Much ink has been spilt over the nature of the English Reformation over the last fifty years. The initial thesis of this debate was established by the acceptance of A.G. Dickensâ The English Reformation (1964) as the definitive scholarship on the subject.1 According to Dickens, the English Reformation was a relatively short, popular revolution from below, for the rise of gospellers in England was but a natural response to the ârational appeal of a Christianity based upon the authentic sources of the New Testament.â2 With the advent of an increasingly educated populace, Protestantismâs book-based faith was inevitably more persuasive than the moribund medieval churchâs affective ritualism and ignorant popular piety. This thesis is, of course, as old as John Foxe himself: â[A]s printing of books ministered matter of reading: so reading brought learning: learning showed light, by the brightness whereof blind ignorance was suppressed, error detected, and finally Godâs glory, with truth of his word, advanced.â3
Two decades later, however, the Dickensâ approach was beginning to be challenged by an antithesis, that the English Reformation was a long process, mandated by the state and resisted by the people. Central to this approach was Eamon Duffyâs Stripping of the Altars, which asserted the vitality of the late medieval English Church in general,4 and case studies which documented, in particular, parochial attachment to and defense of traditional religion.5 Of course, at the heart of Dickensâ fast reformation from below was a whiggish assumption of the inherent superiority of a ârationalâ Protestantism over a superstitious medieval church life. Richard Rex has helpfully shown that English humanism, the force that Dickens posits as leading inevitably to Protestant thought, was in fact originally a flowering of late medieval Catholic
By the turn of the new millennium, the basic argument for a top-down, long-term Reformation had won the field. Scholars no longer needed to defend the vibrancy of the pre-Reformation English Church. Instead, the focus now was on describing the process by which England became a land of Protestants by the middle of Elizabethâs reign.9 Two seminal works stand out: Norman Jonesâ English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaptation (2002) which looked at Elizabethan England, and Ethan H. Shaganâs Popular Politics and the English Reformation (2003) which examined Henrician and Edwardian life. Both scholars examined the interactions between the government and the governed, namely, the process by which national policy, local reaction, compromise and accommodation, both institutionally and individually, eventually led to an England where traditionalist believers became the minority.10 Hence, post-revisionism emerged as a synthesis of the two earlier sides in the debate.
The current best examples of this consensus are Peter Marshallâs Heretics and Believers (2017) and Alec Ryrieâs The Age of Reformation (2024).11 Since scholars now agree that the sea-change in Englandâs religious life was the product of the interactions between the government and the governed, these authors seek to show which of the two poles had the ultimate hand in determining the outcome. For Marshall, it is clearly the religious choices of the people which in
If such is the present state of the historiography of the English Reformation, where does Mark Earngeyâs landmark work on John Ponet make its contribution? Does a comprehensive survey focused on one leaderâs teachings, albeit humanist, ecclesiastical as well as political, and supported by numerous new detailed documentary sources, still have a significant role in constructing the narrative of the English Reformation? Yes, indeed, for the more historical scholarship emphasises the role of government in shaping the outcome of the reformation process of the Church of England in the sixteenth century, the more important becomes understanding the thought of those who helped shape and defend its formularies which institutionalised the Protestant face of Anglicanism in that era. Earngey clearly shows that one such luminary was Ponet.
John Ponet was a key promoter of avant-garde humanism while a fellow of Queensâ College, Cambridge. Although his tutor, Thomas Smith, and John Cheke had pioneered a better way to pronounce ancient Greek, it was Ponet who publicly introduced it in his post as university Greek lecturer. This academic innovation earned the condemnation of Stephen Gardiner as well as the praise of Smith, who named Ponet an equal leader in this movement with himself and Cheke.12 Then Ponet pursued an ecclesiastical career, becoming a chaplain, first to Archbishop Cranmer, aiding him with theological research, then to Henry viii, and finally to Edward vi, bringing him into the very heart of Tudor government.
