The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580

by Eamon Duffy

This prize-winning account of the pre-Reformation church recreates lay people’s experience of religion in fifteenth-century England. Eamon Duffy shows that late medieval Catholicism was neither decadent nor decayed, but was a strong and vigorous tradition, and that the Reformation represented a violent rupture from a popular and theologically respectable religious system. For this edition, Duffy has written a new Preface reflecting on recent developments in our understanding of the period.
From reviews of the first edition:
“A magnificent scholarly achievement [and] a compelling read.”—Patricia Morrison, Financial Times
“Deeply imaginative, movingly written, and splendidly illustrated. . . . Duffy’s analysis . . . carries conviction.”—Maurice Keen, New York Review of Books
“This book will afford enjoyment and enlightenment to layman and specialist alike.”—Peter Heath, Times Literary Supplement
“[An] astonishing and magnificent piece of work.”—Edward T. Oakes, Commonweal

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, Christianity, Church History, Medieval, Theology

700 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Eamon Duffy is Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge, and former President of Magdalene College.

He describes himself as a "cradle Catholic" and specializes in 15th to 17th century religious history of Britain. His work has done much to overturn the popular image of late-medieval Catholicism in England as moribund, and instead presents it as a vibrant cultural force. On weekdays from 22nd October to 2nd November 2007, he presented the BBC Radio 4 series "10 Popes Who Shook the World" - those popes featured were Peter, Leo I, Gregory I, Gregory VII, Innocent III, Paul III, Pius IX, Pius XII, John XXIII, and John Paul II.

Reviews

[Mir · Rating 4 out of 5]

This revisionist behemoth can be divided into two parts. The first and longer section outlines the characteristics of late medieval Catholicism, its defining ideas and practices. He examines this topic from the perspectives of both laity and clergy, using a variety of sources including, unusually, the material conditions of the churches themselves. If you don't know what a rood screen is and couldn't care less, this part may be slow going for you, but it is necessary to establish the foundations for the point Duffy has been waiting hundreds of pages to make: late medieval Catholicism was vibrant. If that doesn't sound to you like a revolutionary argument that needs to be hidden two thirds of the way through a 700 page text, it is because the book came out almost two decades ago and the revisionist thesis has become a mainstream, although not dominant, historical position.

Before Duffy's groundbreaking work, the accepted explanation for the Reformation was the moribund corruption of the Catholic Church. Protestant historians, who traditionally dominated this subject, presented a picture of late medieval religion in which a hopelessly corrupt church cared nothing for its flock, who in turn resented or disliked the church and were apathetic about its teachings and practices. As soon as an alternative presented itself, the populace happily turned to the new sects to find more active and fulfilling spiritual lives.

In terms of material evidence, this simply wasn't the case. While the Church had plenty of flaws, especially higher in its hierarchy, on the local level it was very active and responsive to the needs of varying communities. Most people attended services with enthusiasm; even if they were not markedly pious, it was the main entertainment available, and priests and architects tried hard to make the experience of church attendance attractive and interesting. Even if congregants were not entirely happy with a particular pastor there is rarely evidence that they were dissatisfied with Catholicism per se. In fact, there is a mass of evidence in the form of wills* that English people had strong views on certain doctrines such as charity, prayer, and Purgatory.

Duffy is clearly not without his own biases, but this study served as an important corrective, and also reemphasized the value of both microstudies and solid, primary source evidence, both of which had been going out of style in favor of more theoretical approaches to history.


*Wills in this period were not mere lists of property but usually included confessions, statements of faith, exhortations to family members, and prayers.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hugely, hugely detailed book that does a very nice job of critiquing what had been the prevailing viewpoint of the English Reformation: that medieval Catholicism had petered out, with disinterested clerics and semi-pagan peasants only revitalized by the influence of Protestant reform. It's an inaccurate way of looking at things (or at best oversimplified), and Duffy does a really nice job lining up piece after piece of evidence that suggests that medieval Catholicism wasn't worn out or despised by most Englishmen, but rather it was an integral part of their lives, both as individuals and as a community.

That said, Duffy swings a bit too far the other way. He pretty clearly prefers Catholicism to Protestantism, and possible counterpoints to his argument are either ignored (the Lollards) or quickly brushed aside without the massive pile of evidence and support that characterizes the rest of his argument. He claims that this was because those things were outside his topic - he's only dealing with traditional religion. And that's fair enough, but I think on the whole it damages the topic that he is dealing with, by giving a generally incomplete picture of medieval religion. He'll occasionally make it seem like medieval Catholicism was some sort of harmonious and flourishing paradise that only got ruined when all those Protestants showed up and took away all the nice things from their communities (it's telling that the first half of the book is structured around themes, while the second is structured around narrative development). Still though, worth a read!

[Haley Baumeister]

My knowledge of the reformation, not to mention this particular time and place, was almost nonexistent. So it felt like an absolute firehose of information.

Not even sure how to talk about it. The book is incredibly thorough, almost overwhelming in its particularity. I feel as though I need a more zoomed-out lense of the reformation/pre-reformation era, and especially outside of England. Maybe for someone more generally familiar with what was going on during this time it would be super interesting for them to get into these nerdy weeds. I’m starting from literal basics. So, still trying to pick myself up from being firehosed. Worth it though.

Additionally: I found myself not particularly enamored with any of the goings-on or players involved, so to speak. Perhaps that’s how much of history goes.

