of the Reformation by the new turn which modern historical research has given to the consideration of the question. Recent attempts to piece up the new results with the old views afford a warning against precipitation, and have but shown that the explanation of the successful issue of the Reformation in England is a problem less simple or obvious than many popular writers have hitherto assumed. The factors are clearly seen now to be manysometimes accidental, sometimes strongly personal-whilst aspirations after worldly commodities, though destined not to be realised for the many, were often and in the most influential quarters a stronger determinant to acquiescence or active co-operation in the movement than thirst after pure doctrine, love of the open Bible, or desire for a vernacular liturgy. The first condition for the understanding of the problem at all is the most careful and detailed examination possible of the state of popular religion during the whole of the century which witnessed the change, quite apart from the particular political methods employed to effect the transition from the public teaching of the old faith, as it was professed in the closing years of the reign of Henry VIII., and the new as it was officially practised a dozen years after Elizabeth had held the reins of power. The interest of the questions discussed in the present volume is by no means exclusively, perhaps to some persons is even by no means predominantly, a religious one. It has been insisted upon in the preceding pages that religion on the eve of the Reformation was intimately bound up with the whole social life of the people, animating it and penetrating it at every point. No one who is acquainted with the history of later centuries in England can doubt for a moment that the religion then professed presented in this respect a contrast to the older faith; or as some writers may put it, religion became restricted to what belongs to the technically "religious" sphere. But this was not confined to England, or even to Protestant countries. Everywhere, it may be said, in the centuries subsequent to the religious revolution of the sixteenth century, religion became less directly social in its action; and if the action and interference of what is now called the State in every department of social life is continually extending, this may not inaptly be said to be due to the fact that it has largely taken up the direct social work and direction from which the Church found herself perhaps compelled to recede, in order to concentrate her efforts more intensely on the promotion of more purely and strictly religious influences. It is impossible to study the available sources of information about the period immediately preceding the change without recognising that, so far from the Church being a merely effete or corrupt agency in the commonwealth, it was an active power for popular good in a very wide sense. At any rate, whatever view we may take of the results of the Reformation, to understand rightly the conditions of religious thought and life on the eve of the religious revolution is a condition of being able really to read aright our own time and to gauge the extent to which present tendencies find their root or their justification in the past. Amberbach, printer, 146 Amyas Chantry, 354 Andronicus, 22 Basle, printing-press at, 146 Bede-roll, 295, 299 Benedict XII., 92 Benedictine Order, average of gra- duates at Oxford, 39 Benefices, 50, 94, 96, note, 311 Bequests, medieval, 343 et seq. note Berthelet, publisher, 65, note, 66, Bible, the Bishops', 218 Bible, Erasmus' translation, 148 et Bible, English, hostility to, 208; Books, heretical, prohibited, 189-191; Books, earliest printed, largely re- Bourbon, Duke of, 203 Boyer, Sebastian, Court physician, 141 Brentano, Mr., cited, 319-320 Bretton, Willam, 272, and note Brotherhoods, Parish, 305 Brygott, Richard, prior of Westacre, 41 Bucer, 189 Burials, 49 Burnet, historian, cited, 4 Bury St. Edmunds, chantries at, 360 CALENDAR of papers, domestic and Cambridge, portions of Prior Selling's Campeggio, Cardinal, 158, 159, 160 Canterbury, entertainment of Em- Caraffa, Cardinal, afterwards Paul Carmelites, origin, 104; responsi- Chalcocondylas, Demetrius, 22, 26 Chaplains, evil effects of their posi- Children, and idols, 257; religious Christianity and the classical revival, Chrysoloras, Manuel, Greek scholar, Church House, 300 Churchyards, trees and grass in, 55 Ciceroniana of Erasmus, 179 Classical revival, Erasmus on, 179; Clement, John, 34, note Mr. Cloth, clerical, State's right to legis. Cochlæus, John, 223, 224, note Commissioners, royal, 334, 338 Concubines, alleged licences for, 128 Congregation, denoting church, 153. Conscience, examinations of, 252 Constantinople, effect of fall of, 22 Contarini, Cardinal, 95, 97, note Corpus Christi, feast of, 328; proces- Council of Trent, 5, 97, note, 386 Coverdale, Myles, 91, 228 Cranmer, and the English Bible, 208, Crowley, quoted, 336 Crucifix, reverence of image of, 254- Cuthbert (Tunstall), Bishop, 194 |