Godly Reformers

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Text Box: Book Review Studies in Modern Religious History Volume 10 Godly Reformers and their Opponents in Early Modern England: Religion in Norwich, 1560 – 1643. by Matthew Reynolds The Boydell Press, 2005. ISBN 1 84383 149X Matthew Reynold’s suggests in his preface that this work sets out “to address two closely related themes; the nature of ‘popular’ response to the English Reformation, and the relevance of that response for the formation of political allegiance prior to the English Civil War”. Using the city of Norwich and its extensive archival resources as his subject matter the results were always going to be both fascinating and less than straightforward. Although the work grew out of Reynold’s University of Kent thesis, as witnessed by the first chapters striking similarities to a study in the early modern religious historiography of Norwich, the remainder of the work does not read as such. Reynold’s enthusiasm and affection for his subject matter and characters, some of whom are less than attractive to modern eyes, is clear and this translates into the work as a whole. In particular Reynolds’s accounts of the separatist movements within the city, the breakaway Brownists and the East Anglian churches in exile is one of the clearest and most concise published to date. In addition, Reynold’s makes a brave, and at times highly convincing, attempt to disentangle both the religious and political leanings of many of the city’s leading Aldermanic families. Although studying less than a century, and aiming particularly at religious affairs, Reynold’s inclusion of genealogical tables for several of the leading city families is a saving grace without which even those familiar with Tudor and Stuart Norwich would have found themselves floundering. This is meant in no way as a slight to Reynold’s but merely the exasperated cry of one who has had to wade through the countless Rugge’s, Aldriches and Sotherton’s of the Norwich elite. Reynold’s makes clear from the very beginning that his work was designed to take in a great deal more original documentary research than that undertaken by many of his predecessors. Highlighting previously neglected areas of research Reynolds quite rightly makes clear that even the traditionally secular sources for documentary history shed a great deal of light upon issues that are largely religious in nature. However, I personally felt that there were a few occasions in which the author allowed his own interest in the religious aspects of what have been traditionally viewed as secular acts to cloud his own perception and perhaps make too much of a fundamentally minor aspect. In particular, Reynolds sees the establishment of the Norwich poor relief system in 1570 as a method of undermining many of the traditional catholic practices of alms and doles. The establishment of such a system, he argues, was the calculated act of the reforming ‘Godly’ Aldermen to move away from the views of charity extolled by their more conservative counterparts. In a work that focuses fundamentally upon religion such a view is hardly surprising. However, as Reynold’s himself makes clear this act of ‘charity’ was modelled upon a similar act put in place by the Norwich authorities in 1549. In 1570, as in 1549, the act of poor relief came in the immediate aftermath of major civil unrest and, it can be argued, such actions were solely designed to ease the troubles of the financially desperate. Failure to offer some form of assistance, it was feared, could easily drive the poorest citizens to join fresh uprisings and stirs. Thus, at a time of threatened civil unrest it is easier to link such acts of ‘charity’ with the nationwide growth in the perceived problem of idle urban vagrants than with any overt or covert attempt by the ‘Godly’ to undermine conservative catholic doctrine within the administration. Indeed, preservation of the administration, be it evangelical or conservative, would appear to be the overriding factor in such acts, an aspect that Reynolds barely mentions. Similarly Reynold’s use of the Aldermanic wills as an indicator of religious leanings and inclinations, while clearly showing the depths of his own research, is of questionable value. Reminiscent of Elaine Shepherd’s published studies of 16th century Norwich wills, which Reynold’s cites, the idea is open to the same criticisms. Putting aside the question of scribal influence, the lack of available contemporary and wholly comparable material, and the relatively long time period involved, diminishes the true value of any detailed analysis of the contents. The content of both conservative and evangelical last testaments over a period of as great as four decades must remain open to many different interpretations. These are minor quibbles of interpretation rather than fundamental flaws and given the obvious quality of Reynold’s research it is difficult to imagine anyone finding fault with his gathering together of source material for such a detailed work. However, coming so soon after the multi volume history of Norwich and its own reinterpretation of popular reaction to the reformation, which Reynold’s references (if only briefly), it must be imagined that Reynold’s work will not be regarded as quite so ‘groundbreaking’ as the author had perhaps originally intended. Nevertheless, this work must make us reassess much that has been previously published on the subject, particularly the attitudes of the Norwich authorities to separatism and the growth of extreme puritanism, and where it may fail to be wholly groundbreaking it most definitely shakes a few foundations. A most worthy and scholarly addition to a growing and lively debate; that has the distinct advantage of an enthusiastic author who carries his readers along with him. Matthew Champion