![Sample our Built Environment journals, sign in here to start your access, Latest two full volumes FREE to you for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5926/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Built-Environment.jpg"})
Abstract
Using the evidence of wills, this paper focuses on the religion of the Yorkshire gentry from 1531 to 1553. It is primarily based on 92 testaments, which have not been studied in detail before, for evidence of the reactions of Yorkshire’s gentry to the Henrician and Edwardian Reformations. Whilst the majority remained committed to the old religion — which commanded much loyalty due in part to the coexistence it allowed between privatised and communal forms of worship — there was a reformed minority amongst this group. The Henrician and Edwardian Reformations eroded the traditional religious landscape by three means: silence being imposed on committed Catholics by top-down governmental reforms; practical, pragmatic reformers collaborating with the Tudor government in pursuit of material gain; and the ideological allure of the New Learning. Whilst the watchword was conservatism in religious matters for most of these testators, the Reformation still made some notable headway amongst a few.
Keywords:
Acknowledgment
Many thanks to Professor Emilia Jamroziak for her invaluable help and advice on this paper.
Notes
1. Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), pp. 279–81.
2. Joan Thirsk, Sources of Information on Population, 1500–1760, and Unexplored Sources in Local Records (Canterbury, 1965); A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558 (London, 1959), pp. 172, 215.
3. A. G. Dickens, The English Reformation (London, 1989).
4. Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (London, 1975); J. J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1984); Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional religion in England, c. 1400-c. 1580 (Connecticut, 2005).
5. Alec Ryrie, ‘Counting Sheep, Counting Shepherds: The Problem of Allegiance in the English Reformation’, in The Beginnings of English Protestantism, ed. Peter Marshall and Alec Ryrie (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 84–110 (p. 85).
6. G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509–1558 (London, 1977), p. 371; A. G. Dickens, ‘The Early Expansion of Protestantism in England, 1520–1558’, in The Impact of the English Reformation 1500–1640, ed. Peter Marshall (London, 1997), pp. 90–121 (p. 92).
7. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People, p. 1; Christopher Haigh, English Reformations: Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993), p. 202.
8. Haigh, English Reformations, pp. 279–81.
9. Rosemary O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation (London, 1986), p. 146.
10. Ethan Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 5; Norman Jones, The English Reformation: Religion and Cultural Adaption (Oxford, 2002), p. 2; Nicholas Tyacke, ‘Introduction: Re-Thinking the ‘English Reformation’’, in England’s Long Reformation 1500–1800, ed. Nicholas Tyacke (London, 1998), pp. 1–32 (pp. 1–4).
11. Nigel Goose and Nesta Evans, ‘Wills as an Historical Source’, in When Death Do Us Part: Understanding and Interpreting the Probate Records of Early Modern England, ed. Tom Arkell, Nesta Evans and Nigel Goose (Oxford, 2000), pp. 38–71 (p. 55).
12. D. M. Palliser, Tudor York (Oxford, 1979), pp. 248–54.
13. Claire Cross, ‘Wills as Evidence of Popular Piety in the Reformation Period; Leeds and Hull, 1540–1640’, in The End of Strife: Death, Reconciliation and Expressions of Christian Spirituality, ed. David Loades (Edinburgh, 1984), pp. 44–51 (pp. 45–6); Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 517–23.
14. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants, pp. 172, 215.
15. Cross, ‘Wills as Evidence of Popular Piety’, pp. 45–6; Claire Cross, ‘Parochial Structure and the Dissemination of Protestantism in Sixteenth Century England: A Tale of Two Cities’, Studies in Church History, 16 (1979), 269–78 (pp. 273–4); Peter Heath, ‘Urban Piety in the Later Middle Ages: the Evidence of Hull Wills’, in The Church, Politics and Patronage in the Fifteenth Century, ed. Barrie Dobson (Gloucester, 1984), pp. 209–34 (p. 229).
