnt down and the animals had gone. They wound up in debt, and Katharina had to take in students from Wittenberg University to make more money.

Perhaps, in light of what other women have done, Katharina Luther doesn’t stand out as the perfect role model, or someone who deserves extra praise, but what she did was nevertheless admirable, and her influence in the Reformation regarding the argument against clerical celibacy was very significant. The Luthers were a high profile couple, and Katharina was held in high esteem by her husband, who called her ‘my lord Katie’ and ‘the boss of Zulsdorf’ (Zulsdorf being the name of their farm). Sexual freedom for the clergy was an important aspect of the Reformation, and it was Martin and Katharina Luther who led the way.

V.G

(Oh, and a final piece of trivia for you: Martin and Katharina’s line still continues today through their daughter, Margarete. One of their descendants was the German president, Paul von Hindenburg.)