[Patricia Finney · Rating 5 out of 5]

First he rebuilds for us the way the English Medieval churches worked, packed tight with altars, figures of saints, rich reliquaries (caskets) for alleged saints' bones and teeth, elaborate roodscreens to hide the high altar, paintings and jewelled and embroidered banners. Churches must have looked like the Room of Requirement at Hogwarts!

Each of the astonishing number of sacred things had its use and meaning, its symbolism and its story, now mostly forgotten. Many of them were "apotropaic" - a word I had to look up which means "supposedly having the power to avert evil influences or bad luck." [Oxford dictionary].

As literacy increased with the beginning of the 16th century, innumerable manuscript and later printed primers helped people to navigate the sacred, with their Paternosters (Our Father), Aves (Hail Mary), Credos (Creed) and Offices and their saints' stories. The rubrics explained exactly how many days or years you, or the dead person you were praying for, would be let off from Purgatory if you prayed the Fifteen Oes or the Little Office of the Virgin. But you didn't have to be able to read to understand it all because everything was actually designed to make the stories accessible to the illiterate.

There were multiple priests saying masses in the churches most days. Attached to each parish were many laypeople's gilds that took responsibility for buying wax candles for the altars, to put around the saints' statues, to light the dead. The gilds acted out mystery plays so that the illiterate ordinary folk would know the vital stories, collected money to buy handsome black velvet vestments for requiem masses and to send members on pilgrimage to holy places like Canterbury and Walsingham.

Every Medieval church was the centre of a busy social and economic world available to and involving the rich, middling and poor of every village, town and city. For example, most places had a Maidens Gild of young unmarried women who bought candles for the Lady altar. It was a world that gave everyone a defence against the Devil in holy water, sacred images and prayers.

Of course, 90% of it had no foundation at all in the Bible, and some of the saints had started as pagan gods and goddesses. Famously there were enough relics of Splinters of the True Cross in Medieval Europe to build a fleet of ships.

Then along came the English Reformation and, in less than thirty years, swept it all away: the saints, the altars, the banners, replacing them with... The Word. Unadorned English words, a communion table, a Bible.

Iconoclasm and greed destroyed the saints and paintings, the banners and vestments, the gold chalices and patens and pyxes, and disbanded the lay associations that had kept it all running. The reformers were seldom happy because their swingeing reforms never went far enough for them. They simply could not understand why people would hide statues of saints in their attics and baptismal fonts in their fields.

The ordinary people probably weren't happy either, deprived of their exciting processions and calming rosaries, but nobody asked them. Now they had to stand and listen to endless words of English scripture and homilies, in churches stripped of everything that made them friendly and beautiful. Only a few candles were left on the communion table and all the music was obsolete.

Of course, rationally I can understand the reformers' urge to get rid of the thousand years of superstitious accretion around the Bible, though I wonder if they realised just how radical and revolutionary the newly available New Testament was.

Speaking irrationally, like Eamon Duffy, I too can remember when the Catholic church also fell prey to reformers after the Second Vatican Council, who changed the Mass from Latin to ugly bad English and stripped out many saints and festivals while failing to reform the church's attitude to women, for example. At least, unlike the 16th century reformers, they didn't indulge in self-righteous destruction and wholesale theft

But to lose so many stories and the familiar Latin Mass was an emotional shock that I still remember. In fact, as I read the closing words of Duffy's masterly account, I had tears in my eyes.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England c. 1400-1580. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002.


