The notion of an “Elizabethan settlement” of religion has long been set aside in recognition of the unsettled state of church affairs in later Tudor England. Reformation and resistance of all stripes continued into the seventeenth century and beyond. Yes, a Protestant regime came to power in 1558, appointed reforming bishops with disciplinary apparatus, reintroduced a version of Edward VI's second Prayer Book, and in 1563 promulgated the 39 Articles of faith. But turning England into a Protestant nation, creating a uniform religious culture, and agreeing on details of ritual, worship, ecclesiology, and theology was a never-ending task. Historians have argued whether the impulse for change or uniformity came from above or below, from the queen and her Council, the bench of bishops, the universities, parliament, lay patrons, local clergy, or ordinary parishioners. Now Lucy Moffat Kaufman enters the lists with a book celebrating the Reformation of the people.
Sensitive to pulls in multiple directions, and aware of policies and directives emanating from Whitehall and Lambeth, she focuses most closely on the role of churchwardens in shaping the religion of the parish. Church governors erected a framework, backed by law, but its operation depended upon the taste and will of lay Christians. The Elizabethan Reformation took 45 years to unfold, and may have operated differently in each of more than 9000 English parishes. This conclusion is not so “new” as the author insists, but it is supported here by citations from a broad selection of visitation returns and parish accounts. The book is vigorously argued, and introduces a large cast of men and women engaged in coming to terms with demands of their queen and their god.
The Reformation was a process rather than an event, but is too often reified as a phenomenon with a force and momentum of its own. Always capitalized, the Reformation can be seen adapting, responding, taking root, and playing its role, with distinctive color, course, and pace. But in parish after parish the shape and flavor of community religious practice depended on cooperation and negotiation between ordinary inhabitants, chosen officials, incumbent minsters, and episcopal authorities. Kaufman champions the churchwardens as both agents and instruments in this unfolding, and downplays the role of the clergy.
A chapter titled “Bounding the Parish” explores efforts by the Elizabethan state church to define and enforce the boundaries of parochial life. Everyone, in principle, belonged to a parish, where statute required attendance at one's parish church. Their vital events of baptism, marriage, and burial were recorded in their parish register. Parish officers, clergy, and churchwardens, reported to archdeacons, bishops, and archbishops about conformity to episcopal demands. Visitation articles list the concerns of the hierarchy, and visitation returns indicate levels of compliance. Kaufman argues that churchwardens’ answers to visitation queries, and their willingness to present offenders, point to a culture of surveillance which gave local laity unprecedented power.
This policing of the parish involved literacy and numeracy in new ways, as churchwardens, appointed for one-year terms, kept detailed accounts of parish expenditures. Their responsibilities included maintaining the material fabric of the church, providing and positioning liturgical equipment, and supplying wine and bread for communion. Whether churchwardens kept these written accounts themselves, when some could not sign their names, and whether they or their ministers chose priorities, are subjects for discussion. The question remains whether attention to windows, tables, and bells, or the reporting of neighbors for moral and religious offences, marked local initiative or dutiful obedience. Kaufman recognizes that relationships between central and peripheral power were frequently mutualistic, but her emphasis is always on the agency of the laity. Other studies have shown the influence of clerics and their patrons on parochial religious life, so here is an alternative perspective.
One of the most original chapters attends to parish finance, fund raising, and church rates, on the income side of the ledger, demonstrating general readiness to pay for parish worship. A companion chapter on “Taxing the Parish” shows much less willingness to pay tithes to the rector or impropriator entitled to them, but concludes that resistance owed more to economic distress than anticlericalism.
Over the long Elizabethan period the state church saw success in conforming most of its people to officially-mandated routines and rituals. Increased outlays on communion bread and wine, outpacing the rise of population, point to high levels of participation in Holy Communion. While this may mark compliance under surveillance, at risk of report for omission, it also signals a widespread Protestant piety and embrace of the sacrament. Despite its rubric and discipline, the Elizabethan church allowed some latitude in the furnishing, frequency, and conduct of this central ritual, allowing parishes to shape and interpret it to their preference. Kaufman makes “the people” the agents of this English Reformation, though others might give credit to the parish priests.
Allusions to community celebrations with bonfires and bells, the churching or women, funeral preferences, and attendant rituals of birth, marriage and death, lack citation of previous work on these topics. The bibliography omits the word “anti” from the title of Nicholas Tyacke's book Anti-Calvinists, an important study of theological controversy in England. Reservations aside, A People's Reformation is a lively addition to the literature, and a useful text for teaching.
