The Rule of Thomas Cranmer in Diocese and Province

Abstract

Thomas Cranmer's register in Lambeth Palace Library is little known and not yet published. This article surveys and summarizes the author's researches over twenty-five years in preparing an edition of that document. The register is not as complete as many medieval Canterbury registers. Nonetheless, it shows how the royal supremacy developed in a church cut off from Roman jurisdiction. There are many parallels with medieval patterns of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and Cranmer seems to have been unable or unwilling to make large-scale changes in prevailing practice. Nonetheless, during the reign of Edward VI, the register illustrates a reforming archbishop at work, as he tried to implement evangelical reforms in diocese and province. The untimely death of Edward VI cut short these reforming measures, and the accession of Mary led to Cranmer's deprivation, when the formal record of his register ends.     

Thomas Cranmer's Register: Little Understood and Unpublished

Abstract

Thomas Cranmer's register in Lambeth Palace Library is a document which is little understood and as yet unpublished. Episcopal registers trace the work of bishops and archbishops in their dioceses and provinces. As such, they are fundamental primary source documents. In a series of two articles, the author will first examine the composition and history of use of Thomas Cranmer's register and then, in a second article to be published in the next issue of this journal (RRR 7.1), set the contents of the register in the context of modern historical scholarship. This article fulfils the first of these two aims.     

An Eastern Heritage in a Western Rite: A Study of Source and Method for Archbishop Cranmer's Inclusion of ‘A Prayer of Chrysostome‘ in the English Litany of 1544

Abstract

Representing the first officially authorized printing of an English-language text, Thomas Cranmer's Litany (1544)—a direct precursor of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer—is an important historical document. It also has linguistic significance, since ‘in setting forth certain godly prayers and suffrages in our native English tongue', Cranmer went beyond simple translation of the Latin. Among his innovations was the insertion of ‘A Prayer of Chrysostome', taken directly from an Eastern Orthodox source. The English rendering of the prayer has long been considered a masterly translation. However, while beautifully executed, Cranmer's version (compared with earlier Greek and Latin texts) is peculiar at points and raises theological questions. This study reviews and critiques scholarship on the matter while offering new insights into Cranmer's connections to Christian Orthodox thought and practice.     

Revisiting the Reformation—Shakespeare and Fletcher's King Henry VIII

Abstract

This paper looks afresh at William Shakespeare's and John Fletcher's Henry VIII. The piece, while obsessed with truth, makes no attempt to define the nature of that truth—and truth is closely related to the issue of the Reformation. Henry VIII's role is questioned. The terms ‘Lutheran’ and ‘heretic’ appear as by-words to describe the threat of up-and-coming new influences around the king. The opposition of the Catholic Wolsey and the Protestant Cranmer in the play is all-important. Wolsey emerges as somewhat reformed from his disgrace. Cranmer, like Wolsey, is demonized; however his prophecy at the end of the play is highly significant. Prophecy in Tudor England tended to be subversive and part of the implications of Cranmer's prophecy are that James should model himself on Elizabeth. However, Cranmer's prophecy also announces that Elizabeth, ever a virgin, will manage to engender her successor, King James. As the play is about to close, Cranmer's prophecy about the reign of Elizabeth I and that of James I cannot dispel the impression that Henry VIII's reformist intentions remain inconclusive. Shakespeare, it seems, never veered in his view that religious reformations are not ‘once and for all events'. Something has happened that has altered the world, but the full meaning of these events is denied.     

