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CHAP. VI. a doubt, whether Stafford's debt of gratitude to St. Paul was not fully equalled by St. Paul's obligations to Stafford,-so successful was the latter in exhibiting, in all their native vigour and beauty of thought, the divinely inspired eloquence and wisdom which had before been hopelessly obscured by the 'foolish fantasies and elvish expositions of doting doctors'.'

Barnes and Stafford dispute in the divinity schools.

Barnes

converted

religious

Concurrently with these efforts both Barnes and Stafford ventured on the yet bolder course of challenging for their new method of instruction the attention of the schools. The former indeed was throughout his career distinguished rather by zeal than discretion, and shortly before Stafford commenced his 'act' as bachelor of divinity, began to appear as a disputant on quæstiones bearing on Christian doctrine, and taken in all probability from the New Testament. According to Foxe, Stafford, as a bachelor keeping his 'act' in the schools, was called upon to reply to Barnes and was the prior's first respondent. 'Which disputation,' says the Martyrologist, was marvellous in the sight of the great blind doctors, and joyful to the godly spirited3.?

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After a renunciation of the old for the new learning, and to Bilney's of scholastic for scriptural divinity, the surrender of mediæval for apostolic doctrine was easy,-perhaps inevitable. It was not long before the prior was himself, in turn, called upon to

views.

1 'I doubt whether he was more bound to blessed Paul for leaving those godly epistles behind him, to instruct and teach the congregation of God, whereof he was a dear member, or that Paul, which before had so many years been foiled with the foolish fantasies and elvish expositions of certain doting doctors, and, as it were, drowned in the dirty dregs of the drowsy duncers, was rather bound unto him, seeing that by his industry, labour, pain, and diligence, he seemed of a dead man to make him alive again, and putting away all unseemliness to set him forth in his native colours; so that now he is both seen, read, and heard not without great and singular pleasures of them that travail in the studies of his most godly epistles. And as he

beautified the letter of blessed Paul with his godly expositions, so likewise did he learnedly set forth in his lectures the native sense and true understanding of the four evangelists, vively restoring unto us the apostles mind, and the mind of those holy writers, which so many years before had lien unknown and obscured through the darkness and mists of the Pharisees and papists.' Becon, Jewel of Joy (ed. Ayre), 426. For an illustration of Stafford's method of lecturing see Latimer-Corrie, I 410.

Latimer in writing to Cromwell in 1537 evidently implies that he considers Barnes to be wanting in 'moderation and temperance of himself. Latimer-Corrie, 11 378.

3 Foxe-Cattley, v 415.

listen to arguments which he found it hard to refute, and CHAP. VI. was added to the number of Bilney's converts. Under the combined efforts and influence of these three,- Bilney, Barnes, and Stafford,-the work of reform went on apace; while at the same time the introduction of new contributions to the literature of the cause began to give to the movement at Cambridge a more definite aim and a distincter outline.

of Luther's

writings.

In the year 1520 appeared those three famous treatises Appearance by Luther', wherein by general consent is to be recognised early the commencement and foundation of the doctrines of the Reformers. From their first appearance it was seen that the religious world was now called upon to choose not merely

1 These were (1) The An den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation (an address to the nobles of Germany on the Christian condition); (2) The De Captivitate Babylonica; (3) The Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen. In the first of these Luther attacks the Romish distinction between the rights of the laity and of the clergy in the Church; developing, in contradistinction, the idea of the independent Christian state on the basis of a universal Christian priesthood. He also disputes the claim of the pope to be the sole interpreter of Scripture, and denies his exclusive right to convene œcumenical councils. He next proceeds to indicate propositions of reform to be discussed at a general free council; and, in particular, demands a reformat on of the whole system of education, from the grammar school to the university, and the displacement of the Sentences for the Bible. He also advises the rejection of all Aristotle's writings that relate to moral or natural philosophy, but is willing that the Orga non, the Rhetoric, and the Poetics should continue to be studied. whole host of commentators are however to be abolished. The studies he most strongly recommends are Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, mathematics, and history, of which last he says, welche ich befehle verständigen, und sich selbst wohl geben würde, so man mit Ernst nach einer Reformation trachtete; und fürwahr viel daran gelegen ist.' Walch, x

The

370-80. The De Captivitate Babylonica was a fierce attack on the special dogmas of Romanism; instead of seven sacraments Luther admitted only three,-baptism, the Lord's Supper, and repentance. A lengthened analysis of this is given in Lewis, Life of Fisher, c. XI. The third treatise is comparatively free from the polemical element, and is devoted to an exposition of the working of faith and love as living principles in the true believer. An able criticism of each work is given by Dorner, Hist. of Protestant Theology (Clark's series), 1 97-113.