16. John T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War (London, 1969), pp. 166–209.
17. Sarah L. Bastow, The Catholic Gentry of Yorkshire, 1536–1642: Resistance and Accommodation (Lewiston, 2007).
18. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry, pp. 167–9; Bastow, The Catholic Gentry of Yorkshire, pp. 1–2.
19. Caroline J. Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540–1580 (Cambridge, 1997), p. 7.
20. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, pp. 2–23; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. xxxiii.
21. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, p. 2.
22. Haigh, English Reformations, pp. 279–81.
23. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, pp. 6–7.
24. Testamenta Eboracensia: A Selection of Wills from the Registry at York, ed. John William Clay, vol. VI, Surtees Society 106 (Durham, 1902) (hereafter TE VI).
25. North Country Wills, ed. John William Clay, Surtees Society 116 (Durham, 1908).
26. Attreed checked Test. Ebor. VI against the originals in the probate registers at York and concluded that they are accurate and representative of the whole documents: Lorraine C. Attreed, ‘Preparation for Death in Sixteenth Century Northern England’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 13 (1982), 37–66 (p. 38).
27. TE VI, No. 19, 28, 30, 31, 33, 37, 40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 51, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 62, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 107, 112, 113, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 128, 129, 132, 137, 140, 145, 147, 150, 151, 155, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 166, 168, 170, 171, 172, 178, 180, 184, 187, 189, 194, 195, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 209, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 224, 225, 226, 230, 239; North Country Wills, No. 137, 159, 162, 164. The Heraldic Visitation of the Northern Counties in 1530 recorded exactly 100 members of the armigerous class in Yorkshire. While this is no doubt an underestimate, even if we were to double or triple this figure, 92 wills is still a sufficiently representative sample: Heraldic Visitation of the Northern Counties in 1530, ed. W. H. D. Longstaffe, Surtees Society 41 (1863).
28. Litzenberger, The English Reformation and the Laity: Gloucestershire, 1540–1580.
29. Malcolm Vale, Piety, Charity and Literacy among the Yorkshire Gentry, 1370–1480 (York, 1976), p. 31; Nicholas Verrill, ‘The Religion of the Yorkshire Gentry 1509–1531: The Evidence of Wills’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 86 (2014), 169–92 (p. 173).
30. TE VI, No. 28, 30, 31, 33, 37, 40, 41, 46, 49, 56, 57, 59, 62, 70, 72, 78, 79, 150.
31. Ibid, No. 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 102, 107, 120, 123, 126, 129, 132, 140, 145, 162, 163, 171, 178, 180, 187, 189.
32. Attreed, ‘Preparation for Death in Sixteenth Century Northern England’, pp. 45–6; Jacob Helt, Purgatory, Policy and Piety in Sixteenth-Century England (Aldershot, 2001), pp. 131–2; Peter Marshall, The Catholic Priesthood and the English Reformation (Oxford, 1994), p. 51; Whiting, ‘“For the Health of my Soul”: Prayers for the Dead in the Tudor South-West’, in The Impact of the English Reformation 1500–1640, ed. Peter Marshall (London, 1997), pp. 75–139 (p. 126); Susan Brigden, London and the Reformation (Oxford, 1989), p. 386.
33. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England (Oxford, 2002), p. 80.
34. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants, p. 238; R. Whiting, Local Response to the English Reformation (Basingstoke, 1998), pp. 72–4; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 510–6; Brigden, London and the Reformation, p. 386; Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, pp. 80–1.
35. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 510–6.
36. TE VI, No. 112.
37. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, p. 47.
38. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 393; Alan Kreider, English Chantries: The Road to Dissolution (London, 1979), pp. 122–4.
39. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, pp. 81–92.
40. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 510–6.
41. Vale, Piety, Charity and Literacy, p. 31; Verrill, ‘The Religion of the Yorkshire Gentry’, p. 173.
42. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 505.
