Religion, History and G. R Balleine – Part 1
(The Reformation in Jersey)
By Jason St John Nicolle
From "The Pilot", 1991
WHETHER we realise it or not, we all tend to look at the past through the eyes of particular historians.
When we look at Jesus, we see Him as a handful of contemporary Jews saw Him: we share in their profound insights and personal knowledge, but also in their preconceptions, their misapprehensions — and, because they, like us, are merely human, in their ignorance too. All is hardly surprising: we are busy people, and few of us have the desire, the opportunity, or even the ability, to want to think everything out for ourselves.
But it does us good to be reminded that often we see things as they have seemed to some particularly influential writer, and not as they really were. Our romantic vision of the Middle Ages, with its castles and chivalry, is largely a product of two late mediaeval writers, Thomas Malory and Jean Froissart, although it was popularised through the works of Sir Walter Scott. If we go back earlier, and try to picture England in the seventh century, we find ourselves peopling it with saints and kings whom a Northumbrian scholar called Bede saw fit to include in his early eighth century "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," So it should not come as a surprise to learn that when we turn to the history of our own Island, and examine its religious history in the sixteenth century, a period which saw fundamental changes in the beliefs and organisation of the Christian churches throughout Europe, changes packed together for convenience and carried about in a suitcase called the Reformation, we again tend to look at the past through somebody else's eyes.
The name of George Reginald Balleine, probably the most and perhaps the most important, of the twentieth century historians of Jersey, will be familiar to anyone with an interest in Island history. The son of Oxford don who was to become Dean of Jersey, he read history at his father's university and decided to follow him into the church: he was ordained priest in 1897 and served in two London parishes before being appointed to the Vicarage of St James, Bermondsey, in 1908. He was to retain the living for the next thirty years, until he left the mainland for the Island which was to be his home for the remaining years of his life. It was then that he began the detailed and conscientious research which was to result in three of the most familiar works on Island history: the "Biographical Dictionary of Jersey"; the historical gazetteer, "The Bailiwick of Jersey"; and, above all, the "History of the Island of Jersey."
Balleine possessed many of the qualities of a great historian: thoroughly acquainted with the sources, and perceptive in his judgments, he combined the broad vision of the story teller with the scholar's eye for detail. But all historians have their limitations. Balleine was more than a detached and impartial historian: he was also a convinced and enthusiastic Evangelical Christian; and if the two came into conflict, he would doubtless have been relieved to have found the duties of religion overriding those of disinterested scholarship.
Balleine's churchmanship is illustrated by the subject he chose for his first significant historical work, "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England," published in the year he was appointed to Bermondsey and still a standard text more than eighty years later. In the author's own words, it was "the work of one . . . entirely in sympathy with his subject," written in the hope that it might "stir some readers to greater earnestness in the service of God." In Balleine's eyes, the Evangelical faith was self-evidently the only true Christian faith: grounded in the Bible and tested by reference to the New Testament, it was the Religion of Redemption, in which nothing could be allowed to interfere with the believer's direct and personal relationship with Christ. Its superiority over other forms of Christian faith was so self-evident that its triumph was inevitable; so self-evident in fact, that all the historian had to do was to chart its successful progress.
Balleine knew that this faith was not some novelty of the twentieth century. It had been taught by Luther and Calvin, the scriptwriters of the Reformation; it was the faith which had begun to spread through France and Germany in the 1520's, and through England in the 1530's. And, Balleine tells us, it was the faith which, by the 1550's, had seized the hearts and minds of the men and women of Jersey. But are we seeing the events of the sixteenth century as they really happened, or merely as George Reginald Balleine would have liked to have seen them?
To answer this question, we need to look at the religious history of sixteenth century Jersey in more detail; but this will have to wait until the next article.
WHETHER we realise it or not, we all tend to look at the past through the eyes of particular historians.
When we look at Jesus, we see Him as a handful of contemporary Jews saw Him: we share in their profound insights and personal knowledge, but also in their preconceptions, their misapprehensions — and, because they, like us, are merely human, in their ignorance too. All is hardly surprising: we are busy people, and few of us have the desire, the opportunity, or even the ability, to want to think everything out for ourselves.
But it does us good to be reminded that often we see things as they have seemed to some particularly influential writer, and not as they really were. Our romantic vision of the Middle Ages, with its castles and chivalry, is largely a product of two late mediaeval writers, Thomas Malory and Jean Froissart, although it was popularised through the works of Sir Walter Scott. If we go back earlier, and try to picture England in the seventh century, we find ourselves peopling it with saints and kings whom a Northumbrian scholar called Bede saw fit to include in his early eighth century "Ecclesiastical History of the English People," So it should not come as a surprise to learn that when we turn to the history of our own Island, and examine its religious history in the sixteenth century, a period which saw fundamental changes in the beliefs and organisation of the Christian churches throughout Europe, changes packed together for convenience and carried about in a suitcase called the Reformation, we again tend to look at the past through somebody else's eyes.
The name of George Reginald Balleine, probably the most and perhaps the most important, of the twentieth century historians of Jersey, will be familiar to anyone with an interest in Island history. The son of Oxford don who was to become Dean of Jersey, he read history at his father's university and decided to follow him into the church: he was ordained priest in 1897 and served in two London parishes before being appointed to the Vicarage of St James, Bermondsey, in 1908. He was to retain the living for the next thirty years, until he left the mainland for the Island which was to be his home for the remaining years of his life. It was then that he began the detailed and conscientious research which was to result in three of the most familiar works on Island history: the "Biographical Dictionary of Jersey"; the historical gazetteer, "The Bailiwick of Jersey"; and, above all, the "History of the Island of Jersey."
Balleine possessed many of the qualities of a great historian: thoroughly acquainted with the sources, and perceptive in his judgments, he combined the broad vision of the story teller with the scholar's eye for detail. But all historians have their limitations. Balleine was more than a detached and impartial historian: he was also a convinced and enthusiastic Evangelical Christian; and if the two came into conflict, he would doubtless have been relieved to have found the duties of religion overriding those of disinterested scholarship.
Balleine's churchmanship is illustrated by the subject he chose for his first significant historical work, "A History of the Evangelical Party in the Church of England," published in the year he was appointed to Bermondsey and still a standard text more than eighty years later. In the author's own words, it was "the work of one . . . entirely in sympathy with his subject," written in the hope that it might "stir some readers to greater earnestness in the service of God." In Balleine's eyes, the Evangelical faith was self-evidently the only true Christian faith: grounded in the Bible and tested by reference to the New Testament, it was the Religion of Redemption, in which nothing could be allowed to interfere with the believer's direct and personal relationship with Christ. Its superiority over other forms of Christian faith was so self-evident that its triumph was inevitable; so self-evident in fact, that all the historian had to do was to chart its successful progress.
Balleine knew that this faith was not some novelty of the twentieth century. It had been taught by Luther and Calvin, the scriptwriters of the Reformation; it was the faith which had begun to spread through France and Germany in the 1520's, and through England in the 1530's. And, Balleine tells us, it was the faith which, by the 1550's, had seized the hearts and minds of the men and women of Jersey. But are we seeing the events of the sixteenth century as they really happened, or merely as George Reginald Balleine would have liked to have seen them?
To answer this question, we need to look at the religious history of sixteenth century Jersey in more detail; but this will have to wait until the next article.
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