Review Article: Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation

Abstract

Martin Bucer's role in the Edwardian Reformation has been the subject of much study, most of which has been focused on his involvement in the Vestments Controversy, his role in the revision of the 1549 Prayer Book, and on his last major work, De regno Christi, which he wrote in 1550. What has received less attention is his sojourn in Cambridge, where he spent the majority of his time in England. Bucer's sometimes tense relations with members of Cranmer's circle, and even with Cranmer himself, provide a striking contrast to the ‘electric’ impact he had in Cambridge, which serves to underscore the importance of Cambridge to Bucer's English sojourn. The individuals whom he most influenced were members of the academic community at the University of Cambridge (where he served as Regius Professor of Divinity), especially the so-called ‘Athenian tribe’—although he did encounter the hostility of many members of his College, the largely conservative Trinity College. Cambridge proved to be the locus of Bucer's influence upon the English Church in these years, and his residence there deserves greater attention than it has received to date.     

The First Latin Book of Common Prayer: English Reformation in a Continental Perspective

Abstract

The Ordinatio ecclesiae (1551) of Alexander Alesius is a little-known Latin translation of the 1549 Book of Common Prayer. Alesius had been resident in England in the 1530s and had kept in touch with his English friends when he returned to the continent, becoming professor of theology at Leipzig. The Ordinatio ecclesiae is, in many ways, a baffling document since it is not a rigid translation of Cranmer's rite. Instead, it contains passages which are both more Roman and more evangelical than the English liturgy. Following a detailed comparison of the English and Latin versions, the author attempts to place the Ordinatio ecclesiae in the context of Reformation politics on the continent during the years between the ‘Augsburg Interim’ and the resumption of the Council of Trent. He finds that the Latin Prayer book was intended to publicize Cranmer's reform measures as an example of a territorial Reformation in order to add a substantial voice to the chorus of evangelical churches calling for a free General Council. The conservative nature of the first Book of Common Prayer seemed ideally suited to further dialogue between evangelicals and reform-minded Catholics, but also to appealing for reconciliation and unity among Lutheran theologians in Saxony who had become divided on the issue of the Interim.     

Robert Singleton's Sermon at Paul's Cross in 1535: The ‘True Church’ and the Royal Supremacy

Abstract

On 2 April 1535, Robert Singleton, chaplain to Queen Anne Boleyn, preached a sermon at Paul's Cross. The unique, surviving printed copy of the sermon is housed in the Wren Library of Lincoln Cathedral. From 1533, Singleton had been a member of the circle of avant-garde evangelicals gathered at the margins of the Tudor court under the patronage of Thomas Cromwell. His sermon at Paul's Cross contributed to an orchestrated campaign in support of Cromwell's legislative programme, then proceding through Parliament, to sever all links of ecclesiastical jurisdiction with Rome and to confirm Henry's headship of the Church of England. The sermon interprets Paul's allegory of the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem in the Epistle to the Galatians as a model for thinking about the distinction between the invisible and visible Church. Singleton harnesses Pauline ecclesiology in an apology for the royal supremacy. Presented here is a transcribed copy of the original printed version.     

Renaissance Liturgical Reforms: Reflections on Intentions and Methods

Abstract

One of the hallmarks of the Renaissance was the concern with authenticity, and a concern with ad fontes texts. This is illustrated in the liturgical revisions which where planned for the Breviary, culminating in the edition prepared by Cardinal Quignon, and in the methods employed by Thomas Cranmer in his compilation of the Book of Common Prayer. This paper looks more closely at these attempts at Renaissance liturgical reform.     

‘To Take the Sword is to Draw the Sword without the Authority of the Prince’: Obedience,Duty and Romans 13 During the 1549 Rebellions in England

ABSTRACT

The motivations behind the 1549 rebellions were born of socio-economic and religious concerns. However, some contemporary commentators identified another underlying factor: a failure to observe the precepts of Romans 13. The text demands that all subjects must obey the higher powers for fear of God’s wrath, and that rulers have a reciprocal duty to protect their subjects from evil. In their response to the rebellions, Thomas Cranmer, Robert Crowley, and Thomas Lever, amongst others, provided an exegesis of Romans 13 that refused to place the blame for the uprising at the door of the rebels alone. Instead, they recognized that the temporal and spiritual ministers were likewise guilty of failing to observe their divinely ordained duties. As a result, what these interpreters revealed was that all classes of society shared a responsibility for the rebellions of 1549 because all had equally failed to observe the commands of Romans 13.     