In The Stripping of the Altars, Eamon Duffy lays down a formidable challenge to long-held notions of the Protestant Reformation in England. He upsets a conventional narrative, as old as the Reformation itself, which portrays the pre-Reformation church in England as spiritually lethargic or worse, and that the Protestant movement met a deep need in the English people while also providing the Tudor monarchs with an opportunity to consolidate monarchial power. A. G. Dickens’ important 1964 survey, The English Reformation, inherited this perspective while shedding the blatant anti-Catholic tone that marred earlier formulations. Dickens’ work enjoyed two decades of hegemony. Christopher Haigh raised a revisionist challenge in 1975 that opened the way to new interpretations which gained momentum in the 1980s.(note 1) With the publication of The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy joins Haigh and becomes an important new revisionist voice in the study of the English Reformation. Whereas Haigh emphasized popular resistance to Protestant reform, Duffy offers a thick description of the church in late Medieval England, portraying it not as spiritually empty, but as a vibrant force in popular culture. Hence, the changes introduced by Protestantism—the “stripping of the altars”—actually quelled spiritual vitality.
Duffy divides his work into two parts. The first and most extensive is a portrait of popular spirituality on the eve of the Protestant Reformation. He describes a robust parish life in late Medieval England, hardly the spiritual doldrums that Protestants claimed it to be. Late Medieval Catholicism “exerted an enormously strong, diverse, and vigorous hold over the imagination and the loyalty of the people up to the very moment of Reformation” (p. 4) He shows this through many aspects of parish life. First, laypeople integrated seasonal liturgy with personal devotional gestures such as feasting, processions, and other forms of celebration—most notably, during Candlemas and Holy Week. “For townsmen and countrymen alike,” says Duffy, “the rhythms of the liturgy on the eve of the Reformation remained the rhythms of life itself” (p. 52). Second, laypeople invested themselves in catechesis: they funded and produced wall paintings and church furnishings, and they read liturgical and devotional books that circulated widely with the rise of print and literacy. These are among the means by which “the ploughman learned his paternoster.” Third, they celebrated the Mass—not merely as passive recipients, but actively, through sponsorship of special masses and imitating Mass liturgy in private devotions. Fourth, the laity devoted themselves to the saints. They celebrated saints’ days around the calendar, read hagiography, and infused their work and commerce with devotion to saints. Finally, their concern about death underlay an elaborate cult of intercession for the dead, including provision of Masses, alms, pilgrimage, and the adornment of churches and images.
Important to Duffy’s analysis is the public, communal character of religious devotion in late Medieval England. But because Reformation-centered narratives privilege a kind of piety that is individualistic and private, such narratives overlook the vibrant popular piety that abided in England at this time. If the late Medieval church was so vibrant, then how shall we explain the rise of Protestantism? Duffy takes up this question in Part Two, a narrative of liturgical changes in the English church during the Tudor monarchs, from Henry’s break with Rome through the Elizabethan period. “Radical Protestantism” made halting progress during Henry’s reign, fueled by Latimer’s preaching, vernacular services, and punctuated by outbursts of popular iconoclasm. King Henry acted cautiously against these impulses, emblemized by the Act of Six Articles that affirmed prayers for the dead. But radicalism took full flight in Edward’s reign, exemplified by the 1552 Book of Common Prayer and the removal from the churches of all plate and vestments that were unnecessary to the new, Spartan ceremonies of Protestantism. Duffy pores over parish inventories to document the “stripping of the altars”: the sale of chalices, copes, vestments, candlesticks and candle stands, and other liturgical bric-a-brac. He finds a complex story—of profit-seeking opportunists, traditionalists who hid and preserved sacred articles, and a few convinced Protestants who were pleased to see these objects of superstition go away. Against this backdrop, the Catholic reign of Mary was no violent, ill-informed lurch back to outmoded paths. To the contrary, in the main it was a measured and sensible traditionalist revival that sought to bring order to a chaotic situation, reeducate the people, and to restore familiar practices. The burning of heretics, while extreme, gave vent to popular traditionalism, even as the iconoclasm in the Henrician and Edwardian periods displayed popular radicalism. The Marian enterprise was showing signs of success when it was cut short by her death. (note 2) The Elizabethan episcopate marked an ultimate victory for Protestantism. But old habits died hard, and Duffy again uses inventories to reveal a persistent traditionalism in many parishes that clung to pre-Reformation forms. Ultimately, the Reformation succeeded by imposition from the top down: “the grip of the Tudor regime on the élites who governed the localities was strong enough to achieve its ends” (p. 579).
As a practicing Roman Catholic, Duffy’s sympathies clearly lie with the late Medieval forms of piety that the Tudors eradicated. His most recent writings display this perspective. (note 3) While Duffy is not shy about his own Catholic allegiance, it would be a mistake to dismiss his analysis as Catholic propaganda. His innovative use of sources is remarkable. He accesses lay experience through calendars, festivals, songs, popular devotions, print, and especially material culture (the book includes 141 plates!). Even Dickens acknowledged that evidence from material culture implied a widespread, energetic pre-Reformation faith in England, but he passed over it. (note 4) Given the cumulative weight of Duffy’s evidence—filling almost 400 pages of representative samples, to which more could probably be added—Dickens’ dismissive attitude is no longer tenable.
Duffy’s revisionist account invites new questions. First, if pre-Reformation spirituality was so vibrant, how do we account for popular participation in iconoclasm that, in some places, went farther than even what Cranmer desired? Not all iconoclasm followed official Tudor policy; in Duffy’s account, such holy violence came out of nowhere. While Duffy shows that Protestant polemicists misdiagnosed the English church as lost in darkness, he falls into the ditch on the other side of the road with his too-sunny alternative. Popular iconoclasm needs further study. Second, because the starting-point of Duffy’s narrative is a portrait of vitality, he tends to frame Protestant reform as removal of vital stuff, as deprivation—as though Protestants offered nothing to fill the void left by the stripping of the altars. At this point he unnecessarily retreats from conventional narratives, which acknowledge that Protestantism introduced a vitality of its own, at least in some quarters. Surely Anglican liturgists would never concede that The Book of Common Prayer has been culturally impotent, and rightly so. Perhaps some form of rapprochement is needed that draws from the best of the conventional and revisionist approaches. Such a formulation must certainly take into account Duffy’s outstanding portrait of late medieval piety and his rehabilitation of Mary.


NOTES

(note 1) Christopher Haigh, Reformation and Resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge University Press, 1975); see also Haigh’s (ed.) The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge University Press, 1987) and English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors (Oxford University Press, 1993).

(note 2) Duffy develops this perspective in his most recent work, a full-length treatment of Mary published just this week: Fires of Faith: Catholic England under Mary Tudor (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009).

(note 3) See Duffy’s devotional writings, The Creed in the Catechism: The Life of God for Us (Burns and Oates, 2005), Faith of Our Fathers (Continuum, 2006), and Walking to Emmaus (Burns & Oates, 2006); and his popular history of the Popes, Saints and Sinners: A History of the Popes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997; 3rd ed. 2006).

