Commentary: Intellectual developments
Intellectual developments, including humanist and religious thought
- · The reign of Edward VI witnessed a contest between two reforming traditions:
o The tradition of evangelical humanism associated with those who identified with the teachings of Erasmus.
o More radical forms of Protestantism.
- · Moderate humanism, though it had been weakened by the divisions of the 1530s, still exerted some influence.
o Archbishop Cranmer had been influenced by humanism.
o The 1547 injunctions required each parish church to acquire a copy of the Paraphrases of Erasmus.
o The humanist Sir John Cheke had been Edward’s tutor.
o The humanist writer Nicholas Udall received government encouragement.
o William Cecil, then junior secretary of state in Northumberland’s administration, encouraged humanist scholars at Cambridge.
o Significantly, the humanist-influenced reformers Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer were invited to work in England during Edward’s reign. Cranmer secured for Bucer a Crown appointment as Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
o Even more significantly, the great Lutheran and humanist scholar Philip Melanchthon, the leading continental moderate reformer, was invited to be Bucer’s replacement. (Melanchthon, in the middle of a bruising battle with more Lutheran opinion in Germany, seems to have taken the invitation very seriously, though Edward VI’s death in July 1553 brought this prospect to an end).
- · On the other hand, a more militant and less comprehensive approach to reform gained pace under Northumberland.
- · This was partly brought about by the strained relationship which existed between Northumberland and Cranmer.
- · Northumberland seems to have come more under the influence of the radical figure John Hooper, whom Cranmer found divisive.
- · With the move towards radical reform in 1552 and 1553 it looked as if this movement was gaining around.
- · However, the death of Edward VI destroyed both contending groups.
- · The impact of religious change during Edward VI’s short reign was profound.
- · Never before, throughout the whole of English history, had the population been subjected to so much religious change so quickly.
- · For many people the experience was disorientating.
- · Perhaps one should conclude that rather than criticising the government for dealing rather ineptly with the two major rebellions of 1549, they should be praised for implementing the policy with so little disruption.