43. TE VI, No. 194.
44. J. D. Alsop, ‘Religious Preambles in Early Modern English Wills as Formulae’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 40 (1989), 19–27 (p. 23).
45. TE VI, No. 122, 170; North Country Wills, No. 137.
46. TE VI, No. 101, 112, 113, 119, 121, 124, 128, 137, 147, 160, 166, 168, 172, 184.
47. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, p. 81.
48. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 523.
49. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, pp. 94–5.
50. Haigh, English Reformations, p. 171.
51. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, pp. 96, 99.
52. TE VI, No. 201.
53. Ibid, No. 151, 155, 157, 159, 195, 202, 203, 204, 206, 209, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 224, 225, 226, 230, 239; North Country Wills, No. 159, 162, 164.
54. TE VI, No. 19, 46, 56, 59, 96, 97, 101, 107, 112, 113, 119, 120, 129, 140, 160, 163, 166, 170, 171, 172, 178, 194.
55. Ibid, No. 155, 195, 201, 202, 203, 204, 206, 218, 219, 224, 239; North Country Wills, No. 164.
56. Whiting, ‘“For the Health of my Soul”: Prayers for the Dead in the Tudor South-West’, p. 81; Graham Mayhew, ‘The Progress of the Reformation in East Sussex 1530–1559: the Evidence from Wills’, Southern History, 5 (1983), 38–67 (pp. 55–6); Dickens, The English Reformation, p. 235.
57. Whiting, ‘“For the Health of my Soul”: Prayers for the Dead in the Tudor South-West’, p. 81.
58. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 504–5; Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, p. 101.
59. TE VI, No. 157, 203; North Country Wills, No. 159, 164.
60. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 505.
61. TE VI, No. 189.
62. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry, p. 167–9.
63. TE VI, No. 28, 31, 37, 44, 46, 49, 56, 62, 72, 78, 90, 92, 96, 97, 99, 102, 107, 112, 113, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126, 129, 137, 140, 145, 150, 160, 168, 171, 178, 184, 189.
64. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 91.
65. John Bossy, ‘The Mass as a Social Institution 1200–1700’, Past and Present, 100 (1983), 29–61 (p. 33).
66. TE VI, No. 194.
67. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 368–9.
68. Emile Màle, Religious Art in France: The Late Middle Ages (Princeton, 1986), p. 147.
69. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 156.
70. André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 2005), p. 466; Margaret Aston, ‘Death’, in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England, ed. Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 202–28 (p. 220).
71. TE VI, No. 19, 28, 37, 40, 41, 46, 51, 55, 56, 57, 70, 72, 150.
72. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 511.
73. TE VI, No. 91, 92, 99, 101, 113, 119, 120, 162, 189.
74. Christine Carpenter, ‘Religion’, in Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England, ed. Raluca Radulescu and Alison Truelove (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005), pp. 134–50 (p. 141).
75. Colin Richmond, ‘Religion’, in Fifteenth-Century Attitudes: Perceptions of Society in Late Medieval England, ed. Rosemary Horrox (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 183–201 (pp. 198–200); N. Saul, ‘The Religious Sympathies of the Gentry in Gloucestershire, 1200–1500’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 98 (1980), 99–112 (p. 109).
76. Carpenter, ‘Religion’, pp. 141–4.
77. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, pp. 121–3; Eamon Duffy, ‘Elite and Popular Religion: The Book of Hours and Lay Piety in the Later Middle Ages’, in Elite and Popular Religion, ed. Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory (Woodbridge, 2006), pp. 140–61 (pp. 151–7); Peter Clarke, ‘New Evidence of Noble and Gentry Piety in Fifteenth-Century England and Wales’, Journal of Medieval History, 34 (2008), 23–35 (pp. 23–4).
78. TE VI, No. 19, 28, 30, 33, 40, 41, 44, 46, 49, 56, 90, 91, 92, 96, 97, 101, 102, 112, 120, 121, 123, 129, 140, 145, 150, 160, 166, 168, 171, 172, 178, 180, 184, 187, 189; North Country Wills, No. 137.
