Cecille

This article in French examines some of the changes made in service books under Henry VIII's reign, when the clergy were required to rid the liturgy of all mention of the "pope's proud pomp and authority".
With a firm focus on how rather than why the prayer practices were changed, this article explores what it meant to believe in a period of doctrinal flux and what new beliefs and  practices arose from the regime's efforts to advance the king's supremacy.
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In 1535, a royal circular was sent to bishops ordering that the liturgy be rid of all mention of the pope’s authority. The injunctions issued by bishop John Clerk to the clergy of the diocese of Bath and Wells provide a unique perspective on the extent of the liturgical changes required by the break with Rome of 1534. Far from being limited to the defacing of the word papa, these instructions required numerous alterations to rubrics, prayers and lessons that had supported papal primacy and promoted the traditional interpretation of the Peter’s spiritual and temporal stewardship of the earth.

While the suppression of the cult of St Thomas (Becket) of Canterbury is well documented and known of historians and the public at large, liturgical material suggests that other saints had ceased to be worshipped in parts of  northern England.
The services in honour of Wilfrid, Cuthbert, John of Beverley and William of York were defaced or removed from York missals and breviaries. This paper offers an analysis and interpretation of these findings.

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In the immediate aftermath of the break with Rome, Henry VIII’s administrative machine required the approval and active support of all his subjects. This was essentially enforced by a campaign of oath swearing designed to guarantee the submission of all the clergy and of laymen of some importance.  However, acting principally through Archbishop Cranmer, the regime also harnassed the liturgy to impose political and religious obedience.
An extensive survey of the surviving service books in use during the reign of Henry VIII, coupled with an analysis of the few liturgical publications of the 1540s offers an uncharted perspective on the liturgical developments endorsed by the regime and the response that it elicited at the parish level. The changes in the bidding of the beads, the reordering of prayers of intercession, the re-writing of the canon of the mass and the imposition of ‘the king’s collect’ strongly suggest that the liturgy emerged as a privileged instrument, alongside sermons, to advertise and promote the Royal Supremacy. By examining these liturgical policies in more detail, the role of the liturgy in the enforcement of the Henrician settlement is put in sharp relief. At daily mass and at the canonical hours, the clergy had the opportunity to solemnly proclaim their submission to the King. However, this doesn’t mean that these changes were experienced by the clergy alone, since the bidding prayers were, for instance, recited in the vernacular and required the active participation of the laity in attendance. Without necessarily compromising its sacramental function, the Henrician Sunday mass appears as a locus for the acknowledgement of the King’s Supremacy by clergy and laity alike. The implementation of the policies ordering prayers for the king to be made bring us closer to understanding the success of the Henrician Reformation.

In the past, eminent liturgists have carefully unpicked the multiple sources of the first Books of Common Prayer. Thomas Cranmer, who was its principal compiler, turned to diverse texts for inspiration : Scripture was an obvious source, as were the ancient liturgical traditions of which the archbishop had knowledge. This paper will explore more immediate origins for the English liturgies, i.e. the new practices created at the end of Henry VIII’s reign.

After the break with Rome and the passing of the Act of Supremacy of 1534, liturgical experiments were rife in England as can be demonstrated by a survey of liturgical books used under Henry VIII’s reign. The regime had harnessed public prayer to advertise the royal supremacy and the clergy had responded by adapting the Catholic liturgy to the new ecclesiology and the revised doctrinal pronouncements. Several of the new prayers composed under Henry were included into the BCP, albeit in a slightly modified version (bidding of the bedes, 1543 litany). Moreover, changes in the clergy’s liturgical habits also shed light on the origins of some passages found in the Edwardian liturgies.

Liturgical evolutions of the 1530s and 1540s also illuminate one of the most enduring historiographical issues relating to the English Reformation : why was the wholesale liturgical reform of 1549 so readily accepted or tolerated by a majority of the English people ? A better understanding of how the Henrician Reformation redefined the status of the liturgy may contribute to explaining the success of the Reformation of the liturgy, for public prayer had lost its status as an immutable and trustworthy deposit of faith and had become a transient text which could be reformed at will by the government.

A partir du début des années 1530, quand le conflit entre Henri VIII et le pape Clément VII semble ne pas trouver d'issue, la figure du pontife et les pouvoirs de la papauté sont contestés. L'interdiction de dire le mot "pape" constitue un dispositif central de la propagande en faveur de la rupture avec Rome et de la suprématie royale. 
L'emploi de la périphrase "évêque de Rome" est une obligation qui s'applique à tous les textes officiels mais aussi à la moindre conversation privée entre deux sujets d'Henri VIII. L'écrit n'est pas épargné par cette mesure : les livres liturgiques et les publications religieuses sont concernés au premier chef, mais ce sont aussi des livres d'histoire et de théologie, des manuels de droit et des almanachs qui doivent être purgés de ce terme. Le mot "pape" devient alors, aux yeux de tous, un marqueur de dissidence et une manière de contester les politiques royales.
Que révèle cette purge lexicale de l'emprise du pouvoir royal en Angleterre dans les années 1530?

In this paper, I will revisit the question of the Catholicism of Henry’s Church from the point of view of the people’s perception of the liturgy. The break with Rome and the doctrinal statements of the 1530s and 1540s had serious liturgical consequences as the clergy were ordered to reform their massbooks and alter some of their liturgical habits to conform with the Royal Supremacy and the shifts in theological emphasis put forth in Henry’s reign. An extensive survey of the surviving service books in use during the reign of Henry VIII offers an uncharted perspective on the liturgical developments endorsed by the regime and the response that it elicited at the parish level. However, these changes were not experienced by the clergy alone, as can be shown by attempting to reconstruct popular perceptions of the changes in worship. The English were aware that the liturgy had become a privileged vehicle for the Royal Supremacy and Sunday mass a locus for the expression of political and religious loyalty to the king.
Conversely, the sacramentals or ceremonies of the Church came under intense scrutiny as their efficacy was questioned. Holy water, holy bread, blessed candles and all the other devotional objects and practices which were intimately related to popular Catholicism ceased to be seen as efficacious rituals but were rather envisaged as mere signs or reminders of higher realities such as sacraments or Biblical events. This interpretation clearly contradicted the liturgical texts of these rites and the traditional teachings found in catechisms. The Ten Articles and King’s Book did not save the sacramentals in the face of severe criticism from reformers, rather it radically undermined the liturgy as a valid source of faith. Hence, in some parishes, experimentation, criticism and deliberate subversion of Catholic rituals were rife.
The traditional understanding that the liturgy was an unchanging deposit of the faith, worthy of trust and efficacious had been both challenged and undermined by the end of Henry’s reign. It is clear then that, even liturgically, Henry’s Church was not “Catholicism without the pope”.

lundi 10 avril, 18h15


Les talents de Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), étaient reconnu de tous.  Ses amis humanistes louaient son Utopie et Erasme entrenait avec lui une amitié profonde et une correspondance régulière. Sa foi profonde et sa défense vigoureuse de l’orthodoxie avait fait de lui le champion de l’Eglise en Angleterre. Enfin, il avait gagné la confiance et l’estime d’Henri VIII qui l’avait promu dans son administration jusqu’à faire de lui le premier laïc à être nommé chancelier du Royaume.
En 1531, Thomas More est au faîte de son pouvoir. Quatre ans plus tard, condamné à mort pour trahison, il monte sur l’échafaud.
Plusieurs philosophes présentés au cours de ce cycle de conférences ont perdu la vie pour avoir parlé, c’est le silence de Thomas More qui lui valut de perdre d’abord le soutien du roi puis d’être jugé coupable de haute trahison.