(note 4) In his discussion of “Late Medieval Religion,” Dickens actually articulates one of Duffy’s central points. “…[N:]o reasonable observer would seek to deny that [conventional religion:] …could inspire lively art and craftsmanship. Despite the decline of glass-painting and a proliferation of mass-produced sculpture by ecclesiastical contractors, the great gothic tradition survived well into the reign of Henry VIII. During the half-century preceding the Reformation numerous splendid churches were still being built or extended. Parish guilds continued to flourish, funds were raised by church ales and other entertainments, devotional and secular life interpenetrated each other and, in a world which afforded the average man little indoor space and privacy, the churches were in a real sense the homes of the people.” Dickens, 9.

[Patricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duffy successfully argues that English Catholicism did not go quietly. It was still a vibrant and meaningful part of daily life for many. The first section demonstrates the rich life of Catholicism in considerable detail. I drowned many times in all the detail that attests to Duffy's thorough research. However, Duffy's style and passionate commitment to the topic keep the book readable as well as important.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book not long after it came out back in 1992 - indeed I bought a copy (long lost) - and I can only remember what a revelation it was. I may be mis-stating the case but my recollection of the teaching of the Reformation in England was that there was an established narrative which if not exactly pooh-poohing the idea that there was any popular attachment to pre-reformation practices and habits certainly didn't think that there was much outside of extremist, fanatic groups such as idiots and women (I honestly remember such characterisation from a text book read at my university in 1976 but I can't remember its name or trace it now). Even the most considered and open minded historians presented England as a country already moving toward reform, and if not breathlessly awaiting, certainly welcoming the CofE as it became.

What Duffy did was to shatter all these comforting shibboleths and legends and reveal a much more lively type of religious belief and practice - this wasn't a Puginesque trawl into Catholic fantasy - the story he told and the practices he described had little to do with post Tridentine Catholicism - it was unreformed but it was real.

A whole generation of scholars have worked over the field Duffy opened up back in 1992 and while emphasis has shifted he had set a new paradigm in terms of examining English religious life. Books like 'The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History' by James G. Clark in 2022 are the heirs of Duffy's work.

When it comes to Duffy's work there are to many excellent and important reviews and articles out there to rely purely on my word - seek them out - but read this amazing book.

[Cali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I agree with Duffy's conception of late medieval English Catholicism as multifaceted and adaptable, though his jump into Henrician reform teeters weakly on the thesis he so carefully built in part one. I am missing the "why" & a sustained political analysis of the early sixteenth-century Church/State. He briefly addresses the establishment of a royal supreme cult but does not explain why this would lead Henry to declare ecclesiastical material and doctrine free of apotropaic manifestation, rendering both functionally hollow save for didactic/symbolic value. His retelling is compelling and rigorous, but there is a key link missing when he leaves part one at the Eve of the Reformation. Not pointing fingers, but the revisionism in this account, combined with the Marian sympathies (and, if I may be so bold, Duffy's Irish blood...), suggest to me he is more in line with Catholic sensibilities.

[Peter Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Listened to this book through Hoopla. As an aside, I checked out a physical copy to look at footnotes, and I don’t think this would have been nearly as enjoyable reading the text, as many of the quotes are in Old English.

Duffy excellently sheds a full picture of the effects of the English Reformation on traditional lay piety, from the suppression of time-honored saints days, to the lifting of obligations of periods of fasting, to the destruction of images and vestments, to the replacement of Latin as a liturgical language to the vernacular, and to the changing of the nature of the Mass from a propitiatory sacrifice to the external manifestation symbolizing the faith which one already has internally (just to name a few). The effect of this on the day-to-day devotional life of the lay faithful was catastrophic, which has tended to be downplayed in other historical accounts of the English Reformation. Protestantism was largely a top-down imposition, rather than a grassroots rebellion against the inherited Catholic faith of the English people. Lots of parallels that can be drawn to the post-conciliar reforms in the 1960s.

Another thing that I learned was the inconsistencies within Anglicanism existed right at the beginning, with warring “Protestant/reformist” and “conservative/traditionalist” camps trying to shape and (re)mold Anglican theology through their various Articles, edicts, liturgical books and rubrics, etc. This can be seen today with untenable theological differences between “evangelical” and “Anglo-Catholic” movements within the Church of England. A via media with contradictory poles.

[Jarrett Vandiver · Rating 5 out of 5]

This 600-page behemoth is the best book on the Reformation I have ever read. Duffy enchants you with the profoundly powerful spiritual life of Late Medieval English Christianity and then takes you through the royal roller coaster that was the Tudor dynasty. The typical story of the English Reformation is that England became reformed/Calvinist under Henry VIII and Edward, became Catholic again under Mary, and then just compromised under Elizabeth. Duffy was the most important historian of the Reformation who proved that this theory is false. The true story is a more complicated one in which the Tudors initiated vastly contradictory state religions which literally and metaphorically “stripped the altars” of the English laity, taking away their religious and symbolic cultural practices by force.

I’ve never read a book that was so filled with primary source research as this one. Eamon Duffy must have visited every single church in England with this level of research. Amazing book.

[Charity · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative. Intense reading. Lots of details. Skimmed portions that had no relevance to my research but overall it was insightful in shedding light into middle ages Catholicism. The chapter on Mary I was particularly illuminating -- and went some little way in restoring her reputation.

[David Bruyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Toooooo much information. But the thesis is undeniably proven: medieval English Christianity was healthy, robust, and affected every nook and cranny of life.

