History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540Green, John Richard
History
History of the English People, Volume III: The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540
Green, John Richard
Great Britain -- History
The introduction of the English Bible into churches gave a new opening for
the zeal of the Protestants. In spite of royal injunctions that it should
be read decently and without comment, the young zealots of the party
prided themselves on shouting it out to a circle of excited hearers during
the service of mass, and accompanied their reading with violent
expositions. Protestant maidens took the new English primer to church with
them and studied it ostentatiously during matins. Insult passed into open
violence when the Bishops' Courts were invaded and broken up by Protestant
mobs; and law and public opinion were outraged at once when priests who
favoured the new doctrines began openly to bring home wives to their
vicarages. A fiery outburst of popular discussion compensated for the
silence of the pulpits. The new Scriptures, in Henry's bitter words of
complaint, were "disputed, rimed, sung, and jangled in every tavern and
alehouse." The articles which dictated the belief of the English Church
roused a furious controversy. Above all, the Sacrament of the Mass, the
centre of the Catholic system of faith and worship, and which still
remained sacred to the bulk of Englishmen, was attacked with a scurrility
and profaneness which passes belief. The doctrine of Transubstantiation,
which was as yet recognized by law, was held up to scorn in ballads and
mystery plays. In one church a Protestant lawyer raised a dog in his hands
when the priest elevated the Host. The most sacred words of the old
worship, the words of consecration, "Hoc est corpus," were travestied into
a nickname for jugglery as "Hocus-pocus."
[Sidenote: The Six Articles]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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