79. TE VI, No. 19, 28, 30, 31, 33, 37, 40, 49, 52, 55, 56, 57, 59, 62, 70, 72, 76, 78, 79, 90, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 99, 100, 101, 102, 107, 113, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124, 126, 129, 132, 137, 147, 150, 160, 162, 166, 168, 170, 171, 178, 180, 184, 189.
80. Carpenter, ‘Religion’, pp. 143–4.
81. TE VI, No. 28, 31, 44, 46, 49, 56, 62, 72, 78, 90, 96, 97, 99, 102, 107, 112, 113, 119, 120, 121, 123, 126, 129, 137, 140, 150, 160, 171, 178, 184, 189.
82. Richmond, ‘Religion’, pp. 199–200; Saul, p. 102.
83. TE VI, No. 28, 44, 46, 49, 56, 90, 96, 97, 102, 112, 120, 121, 123, 129, 140, 150, 160, 171, 184, 189.
84. TE VI, No. 28, 90, 91, 92, 94, 101, 112.
85. Fleming, ‘Charity, Faith, and the Gentry of Kent 1442–1529’, p. 42.
86. TE VI, No. 28, 90, 91, 92, 101, 112.
87. Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, p. 98.
88. Keith Dockray, ‘Plumpton family (per.c.1165–c.1550)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/ view/article/52793, accessed 7 Sep 2011]; Dickens, Lollards and Protestants, pp. 131–2.
89. Plumpton Correspondence, ed. Thomas Stapleton, Camden Society 4 (London, 1839).
90. Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, pp. 105–6.
91. TE VI, No. 157, 194, 203; North Country Wills, No. 159, 164.
92. North Country Wills, No. 159.
93. TE VI, No. 194, 203; North Country Wills, No. 164.
94. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, p. 94.
95. TE VI, No. 203.
96. Dockray, ‘Plumpton family’.
97. Plumpton Correspondence, pp. 231–4.
98. Ibid, p. 231.
99. Plumpton Correspondence, p. 234.
100. Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, p. 99.
101. Ibid, p. 100.
102. Stephen Gardiner, A declaration of Such True Articles as George Loye Hath Gone About to Confute as False (London, 1546), p. 267.
103. Roger Edgeworth, Sermons Very Fruitfull, Godly, and Learned (London, 1557), p. 364.
104. TE VI, No. 202.
105. Ibid, No. 203.
106. Ibid, No. 151, 155, 159, 195, 201, 202, 204, 206, 209, 211, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 221, 224, 225, 226, 230, 239; North Country Wills, No. 162.
107. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, pp. 6–7.
108. TE VI, 184.
109. Ibid, No. 168.
110. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, pp. 6–7.
111. TE VI, No. 160.
112. Rosemary Horrox, ‘Constable, Sir Marmaduke (1456/7?–1518)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk/view/article/6108, accessed 7 Sep 2011].
113. TE VI, No. 126.
114. Ibid, No. 129.
115. Keith Dockray, ‘Neville, John, third Baron Latimer (1493–1543)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), [http://0-www.oxforddnb.com.wam.leeds.ac.uk /view/article/19947, accessed 7 Sep 2011].
116. Steve Hindle, The State and Social Change in Early Modern England, c. 1550–1640 (Basingstoke, 2000), pp. 6–9; Michael Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England c. 1550–1700 (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 1–16.
117. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, p. 24.
118. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, pp. 6–7.
119. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry, pp. 167–8.
120. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants, p. 238; Whiting, Local Response to the English Reformation, pp. 72–4.
121. Marshall, Beliefs and the Dead in Reformation England, p. 81.
122. Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p. 523.
123. Ryrie, ‘Counting sheep’, p. 99.
124. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation, p. 24.
125. Haigh, English Reformations, pp. 279–81.