Formularies of Faith: Ten Articles of 1536, The Bishop's Book of 1537: The Institution of a Christian Man, and The King's Book 1543: A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for Any Christian Man

by Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII, Andrew Raines (Editor)

Included in Formularies of Faith:
Articles About Religion (1536)
The Bishops' Book: The Institution of a Christian Man (1537)
The King's Book: A Necessary Doctrine and Erudition for Any Christian Man (1543)

As the Reformation took root in the 1530s, Thomas Cranmer recognized that the Church of England faced a catechetical crisis. How could the English Church articulate its protests against the abuses and inventions of the papacy while also proclaiming the doctrinal truths of the one, holy, and catholic church? Although the Church of England initially attempted to create confessional articles of faith similar to those of Lutheran Germany, Cranmer became convinced that what was needed was a dogmatic manual which could train young priests to bring the Reformation to the local parish. With this goal in mind, the entire English episcopate unanimously endorsed the publication of The Bishops’ Book in 1537. Modeled after Augustine’s Enchiridion and Peter Lombard’s Sentences , the book aimed to give a systematic account of the doctrines, sacraments, prayers, and ethical commitments that made up the foundation of Christian life. In doing so, the book also touched on those much-contested questions of Reformation Europe—purgatory, justification, saints, images, and ceremonies. Yet at the direction of Henry VIII, The Bishops’ Book underwent intense revision as a more conservative mood set in during the early 1540s. The product of this revision was The King’s Book of 1543, a text shot through with that unique blend of nostalgia and reform which has come to be known as Henrician Catholicism.

By publishing the confessional articles of the 1530s alongside The Bishops’ Book and The King’s Book, Formularies of Faith allows readers to experience the dizzying path of the Reformation first-hand. Together, these texts ensured that a medieval tradition of systematic theology and catechesis would endure in the reformed Church of England.

Genres: Theology

372 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1543

About the author

Thomas Cranmer was born in 1489 in Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England. His parents, Thomas and Agnes (née Hatfield) Cranmer, were of modest wealth and were not members of the aristocracy. Their oldest son, John, inherited the family estate, whereas Thomas and his younger brother Edmund were placed on the path to a clerical career. Today historians know nothing definite about Cranmer’s early schooling. He probably attended a grammar school in his village. At the age of fourteen, two years after the death of his father, he was sent to the newly created Jesus College, Cambridge. It took him a surprisingly long eight years to reach his Bachelor of Arts degree following a curriculum of logic, classical literature and philosophy. During this time, he began to collect medieval scholastic books, which he preserved faithfully throughout his life. For his master's degree he took a different course of study, concentrating on the humanists, Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Erasmus. This time he progressed with no special delay, finishing the course in three years.[7] Shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, he was elected to a Fellowship of Jesus College

A leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I, Cranmer helped build a favorable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon.

During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he was responsible for publishing the first officially authorized vernacular service, the Exhortation and Litany. When Edward came to the throne, Cranmer wrote and compiled the first two editions of the "Book of Common Prayer."

Cranmer was tried for treason and heresy after Mary I, came to the throne. Imprisoned for over two years, he made several recantations but, on the day of his execution, he withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Roman Catholics and a martyr to Protestants.