[David Kenvyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

It is a long time since the first publication of “The Stripping of the Altars” and in that time it has become a classic account of the spirituality and religious practices of 15th century England.
On re-reading it, there is a nagging doubt in my mind. There is only passing reference to the political background in which this spirituality developed. In the period from 1399 to 1509, there were eight kings of England. Three of them were deposed and murdered (Richard II, Henry VI and Edward V). Two died prematurely creating a succession crisis (Henry V and Edward IV). One of them was killed in battle (Richard III). Henry IV reigned from 1399 to 1413, having usurped the throne from his cousin, Richard II, and Henry VII reigned from 1485 to 1509 having killed his predecessor, Richard III, in battle. The fate of England was decided at major battles at Shrewsbury, Towton, Barnet, Tewkesbury and Bosworth. It was also a period that saw the final defeat of England in the 100 Years War. This was a period of political turmoil and it is hardly surprising that people turned to the consolation of religion. This is barely mentioned.
Two of the more extraordinary cults that developed during this period were those of Richard le Scrope, Archbishop of York, and of Henry VI. Archbishop Scrope was executed after taking part in a rebellion against Henry IV, and Henry VI was murdered after the Lancastrian defeat at the Battle of Tewkesbury. In both cases they became the objects of intercessory prayers, their help being requested to deal with specific problems. In both cases this happened when their political enemies held the monarchy. It may be that the north Yorkshire centre of the cult of Archbishop Scrope was too far away from royal authority, but the cult of Henry VI was centred on his birthplace, Windsor which is still one of the great royal centres of England. It does seem unlikely that Edward IV was unaware of the cult of his deposed and murdered predecessor. Exactly what this tells us about the bravery of the individuals concerned and the limitations on the power of the monarchy, I do not know. It is, however, certainly an interesting indication of the situation in fifteenth century England and, as spirituality develops in part from the situation in which people find themselves living, I expect some comment on this background. It is not there.
Another factor defining the development of spirituality in the fifteenth century was the Black Death. The worst ravages of the disease had taken place in the latter half of the fourteenth century, but it was endemic, and quite clearly a factor in the development of the religious approach to life. There are three mentions of the Black Death in the Index. Now it has to be said that it is probably not possible to quantify the effects of royal instability and the Black Death on the growth of spirituality in fifteenth century England. What Duffy produces is more than ample evidence that the spirituality of the time centred on the Crucifixion, not the Resurrection, on the wounds of Jesus and Mary standing at the foot of the cross, not the rolling away of the stone and the Assumption. It is a religiosity that is centred on pain and sacrifice and death, as the means of obtaining eternal life. It is a culture centred on Purgatory and indulgences as a means of escaping Purgatory. It saw prayer as a means not of approaching God, but of escaping punishment for sin. The question then becomes this: is this a culture that could withstand the onslaught of the proclamation of justification by faith alone?
What Duffy demonstrates is that in the pre-Reformation period there was a vibrant Christian culture in England based firmly around the liturgical year of the Church and the cult of death. Presumably the Black Death had concentrated minds on the latter because thousands upon thousands of people had died unprepared and, more importantly, unconfessed and unshriven. A whole culture developed around the idea that, to put it crudely, God could be bribed to forgive the dead for their sins. Primers and prayer books were published which stated quite clearly that the saying of so many Paternosters or Abe Marias or other suitable prayers would reduce the time of the departed in Purgatory. To be even more mercenary, the Church could be bought to say Masses for the souls of the dead. It was this kind of sordid transaction that earned the fury of Martin Luther and of his predecessors John Wycliffe in England and Jan Hus in Bohemia. [There is a well-documented connection between Wycliffe and Hus, possibly brought about through the marriage of Anne of Bohemia to Richard II]. The church authorities in England, under the guidance of Archbishop Arundell of Canterbury, responded be passing the act De Haeretico Comburendo (Of the burning of Heretics) through Parliament. Fortunately, only two or three dozen people met their deaths in this way, and the act went into abeyance until the reign of Queen Mary. This was possibly because the threat from Wycliffe’s followers, the Lollards, was not that great. In Bohemia the church authorities launched crusades against the Hussites, having burnt Hus to death, despite his safe conduct, at the Council of Constance. These crusades were defeated, and Bohemia became the first Protestant state. Duffy does not discuss this European dimension.
England however, as Duffy rightly points out, remained quietly and confidently Catholic until William Tyndale, copying the Lutheran example, translated the Bible into English. This merits two mentions in the whole book, including one in which it is stated that the Tyndale translation was made illegal. The fact that hundreds, if not thousands, of these bibles were smuggled into the country is glossed over. This was the beginning of the Reformation in England and it took place before the marital troubles (or rather succession difficulties) of Henry VIII came to a head. The essentially conservative king took the Byzantine view of the connection between the monarchy and the church, with the King as the Supreme Head. This, of course, led to the rejection of the role of the Papacy and that in turn led to the King seeking allies amongst those who would support the Royal Supremacy. Henry VIII was essentially cautious about embracing Protestant ideas.
There were two areas in which he definitely did so. First, saints like Thomas Becket who had supported the idea of the Papal supremacy against the power of the King became persona non grata, no longer to be venerated. This caused many churches where he was specially venerated, not least Canterbury Cathedral, some difficulty. Secondly, the King authorised the translation of the Bible into English, insisting, not necessarily successfully, on the introduction of the Myles Coverdale translation of the Bible to churches across the land. This was to be decisive because it introduced the concept of Holy Writ in a language as Cranmer put it in the 1549 Prayer Book “understanded of the people”.
What is significant, and Duffy does not discuss the reasons for this, is that the Catholic uprisings when they came were in remote areas of the country and did not threaten the centres of power. This is not to undermine the importance of the Pilgrimage of Grace, in the reign of Henry VIII, the Cornish uprising in the reign of Edward VI nor the Rising of the North in the reign of Elizabeth I. The latter, indeed, could have had very serious consequences if they had managed to release Mary, Queen of Scots and proclaim her as the rightful Queen of England. They did not. The Wyatt Rebellion in Kent, on the other hand, in the reign of Mary I came close to overthrowing the Queen.
What is interesting as Duffy demonstrates with a large number of examples is that, rather than destroy vestments, missal books etc following the instructions from Edward VI’s regency council, people hid them and when Mary I, an inveterate Catholic became Queen, they were brought out of their hiding places to be used again. Duffy does not make the analogy but it was like a country under occupation. People conformed outwardly to survive, but secretly they preserved what was banned.
Another interesting point is that there were no mass persecutions to death. There were high profile victims such as Sir Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, but it was not until Mary I revived the statute De Haeretico Comburendo that hundreds of people went to the flames for their religious beliefs. This, of course, was recorded in detail in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. It is hardly mentioned in Duffy. We hear a great deal about the attempts by Bishop Bonner and Cardinal Pole to reimpose Catholic orthodoxy. It would be interesting for their to have been some discussion of why they thought that the Fires of Smithfield, in Bonner’s own diocese, assisted with this process. Nor is there any discussion about how, when the Protestants returned from exile in Frankfurt and Geneva in the reign of Elizabeth I, that these fires coloured their actions when, in turn, they reimposed Protestant orthodoxy on the Church of England.
Despite all these criticisms, Duffy has written an important book. The Church in the reign of Henry VII was not moribund. The introduction of printing had led to the blossoming of the availability of primers, prayer books, books of hours, lives of the saints and many other religious works. Many of these were printed in English, and some in English and Latin. I do not know enough about the life of Tyndale, but I can only wonder if the availability of prayers in English, based on Biblical texts, set him on the dangerous path of translating the Bible into English. Archbishop Arundell, back at the start of the 15th century, had persuaded Parliament to make this illegal, and to condemn it as heresy.
It seems to me that it was the work of Tyndale and Coverdale in translating the Bible into English that was the key factor in the transformation of the religious life of 16th century England. It was significant that, when the Rising of the North took place in 1569, the leaders ordered the burning of English bibles, as Duffy notes, and that their followers refused to do it. As with the vestments and missal books in the reign of Edward VI, English language bibles were hidden. By then, they had been in use in churches for 30 or more years. They had become part of the religious fabric of England.
Duffy is right. Religious practice cannot be changed by decree. It is embedded in the hearts and minds of ordinary people. If Elizabeth I had died of smallpox and Mary, Queen of Scots, had succeeded to the throne, we do not know what would have happened. Elizabeth’s longevity was an important factor in deciding the religious life of England, but in my view, it was the translation of the Bible into English that was decisive