2 It is the Reformation proclaimed in these writings and no other, which the German nation has accepted.' Dorner, Ibid. 'In diesen Schriften thut sich zwischen der neuen Lehre und der alten Kirche ein Abgrund auf, der nicht mehr überbrückt werden konnte. Verwerfung der ganzen kirchlichen Ueberlieferung und jeder kirchlichen Autorität, Aufstellung eines Dogma über das Verhältniss des Menschen zu Gott, von welchem der Urheber selbst bekannte, dass es seit den Zeiten der Apostel bis auf ihn der ganzen Kirche unbekannt geblieben sei, diese Dinge traten unverhüllt hervor. Die Forderung lautete nicht mehr wie bis dahin: dass die Kirche sich reformiren solle an Haupt und Gliedern, sondern auflösen solle sie sich, und das Gericht der Selbstzerstörung an sich vollzie hen.' Dollinger, Kirche und Kirchen, p. 67.

These writings

to the

Sorbonne

for exami

nation.

CHAP. VI. between conservatism and reform, but between conservatism and revolution, and that a new path, altogether independent of that of the Humanists, had been struck out, leading-few could venture to say whither. At Paris, these writings were handed over handed over for examination to the doctors of the Sorbonne,— and Crevier represents all Europe as waiting for the decision of that learned body'. But in England the decision that was most anxiously awaited was undoubtedly that of the London Conference. The rapidity with which the new doctrines were spreading in this country, soon became a fact that it was impossible to disguise, and fully justified the confidence with which the Lutherans in Germany anticipated the responsive echo on the English shores. We will send them to England,' said the German printers, when the nuncio Aleander notified that Luther's works were prohibited throughout the empire; Rapid spread and to England the volumes were sent. The commercial intercourse between the eastern counties and the continent the eastern rendered their introduction a matter of comparative ease; and Cambridge, drawing as she did a large proportion of her students from those districts, was necessarily one of the earliest centres that became familiarised with the Lutheran doctrines. Nix, furious at the spread of heresy in his diocese, called loudly for repressive measures. Wolsey however, who saw how impolitic would be a system of violent repression amid such unmistakeable proofs of the tendency of popular feeling, shewed little eagerness to play the part of a persecutor, and pleaded that his powers from Rome did not authorise him to order the burning of Lutheran books3. But on the tenth of December, 1520, Luther still further roused the fury of his antagonists, by publicly burning the papal bull, along with sundry volumes of the canon law, at Wittenberg. It was then that Wolsey convened a conference in

of the

Lutheran doctrines in

counties and at Cam

bridge.

Wolsey adverse to extreme

measures.

Luther burns the papal bull at Wittenberg.

1 Luther's writings were condemned by the Sorbonne to be burnt, April 21, 1521.

2 The rapid spread of Luther's writings in Europe is remarkable. The writer of the able article on the Reformer in Herzog's Real-Encyklopädie (vIII 578) states that even in

1519 they had penetrated into France, England, and Italy; and Erasmus writing so early as May 15, 1520, to Ecolampadius, states that they had narrowly escaped being burned in England. Brewer, Letters and Papers, III 284.

3 Ibid. 111 455.

convenes a

in London.

the Sorbonne

London

Conference.

books burnt

Cross,

Fisher's

London, to sit, as the Sorbonne had long been sitting, in CHAP. VI. judgement on the obnoxious volumes. In these proceedings Wolsey some of the most influential men at Oxford and Cambridge conference took part, and about three weeks after the Sorbonne had Decisions of given its decision, the conference arrived at a similarly ad- and the verse conclusion'. The Lutheran treatises were publicly Luther's burnt, on the twelfth of May, in the churchyard at Paul's at Paul's Cross; and Fisher, in a sermon delivered on the occasion in May 12, 1521. the presence of Wolsey and numerous other magnates, not sermon only denounced the condemned volumes as heretical and Luther. pernicious, but in his excess of religious zeal and indignation, declared that Luther, in burning the pope's bull, had clearly shewn that he would have burnt the pope too had he been able. The saying was not forgotten; and a few years after, when Tyndale's New Testament was treated in like fashion, the translator caustically observed, that the bishops in burning Christ's word had of course shewn that they would willingly have also burnt its Divine Author3.

against

thorises a

search for

writings.