Earngeyâs attention to Ponetâs annotations of the Kingâs Book shows him to have been a privately convinced evangelical while he was thriving in Henryâs service. Here is a case study for Rexâs observation that the leadership of the English Protestant movement emerged from a religiously mixed group of Tudor humanists, rather than from Lollardy.13 Under Edward, Ponet openly served the new regimeâs religious agenda, writing in support of their legalisation of clerical marriage as well as joining the episcopate, first at Rochester then, much more significantly, replacing Gardiner at Winchester. Earngey highlights how Ponet worked hard at effective parish catechesis, thereby providing a case study in how one evangelical bishop sought to inculcate the reformation of
When Mary came to the throne, Ponet eventually chose to do more good as an exile. His time abroad was spurred on by his participation in and the failure of Wyattâs Rebellion. Once in Strassburg, he exhibited his customary concern for teaching youth, this time for the education of the next generation of English clergy.17 In addition, he was at the forefront in producing anti-Marian polemic, including addressing his specialist subject, clerical marriage. He also took a leading role in encouraging others to join him as a unified team in this effort, most notably, his fellow exile bishop, John Bale.18 Finally, shortly before his death, Ponet finished A Shorte Treatise of Politike Power which approved of tyrannicide as a last resort when faced with ungodly rulers.
Most commentators on Ponetâs life have focused on the politically oriented beginning and ending of his exile, dubbing his approach as âCalvinistic Resistance Theory.â Yet, Earngey convincingly argues that the Shorte Treatise arose from his understanding of natural law and the ancient Greek support for tyrannicide, thus linking the late Ponet back to his earlier self at Athens on the Cam, rather than newly to Geneva, and to the monarchical republicanism of Thomas Smith, Ponetâs Cambridge tutor.19 In the final analysis, Earngey finds this same kind of inner consistency in all of Ponetâs endeavours. For the Shorte Treatise was merely Ponetâs ultimate attack on the Marian regime, as he consistently strove, as a churchman and theologian, to expound and defend the evangelical truth of the Edwardian regime.
Ashley Null
A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London: Batsford, 1964).
A.G. Dickens, âThe Shape of Anti-clericalism and the English Reformation,â in Politics and Society in Reformation Europe: Essays for Sir Geoffrey Elton on His Sixty-Fifth Birthday, eds. E.I. Kouri and Tom Scott (London: Macmillan, 1987), 379â410, at 380.
John Foxe, Actes and Monuments, 838. Cf. Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 2â3.
Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400âc. 1580 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992).
For example, Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975); Beat A. Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400â1560 (Aldershot: Scolar, 1996); Eamon Duffy, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village (London: Yale University Press, 2001).
Richard Rex, âThe Role of English Humanists in the Reformation up to 1559,â in The Education of a Christian Society: Humanism and Reformation in Britain and the Netherlands, eds. N.S. Amos, A. Pettegree, and H. van Nierop (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999), 19â40.
Alec Ryrie, âCounting Sheep, Counting Shepherds: The Problem of Allegiance in the English Reformation,â in The Beginnings of English Protestantism, eds. Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 84â110, at 105.
Christopher Haigh, The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987).
Cf. Patrick Collinsonâs pioneering The Birthpangs of Protestant England: Religious and Cultural Change in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988), xi.
Norman Jones, English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaptation (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Peter Marshall, Heretics and Believers: A History of the English Reformation (London: Yale University Press, 2017); Alec Ryrie, The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms 1485â1603, 3rd ed. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2024).
Mark Earngey, John Ponet (1516â1556): Scholar, Bishop, Insurgent (Leiden: Brill, 2025), 27â30.
Earngey, John Ponet, 57â60.
Earngey, John Ponet, 114â119.
Earngey, John Ponet, 134.
Earngey, John Ponet, 134â141.
Earngey, John Ponet, 153â163.
Earngey, John Ponet, 173â215.
Earngey, John Ponet, 155, 222â237.