[lia]

okay i didn’t read ALL of this but I do mean to and I think the fact that I took notes on 370 pages in one day deserves the contribution to my reading goal

[Roger Burk · Rating 4 out of 5]

The reader is buried under every possible piece of evidence that medieval Catholicism was vibrant and beloved among the rural English through the 1530s, and they were puzzled and dismayed when the enforcers from London showed up and told them that their beloved images, relics, masses, and ceremonies must all go. The evidence comes from wills, charters, popular books, commonplace books, and so forth. It is all not quite totally convincing. Certainly the English Reformation came from an urban intellectual vanguard, and was unwelcome by some people in some places. However, the large number of individual examples shown can't prove the thesis that the people were overwhelmingly against the change. The description of late medieval piety makes it painfully clear that there had been an accumulation of abuses unworthy of the Gospel--endlessly repeated prayers that were no better than incantations, holy relics treated as magical talismans or lent out by monasteries to cure various ills, agricultural offerings left before images like a pagan idol, hordes of priests without pastoral duties or indeed ability, created only for the endless repetition of masses for souls in Purgatory. There could never be enough prayers for those in Purgatory--how could you ever know how much was enough? If this was beloved by some, it was surely cordially disliked by others. I think some such popular feeling is required to explain the quickness and thoroughness with which decrees from London were general carried out (though with many exceptions, as Duffy enumerates at great length). Of course, Queen Mary's decrees re-establishing a reformed Catholicism were also generally obeyed--but the habit of obedience had been formed, and Mary sent dissenters to the stake. Then there were often delays getting rid of the Catholic paraphernalia after the accession of Elizabeth I, but perhaps some of this was hedging against another change of regime--the parishes had suffered great loss when they got rid of Catholic chalices and so forth under Edward VI and were forced to repurchase them under Mary. It's notable that will prefaces changed form under Edward, no longer including distinctively Catholic formulations, and never changed back. Duffy attributes this to prudence, but why be prudent in a solemn and personal declaration of belief? There's no example of a will being set aside because of a politically incorrect preface.

[Gustav Klimt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great and important book, but it would be nice if Mr. Duffy were quicker to own or acknowledge his biases. While it's certainly important to have a book that challenges the Whiggish orthodoxy (reformation=good, catholics=bad) of other Reformation histories, much of what Duffy and his predecessor Haigh havep produced has been helpfully problematized in recetn work by Peter Lake and others.