Within two days after Fisher's sermon, Wolsey issued Wolsey auhis mandates to all the bishops in England, 'to take order general that any books, written or printed, of Martin Luther's errors Luther's and heresies, should be brought in to the bishop of each respective diocese; and that every such bishop receiving such books and writings should send them up to him.' And be- Luther's fore the Easter term was over similar conflagrations were at Oxford instituted at both universities,-that at Cambridge being bridge. held under the joint auspices of Wolsey, Fisher, and Bullock".

1 'Whereupon after consultation had, they' [the authorities at Oxford] 'appointed Thomas Brinknell, about this time of Lincoln College, John Kynton, a Minorite, John Roper, lately of Magdalen College, and John de Coloribus, doctors of divinity, who meeting at that place divers learned men and bishops in a solemn convocation in the cardinal's house, and finding his doctrine to be for the most part repugnant to the present used in England, solemnly condemned it: a testimony of which was afterwards sent to Oxford and fastened on the dial in St. Mary's churchyard by Nicholas Krat

zer, the maker and contriver thereof,
and his books also burnt both here
and at Cambridge.' Wood-Gutch,11 19.
2 Brewer, Letters and Papers, III
485.

Lewis, Life of Fisher, 11 21; De-
maus, Life of Tyndale, p. 150.
4 Strype, Memorials, 1 55–6.
5 Wood (see supra, note 1) is
right in placing these conflagrations
in 1521. Cooper (Annals, 1 303-4),
who took his extracts of the proctors'
accounts from Baker and has regu-
larly placed them at the beginning of
each year, has thus left it to be in-
ferred that the burning at Cambridge
took place in 1520-1; and R. Parker

books burnt

and Cam

King Henry

write against Luther.

CHAP. VI. Then, in the following year, king Henry himself compiled his celebrated polemic, Contra Martinum Lutherum Hæresiand First archon; and in 1523 appeared Fisher's Assertionis Lutheranæ Confutatio. Yet still, in spite of pope, king, chancellor, and lawgiver, the religious movement at Cambridge continued to gather strength, and to the systematic study of the Scriptures there was now added that of the Lutheran doctrines.

It was not possible however to treat the edicts of Rome, enforced as they were by the action of the authorities in England, with an indifference like that which had confronted the denouncers of Erasmus's New Testament, and a policy of Meetings of caution and secrecy had now become indispensable. It was ers at Cam- accordingly resolved to appoint a place of meeting where discussions might be held in comparative freedom from the espionage of the college. On the present site of the Bull Inn or closely adjacent to it, there stood in those days the The White White Horse Inn, at that time the property of Catherine

the Reform

bridge.

Horse.'

Hall'. A lane, known as Mill Street, passed then as now to the rear of the buildings that fronted the main street, and afforded to the students from the colleges in the northern part of the town, the means of entering the inn with less risk of observation. The White Horse was accordingly chosen as the place of rendezvous; and as the meetings before long

(Hist. of Cambridge, p. 197), actually
states that it was in 1520. But the
following entries by the proctors
(Grace Book, в 411, 416), coming as
they do at the conclusion of the en-
tries for the Easter term, 1521,
clearly shew that the proceedings
were consequent upon the decision
of the conference held in London:-
Expensa Senioris Proctoris: Item
solutum Petro bedello misso do-
mino Cardinali et Cancellario cum
literis pro operibus Lutheri, 20s.'
Expensa Junioris Proctoris: 'Item
solvi doctori Bullocke pro expensis
Londini circa examinationem Lu-
theri ad mandatum domini Cardi-
nalis, 53s. 4d.' 'Item doctori Um-
frey pro ejus expensis in consi-
mili negotio, 53s. 4d.' 'Item doc-
toribus Watson et Rid'ey pro eorum
expensis in eodem negotio, £5. 6s. 8d.'
'Item doctori Nycolas gerenti locum

vice Cancellarii pro munere quod dedit tabellario domini Cardinalis, 4s.' 'Item eidem pro consimili munere dato tabellario Regine, 48.' 'Item eidem pro potu et aliis expensis circa combustionem librorum Martini Lutheri, 2s.'

1 The sign of the White Horse remains, but it appears doubtful if the old White Horse mentioned by Strype in his Annals, has not given way to the Bull Inn: especially as all that ground does belong to Catherine Hall, and there is no record of the college having parted with the White Horse, which was once their property.' Smith, Cambridge Portfolio, p. 364. Mr Smith conjectures, from an indenture referred to in the register of Catherine Hall, that the White Horse stood on the site now occupied by Mr Jones's house and the present King's Lane.' Ibid. 531. 2 Strype, Memorials, 1 568-9.

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