Religion, History and G. R Balleine – Part 2
(The Reformation in Jersey)
By Jason St John Nicolle
From "The Pilot", 1991
IF SOMEONE mentions the word "Revolution”, certain images tend to project themselves onto the screens of our minds. We might see heavily-laden carts creaking through the streets of Paris. Perhaps we see bearded intellectuals, meeting in secret behind closed doors, arguing passionately for a sub-committee on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Or we might think of furnaces and factories in smoke-filled towns, of coal mines and cotton mills. These are the sort of images which come most readily to mind when we think of Revolution. Few, if any, would picture a 34-year-old lecturer, hammering a discussion on a church door in the university town of Wittenberg. Even fewer would think of earnest, black-gowned clergymen, journeying to Geneva to hear an exiled French lawyer preach on the unrelenting justice of the God of Love.
By using the term "Reformation" rather than "Revolution" we have forgotten that the movements precipitated and led by Luther and Calvin in the middle years of the sixteenth century generated one of the most Iwo engravings which appeared in "The Reformation and the Deformation," published by Mr Mowbray of Oxford in 1868. The inscription above (which may be indistinct) shows that private subscription was a welcome source of funding. It reads: "This church was beautified and this singing loft erected at the sole expense of Dame Margery Deanwell of this parish." Peter Porty was the Rector, assisted by David-Drawl, Curate. The whole is balanced by the names of the Churchwardens: Sam Sawyer and David Daut.
The Reformation was one of the most dramatic and significant periods of change which Europe has ever known. And these changes affected Jersey as much as they affected England, France or Germany.
Historians have been arguing over the interpretation of the Reformation for well over four hundred years —and there is every sign that the debate will continue for many years to come. They have tended to pitch their tents in one of two camps.
(The Reformation in Jersey)
By Jason St John Nicolle
From "The Pilot", 1991
IF SOMEONE mentions the word "Revolution”, certain images tend to project themselves onto the screens of our minds. We might see heavily-laden carts creaking through the streets of Paris. Perhaps we see bearded intellectuals, meeting in secret behind closed doors, arguing passionately for a sub-committee on the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Or we might think of furnaces and factories in smoke-filled towns, of coal mines and cotton mills. These are the sort of images which come most readily to mind when we think of Revolution. Few, if any, would picture a 34-year-old lecturer, hammering a discussion on a church door in the university town of Wittenberg. Even fewer would think of earnest, black-gowned clergymen, journeying to Geneva to hear an exiled French lawyer preach on the unrelenting justice of the God of Love.
By using the term "Reformation" rather than "Revolution" we have forgotten that the movements precipitated and led by Luther and Calvin in the middle years of the sixteenth century generated one of the most Iwo engravings which appeared in "The Reformation and the Deformation," published by Mr Mowbray of Oxford in 1868. The inscription above (which may be indistinct) shows that private subscription was a welcome source of funding. It reads: "This church was beautified and this singing loft erected at the sole expense of Dame Margery Deanwell of this parish." Peter Porty was the Rector, assisted by David-Drawl, Curate. The whole is balanced by the names of the Churchwardens: Sam Sawyer and David Daut.
The Reformation was one of the most dramatic and significant periods of change which Europe has ever known. And these changes affected Jersey as much as they affected England, France or Germany.
Historians have been arguing over the interpretation of the Reformation for well over four hundred years —and there is every sign that the debate will continue for many years to come. They have tended to pitch their tents in one of two camps.
There are those, usually from a Protestant background, who see the new doctrines spreading quickly and widely among congregations distressed at the low state of contemporary Catholicism; they see the Reformation as a popular revolution, imposed "from below."
But there are others who talk of a revolution imposed "from above." They argue that there was no widespread discontent amongst Catholics on the eve of the Reformation; the Protestant faith was imposed by the authorities, and it took several decades before it was widely accepted. The arguments have been over which of these two views is the more accurate: a Reformation "from below," or "from above"?