[Ioseph Bonifacius (Ioannes) · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book every person interested in the history of mankind should read, I heard many saying that it is a book that is very moving especially for a Catholic.

[Moses · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great catalog of traditional Religion in England, but a bit of a slog from a narratival perspective.

---Earlier notes--

One thing that I have to note before I finish reading Duffy’s book. There is an inconsistency in the way he treats will documents before, and after the reformation. Before the reformation, he treats wills as straightforward documents, showing, in most cases, the pious medieval Catholic faith of the testator. After the reformation, he explicitly says that some seemingly protestant declarations of faith in will documents have more to do with external pressure to conform to Protestantism than with devout faith.

[Joshua Pegram · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough history of the English Reformation. Thoroughly informative, at times pedantically detailed. But my biggest quibble is that Duffy seems more an apologist for the Roman Catholic perspective on the Reformation than he is a dispassionate historian. Peter Marshall’s more recent Heretics & Believers is a superior work.

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible history of the Faith "on the ground" as if were, in medieval England. Dense at times; there's so much going on!

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400 - 1580 is a canonical tome in English church history (and in medieval and Reformation history overall). One constantly sees it referenced in other historical studies and its initial publication played a large role in revising the accepted orthodoxy of the day which was marked by a Protestant triumphalism (notably in the work of A.G. Dickens) and disparagement of pre-Reformation Roman Catholicism in England as torpid, uninspiring, and corrupt. As Eamon Duffy ably and aptly shows through his extensive investigation of devotional practices and artifacts, Catholicism in pre-Reformation England was thriving, vibrant, and held captive the hearts and imaginations of its devotees.

As other reviewers have already indicated, The Stripping of the Altars is divided into roughly two sections, the first and largest being a detailed exposition of Catholicism in England and the latter half introducing the eruption of religious reforms that rocked the country as the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth lurched between traditional religion and incipient Protestantism. Duffy explores changes such as funeral practices in which the minister no longer addressed the corpse of the deceased but instead focused on the gathered mourners, the metamorphosis of the liturgy (both in terms of ritual like prayers and the alterations to the physical aspects of worship such as clerical garb and the shift from the chalice to the cup) and the victory of the word over the image, and the shift in wills containing provisions for the beautification of churches and for prayers to be said on behalf of the dead to instead wills being made out to give money to the living poor.

In the second introduction to The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy reflects on the impact that his book has made on historiography and sets its publication in context. He remarks that the book sold very well, even noting that "I can still recall my own somewhat startled pleasure on glancing down a crowded London tube-carriage during the rush hour in the spring of 1993, and noticing that no fewer than four of my harassed fellow-passengers were clutching copies of the book" (xl). This is astonishing to me as well as it is not a popular-level history book and its voluminous length makes it a rather dry read for significant lengths of time (which is largely why I am only giving it 3/5 though the scholarship put into the book is itself extremely commendable). And, as other reviewers have also already noted, in pushing back against the orthodox historiography that had been defined by Protestant bravado (vainglory?), Duffy makes no secret his own impassioned defence of traditional, catholic religion which sometimes seems to unduly colour his own counter-narrative (though in his later Faith of our Fathers: Reflections on Catholic Traditions he is quite objective so he is a very reasonable historian).

The Stripping of the Altars is an impressive work of historical scholarship but the average reader will be daunted by its minute attention to detail and its length. Given that it's been decades since the book was first published, the average reader can likely find Duffy's insights filtered down through more accessible texts (like how one can glean Charles Taylor's insights from Sources of the Self and A Secular Age through other books). Also, Duffy preserves the Middle English and Early Modern English that he finds in the primary sources and for the lay reader this can be frustrating at times to decipher; I wish he had translated these texts into contemporary English.

[Jon Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

A tour de force of meticulous research, this (reissued) thirty year old book uses a profusion of local evidence in its attempt to define popular religious practices before Henry VIII’s reforms of the Church. It shows that there was a glut of superstitions, magical charms, belief in indulgences, (which bought the sinner years out of purgatory after death) and the supposed worship of statues, which would bring good fortune as well as salvation. The thrust of the argument is that this was very much popular religion, often custom and practice being created by the populace, themselves manipulating the Church practices, to create their own magical charms and habits for their protection in an unstable and dangerous era. It reassuringly shows that fake news, deep State (rather deep Church) and manipulation of the populace are not new phenomena, as the Papacy and the local priests benefited from these practices. However Duffy also shows the resilience of such beliefs, even after the reforms from Thomas Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer. Even when the statues were removed, they were often hidden, to make a reappearance under the Catholic Queen Mary. Duffy does admit that one of the reasons for the Pilgrimage of Grace, which rejected the ‘Protestant’ reforms, was not only religious revulsion, but also, more prosaically, the reduction of Saints’ days, which basically meant the massive reduction of public holidays for the working population. However his clear intention was to show popular affection for the old Church.
The latter parts of the book show in fascinating detail how the churches were transformed in the time of King Edward into fully Protestant organisations, and how the majority of the population followed this, through fear or indifference. The same occurred under the Catholic Queen Mary, and the author does not shirk from analysing the burnings of the time…. and then again under the Protestantisation of Queen Elizabeth. Even then, some of the old customs, the old folk religion was retained, seemingly in keeping with the new prayerbook.

The book is full, if not overwhelmed, with hundreds of local examples of practice. One is amazed at the creation of such a book, such a behemoth, but, at the same time, the reading of it is a challenge for the reader.

