In 1552 the Prayer Book was revised in a Protestant sense. Bucer had
something to do with this revision, and so did John Knox. Little was
now left of the mass, nothing of private confession or anointing the
sick. Further steps were the reform of the Canon Law and the
publication of the Forty-two Articles of Religion. These were drawn up
by Cranmer on the basis of thirteen articles agreed upon by a
conference of three English Bishops, four English doctors, and two
German missionaries, Boyneburg and Myconius, in {314} May, 1538.
Cranmer hoped to make his statement irenic; and in fact it contained
some Roman and Calvinistic elements, but in the main it was Lutheran.
Justification by faith was asserted; only two sacraments were retained.
Transubstantiation was denounced as repugnant to Scripture and private
masses as "dangerous impostures." The real presence was maintained in
a Lutheran sense: the bread was said to be the Body of Christ, and the
wine the Blood of Christ, but only after a heavenly and spiritual
manner. It was said that by Christ's ordinance the sacrament is not
reserved, carried about, lifted up, or worshipped.
A reform of the clergy was also undertaken, and was much needed. In
1551 Bishop Hooper found in his diocese of 311 clergymen, 171 could not
repeat the Ten Commandments, ten could not say the Lord's Prayer in
English, seven could not tell who was its author, and sixty-two were
absentees, chiefly because of pluralities.
The notable characteristic of the Edwardian Reformation was its
mildness. There were no Catholic martyrs. It is true that heretics
coming under the category of blasphemers or deniers of Christianity
could still be put to death by common law, and two men were actually
executed for speculations about the divinity of Christ, but such cases
were wholly exceptional.
[Sidenote: Social disorders]
The social disorders of the time, coming to a head, seemed to threaten
England with a rising of the lower classes similar to the Peasants' War
of 1525 in Germany. The events in England prove that, however much
these ebullitions might be stimulated by the atmosphere of the
religious change, they wore not the direct result of the new gospel.
In the west of England and in Oxfordshire the lower classes rebelled
{315} under the leadership of Catholic priests; in the east the rising,
known as Kett's rebellion, took on an Anabaptist character. The real
causes of discontent were the same in both cases. The growing wealth
of the commercial classes had widened the gap between rich and poor.
The inclosures continued to be a grievance, by the ejection of small
tenants and the appropriation of common lands. But by far the greatest
cause of hardship to the poor was the debasement of the coinage.
Wheat, barley, oats and cattle rose in price to two or three times
their previous cost, while wages, kept down by law, rose only 11 per
cent. No wonder that the condition of the laborer had become
impossible.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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