Penitential Bookends: John Fisher and Thomas Sternhold interpret Psalm 6

Abstract

The sermons on the Penitential Psalms delivered by Bishop John Fisher to the household of Henry VII's mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond (published 1508), and the complete collection of Metrical Psalm paraphrases by royal courtier Thomas Sternhold (published 1549) serve as convenient penitential psalm ‘bookends’ to the reign of Henry VIII. This article examines the continuities and discontinuities in penitential psalms interpretation bracketed by these two works, and proposes that the harsh lines often drawn between mediaeval scholasticism and humanism, and between orthodox and evangelical interpretations of the Psalms are far less rigid and impermeable than has hitherto been suggested.     

Innovative Approaches to Child Custody and Domestic Violence in New Zealand

Summary

In 1995, as part of a major review of domestic violence law, the New Zealand Parliament amended the legislation under which disputes about custody of and access to children are determined by the Court. Specifically, the amendment introduced a rebuttable presumption that a parent who had used violence against a child or against the other parent would not have custody of, or unsupervised access to the child unless the Court could be satisfied that the child would be safe during visitation arrangements. Three years after the implementation of this legislation, it is timely to reflect on the impact of this major domestic violence law reform initiative. Our findings indicate that there are indeed advances. Psychological violence is now clearly being considered when Courts are assessing the issue of children's safety. As well, the delineation of mandatory risk assessment factors has led many judges to see a continuum of power and control tactics as relevant in domestic violence related visitation proceedings; the previous emphasis on physical violence has given way to an analysis which more closely reflects accords with women's and children's realities of the abuse they are exposed to. Some of the old problems continue to exist despite the law changes. There are still recent cases where perpetrators of serious violence are awarded unsupervised access and where their violence continues to be construed as “out of character,” arising because of the perpetrator's “despair” about the breakdown of his relationship. These and other issues are discussed.     

Interpretive acting-out: Unavoidable and sometimes useful

Abstract

Using one detailed case presentation, this paper examines the clinical hardship of making accurate and helpful interpretations that do not become part of the patient's defensive system. The author argues that interpretive acting-out is inevitable in the psychoanalytic process. But, if properly monitored, understood, and contained, these interpretive enactments can sometimes actually be a profit to the overall treatment. Issues of projective identification, countertransference, and the importance of realizing our transference role in the patient's changing phantasies are discussed throughout the case material.     

Language,life praxis and scenic understanding in psychoanalytic therapy

Freud held that the repressed unconscious arose from the separation of thing‐presentations from word‐presentations. The author divests these terms of the implication that they are objectively existing entities by citing some of Freud's other texts. Thing‐presentations are memory‐traces of (as yet) non‐language‐based interactions – that is, precipitates of actions that have been experienced and models of future actions. Scenic understanding, which, on the basis of participation by the therapist in the patient's play, treats all material presented by the patient by an approach analogous to the interpretation of dreams, is therefore the royal road to the unconscious.     

The English Reformation in Wittenberg: Luther and Melanchthon’s Engagement with Religious Change in England 1521–1560*

ABSTRACT

Exploring the reception in Wittenberg of the historiographically often puzzling English Reformation, this article examines Luther’s and Melanchthon’s reactions in their correspondence. Relationships between Henry VIII and the Wittenberg Reformers deepened with an English embassy, led by Edward Foxe, to the Schmalkaldic League. The delegation was based in Wittenberg 1537–38; German deputations were in England in 1538 and 1539 (the year of the conservative Act of Six Articles). The Reformers’ responses show good general knowledge of events in England. Although Wittenberg had hoped for English conversion, Henrician theological ambiguity impeded negotiations with the League. The executions of Thomas More, Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell caused the Wittenbergers to regard Henry with scepticism. Finally, Melanchthon's relationships to England after the deaths of Luther and Henry VIII are discussed. Developments under Edward VI made the English Reformation recognizable as part of the wider movement, and Melanchthon advised that English exiles in Germany should be treated as fellow-believers.     