[Aaron Crofut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mr. Duffy proves his thesis, namely that pre-Reformation England was hardly spiritually moribund and just waiting for the Protestants to come in and revive Christianity. While the reader was pretty good, I'm not sure I would recommend the audiobook. This is just too long and detailed to listen on car rides. Certainly an important work in revisionist history. It compliments Michael Davies' work in a way that I'm sure neither author intended: Mr. Duffy describes the thriving Catholic parish life, while Mr. Davies examines the incredibly careful and incremental approach the so-called Reformers had to take in modifying the liturgical life of the people. Both show the average Englishman as a reluctant conformist to the new Tudor religious impositions rather than as an eager agent of change.

[Ricky Balas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shew--what a read! Definitely an important study in the field of research and there is a reason for it--the amount of time and detail it would have taken to complete this work must have been years and years. A classic.

[Abby Ang · Rating 4 out of 5]

classic

[Ephrem Arcement · Rating 5 out of 5]

An important corrective to many assumptions about the English Reformation, even if it is at times ideologically slanted.

[Mary Ellen Barringer · Rating 4 out of 5]

It has taken me 8 months to finish the behemoth of a book. It chronicles the Catholic Church's history's persecution during the reins of Henry VII, Edward and Elizabeth with the reprieve during Mary's time as Queen.

So much history destroyed.

It is anacademic book. I learned much about that time in England. It makes me thankful for my Catholic heritage and faith.

[Alex Marshall · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating and detailed look at the English Reformation—or Reformations, because the pendulum of reform swung back and forth across five reigns and the best part of a hundred years. If, like me, what you know about England’s separation from the Church of Rome is a dim recollection of what you learned in the classroom, Dr Duffy’s account will make your head spin. The process wasn’t simple, or straightforward, or even popular. He paints a richly detailed picture of clergy and people desperately trying to accommodate themselves to one doctrinal change after another while holding on to the familiar structures of their social lives and deeply held personal beliefs. It ain’t pretty — and in his telling it certainly wasn’t driven from below.

At the same time, I was left with the feeling that the book argues its case a bit too hard. Where my schoolbooks emphasized the excesses of Bloody Mary (Tudor), Duffy merely mentions a heretic’s burning here and there. Cranmer and Ridley are no heroes, according to him, but faceless royal bureaucrats. According to Duffy, throwing down statues and abolishing ancient customs didn’t so much free the Church from superstition and idolatry as they attacked the precious fabric of society and personal faith. He makes no attempt to put the Reformation in the context of changing secular arrangements, where the rural calendar was giving way to urban demands, and oral tradition was challenged by direct access to the printed word. He discusses popular devotion to the saints and belief in their power of intercession—but the more detail he quotes, the more the reader sees how rich offerings laid at the feet and gorgeous vestments clothing the bodies of mere statues could raise questions about where the wealth came from and the widening gulf between rich and poor. And when does veneration of an image become mere worship of an idol?

Nor does he deal at all well with corrupt practices like the sale of indulgences and simony, which drove popular resentment as well as the reformers’ doctrinal strictures. It’s fair enough to argue that Wycliffian influence had faded by 1500 or so; but throughout the period under review there was a growing demand for an English Bible and order of service.

In general I felt that he pays too little attention and gives too little credit to the capacity of ordinary, devout people to think for themselves and demand that their Church reflect their thinking. The Reformation wasn’t just about the changing whims of powerful men and women, but about the place and nature of religious belief in a rapidly changing society. The Tudor period isn’t called “early modern” for nothing.

[Cecilie Larsen · Rating 1 out of 5]

To start off, you're expected to be able to read Middle English and possibly a few latin words. There's a lot of old English quotes used to make certain point and if you can't read them you lose out.

You really have to have some (somewhat thorough) knowledge of general Christians rituals and terms to understand what is going on most of the time. I though I did, but apparently not, and as so I was lost through most of the lengthy descriptions of rituals and traditions. Were this a book about medieval Catholic ceremonies it would have fulfilled its purpose, but as it's not, but rather trying to make the point that Catholicism wasn't unpopular and 'on its last leg' before the Reformation stirred things up, many pasages could have been cut for space (the book is a brick).
It would probably also had helped to make the points more clear. As it is they get lost and seems particularly vague. the author describes things a lot and you just keep wondering where its leading, why it's relevant, will there be a point?
he claims he wanted an overview of traditional religion before the Reformation, but he keeps giving the reader individual stories and then makes general remarks based on these 2-3 stories and we don't actually get to know why they're representative most of the time.

It's not just the lack of clear points and general direction (which is present in the introduction and the just vanishes) it's also an overall lack of structure. There are subheadings but they make no sense - they are just inserted in the middle of the text and it's clear that the text was meant to be coherent and not divided by headings. it's very clear when a new section are started with "but" or however" but it also shows in other ways that the text wasn't meant to be divided and seems like a sloppy last minut attempt to do so because your teacher told you it had to have subsections and you just put some in randomly w/out making any changes in the text.

This structure and vagueness can make the reader feel lost. While there is some interesting assertions, you don't now were any of it is leading and nothing really sticks.

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Duffy expresses surprise that this became a best-seller, and no shit: this is some detailed, historiographically-conscious, "I'm going to assume you know all the main events" stuff. It's also gloriously interesting, and surprisingly readable.