The answer is neither. As generalisations, both are equally false; as terms to describe particular situations, both can equally be true. There was never a single Reformation. The course and extent of religious change varied from city to city, and from region to region. There were cities such as London where the new doctrines had received widespread support by the early 1540's, well before the government began to impose Protestantism on its subjects, which started with the accession of Edward VI in 1547. But there were more isolated areas of the country, such as Lancashire, where Catholicism remained popular into the seventeenth century. If we examine the growth and establishment of Protestantism in sixteenth century London, we find that this was very much a reformation from below; but if we travel through the Midlands into the fells and forests of Lancashire, the picture becomes completely different.
But what if, instead of heading north along Watling Street, we were to travel south through Surrey and Hampshire, and take a boat from Southampton to Jersey? Would we find that early and vigorous commitment to the new faith which characterised and citizens of London? Or were the Jerseymen of the middle years of the sixteenth century too attached to the faith of their fathers to be anything more than lukewarm in their response to the Protestantism which the Crown wished to impose?
To the reader of Balleine's History of the Island of Jersey, the question seems strange: in the eyes of its Evangelical author, the evidence seemed simply too overwhelming for there to be any doubt on the matter.
The answer is neither. As generalisations, both are equally false; as terms to describe particular situations, both can equally be true. There was never a single Reformation. The course and extent of religious change varied from city to city, and from region to region. There were cities such as London where the new doctrines had received widespread support by the early 1540's, well before the government began to impose Protestantism on its subjects, which started with the accession of Edward VI in 1547. But there were more isolated areas of the country, such as Lancashire, where Catholicism remained popular into the seventeenth century. If we examine the growth and establishment of Protestantism in sixteenth century London, we find that this was very much a reformation from below; but if we travel through the Midlands into the fells and forests of Lancashire, the picture becomes completely different.
But what if, instead of heading north along Watling Street, we were to travel south through Surrey and Hampshire, and take a boat from Southampton to Jersey? Would we find that early and vigorous commitment to the new faith which characterised and citizens of London? Or were the Jerseymen of the middle years of the sixteenth century too attached to the faith of their fathers to be anything more than lukewarm in their response to the Protestantism which the Crown wished to impose?
To the reader of Balleine's History of the Island of Jersey, the question seems strange: in the eyes of its Evangelical author, the evidence seemed simply too overwhelming for there to be any doubt on the matter.
It had been the custom of pious Catholics to provide endowments to pay for a mass to be said on the anniversary of their own death, or that of a friend or relative; these were sometimes administered through religious clubs, known as Confraternities. The provision of such masses resulted from one of the fundamental features of late mediaeval Catholicism: the comforting belief that the living could pray for the souls of the dead. By the early 1550's, these endowments, on which the posthumous fates of so many souls were believed to depend, had been swept away by a Royal Commission, along with the statues and "objects of superstition" with which generations of Islanders had decorated their churches.
If the Jerseymen of the sixteenth century had felt any allegiance towards Catholicism, it is surely reasonable to expect to find evidence of some opposition to the imposition of the new faith. In England the government's policies provoked a large-scale rebellion in the south west in 1549, and played .a substantial part in the grievances which led to the Revolt of the Northern Earls twenty years later. But there were no revolts in Jersey. Balleine tells us that "one or two voices" were raised in opposition in the early 1550's; but they were "crying in the wilderness, for the victory of Protestantism was complete."
And here he rests his case, confident that he has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Reformation on Jersey was imposed rapidly and with widespread support. It seems that the jury must surely find in favour of a Reformation "from below." But before they can retire to consider their verdict, they must hear the arguments of the other side. And in order to hear these, the court must adjourn until the next issue of The PILOT.
And here he rests his case, confident that he has established, beyond reasonable doubt, that the Reformation on Jersey was imposed rapidly and with widespread support. It seems that the jury must surely find in favour of a Reformation "from below." But before they can retire to consider their verdict, they must hear the arguments of the other side. And in order to hear these, the court must adjourn until the next issue of The PILOT.
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