Church Reform

The late medieval English church has sometimes been criticized for muddling through in a characteristically Anglican and somewhat complacent way. Such a harsh view overlooks a long reforming tradition that stretched across the medieval period from Archbishop Lanfranc (d. 1089) to Archbishop Morton (d. 1500) and a succession of internal critics. England participated fully in the continental reform movements that began with the Gregorian reforms and continued in the reforming general councils from 1123 to 1311. The most important of these, the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, was a watershed in medieval pastoral care; it set minimum standards of observance for both clergy and laity that lasted for the rest of the middle ages. Reforming popes attacked simony, clerical marriage, clerical ignorance, pluralism and non-residence, applying new developments in canon law and theology. The reform decrees of the councils were systematically introduced into the English church during the thirteenth century. The provincial councils held by the papal legates Otto and Ottobono in 1237 and 1268 were particularly important because they produced large, authoritative and widely disseminated collections of statutes that influenced much subsequent diocesan legislation. The thirteenth century also produced a flood of diocesan statutes from conscientious and reforming bishops such as Robert Grosseteste at Lincoln. Archbishop Pecham (d. 1292) was a notable reformer who sought to root out pluralism and clerical ignorance.

The late medieval church has often been seen as less concerned with reform but the tradition continued in different forms. The production of clerical handbooks of instruction for parish priests, begun in the thirteenth century, flowered in the works of William of Pagula and John de Burgh. To these were added increasing numbers of preaching aids and sermon cycles. At the universities there was an academic reforming tradition exemplified by Richard Ullerston, whose programme formed part of the wider English contribution to the fifteenth-century general councils. Henry V’s innovative ecclesiastical policies drew on this tradition. Much of this activity was a response to the threat of radical reform found in the ideas of Wyclif and the Lollards. In the sixteenth century Dean Colet and Cardinal Wolsey continued the tradition. Episcopal initiative was vital in keeping up the momentum of reform. Even civil servant bishops were conscientious and found time for their dioceses; studies of their registers suggest that episcopal absenteeism has been exaggerated. Alongside the merely conscientious were many outstanding reformers, including Archbishops Thoresby, Arundel and Morton, all of whom also held high political office. Once statutes had been promulgated, diocesan visitations, which became standard practice in the thirteenth century, were the principal means of maintaining and raising standards. Though intended by canon law to be triennial, their frequency and effectiveness are difficult to assess because of a lack of evidence, especially in the century after the Black Death. As with monastic visitations, surviving diocesan visitation records have had a distorting effect on accounts of the late medieval church. Their catalogues of faults emphasize the failings of the minority at the expense of the soundness of the majority. Visitations are perhaps better evidence of high standards and a practical desire to maintain them, a further indication of the strength of the medieval church on the eve of the Reformation.