Once More ...

Short notices of reissued books:
Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming.
Owen Chadwick, Michael Ramsey: A Life.
Julius Lipner, Hindus: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices.
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer.
William J. O'Malley, S.J., Meeting the Living God     

The Commodifled Self in Consumer Culture: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

Abstract

The author examined the premise that the pervasive consumer ideology in today's society has implications for the conceptions of self and others. She used structured interviews to assess conceptions of self and other and G. P. Moschis's (1978) questionnaire to measure consumer orientation among 76 U.S. and 62 Finnish college students. The principal hypotheses were (a) that the U.S. students would be more commodifled than the Finnish students and (b) that the participants who were high in consumer orientation would be more likely than those lower in consumer orientation to see themselves and others in material terms and also to consider personal characteristics to have market values. The results supported both hypotheses.     

Audiences at the “New” Museum: Visitor Commitment,Diversity and Leisure at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

ABSTRACT

In response to the “new museology” and a competitive and financially constrained environment, museums are increasingly expected to maintain high overall visitation, a democratized audience base and multiple offerings in terms of visitor experience. This article examines over a decade of visitor statistics from the “new” Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, which opened in 1998, to determine the extent to which it is meeting these expectations. The findings demonstrate Te Papa's successes, as well as its ongoing challenges in attracting a diverse and committed audience from a geographically dispersed, multicultural population. Also evident is the museum's varied leisure functions relating to holidays, social outings, and special events. Te Papa's visitor database, which has been consistently accumulated throughout a critical period in the history of the museum, thus provides insights into visitation in the context of the “new” museology and the repositioning of museums within the leisure and tourism industry.     

A Comment on teurnell's “the piggle—a sexually abused girl?”

Abstract

In his comment on Teurnell's paper “The Piggle—a sexually abused girl?” the author points to the risk of organizing a complicated clinical material around one single idea and briefly describes other ways of understanding the material in Winnicott's book. To the author's mind, the richness and depth of the material and the subtleness and aesthetics of the interplay between Winnicott and the Piggle, in Teurnell's way of reading, collapse into one single question: the possibility of a sexual trauma. At the end of the comment the role of the Piggle's father is shortly discussed.     

Unreasonable Hope: A Critical Evaluation of Thomas Oord's Eschatology

Drawing upon his theology of essential kenosis, Thomas Oord maintains that God can effect miracles, resurrect Jesus's body, and redeem the entire created order in a definitive victory over evil without using any form of coercion. The author explores Oord's theology in order to evaluate this claim. Based on the criteria of both internal consistency and rational viability, the author argues that Oord's notion of essential kenosis makes the bodily resurrection of Jesus an extreme case of good fortune for God and thoroughly undermines any reasonable hope in an eschatological future in which all creatures experience resurrection and redemption in an evil‐free existence.     

The Hands of Egon Schiele

Through an exploration of Egon Schiele's life and enigmatic ?mannerisms?, which recall those of autistic children and schizophrenic patients, the author explores the impact his outstanding and disturbing paintings can have. The approach is biographical, revealing Schiele the artist as an already gifted though disturbed child. Some material refers to Schiele's way of expressing painful yet creative fantasies, in which different parts of his body (in particular his hands), projected into his paintings, form part of an intimate, creative, disturbed language. From childhood to his early death, Schiele used a coherent figurative language which was both realistic and oneiric; the author develops some ideas on art and psychoanalysis, particularly as to the creative process within a complex and disturbed personality. Working as he did between the psychotic and non-psychotic elements of his personality (Bion), Schiele is an appropriate artist for our time. His drama, his feelings of disintegration and ?dismemberment? are nourished by the creative, sane parts of his personality. The true psychotic artist is not entirely psychotic, for creation requires aesthetic taste and harmony.