The Needs of the People

Historically, it has been believed that the Reformation occurred because of the Catholic Church’s decline do to dissatisfaction of its parishioners. Explanations for this have been blamed on the people’s anti-clericalism and the loss of faith in Catholic doctrine. However, through looking at the way the Catholic Church provided for its followers and those followers responses, one can see that the Reformation was a clear break of the beliefs of the majority. The Church immediately preceding the Reformation met the needs of the people on providing the means necessary for salvation according to its doctrine.

The Catholic Church laid out a few key ways of obtaining salvation, one of which being the attendance of mass. Conducted by clergy, the mass was central to belief system of receiving Christ as a requirement for salvation. Therefore, having an available clergy was important. Christopher Haigh explains that “[a]lthough there were variations from place to place, the overall demand for masses, and therefore for the priests to say them was huge” (37). He further explains that from about 1450 there was a large expansion of needed clergy and this expansion was supplied (37). For example, in the county of York, the average number of secular priests ordained was about two hundred per year, meeting a high of 1508 of 363 ordained priests (38). Both the large number of clergymen needed and the fulfillment of this need show the people’s satisfaction with their religion. If they were dissatisfied, they would not need the clergy or fill in the positions from within the population.

It has widely been thought that there was much anti-clericalism among the gentry leading up to the Reformation. However, a closer look reveals that these accounts are heavily exaggerated. Christopher Harper-Bill offers the theory that most of the complaints against the clergy are from identifiable authors who were clergymen themselves, irate a t those few who “tarnished the priestly image” (77). It seems as though jealousy over wealth seemed to have caused many complaints as well (77). However, complaints were very rare and often exaggerated by anti-Catholic propaganda during the forceful years of the Reformation. Most priests got along splendidly with their parishioners, often serving them in ways outside of Church life. In fact, “the vast majority of conscientious priests fitted easily into parish society. Many of them were local men, serving in or near their birthplaces” (Haigh, 44). By having locals be the ministers in each respective region, the Catholic Church provided a great means for its clergy to be able to relate to the parishioners, having a common bond of region and lifestyle. Overall, clergymen easily performed their duties as leaders to salvation. Haigh further explains that complaints at the visitations of bishops and archdeacons about local clergy were very rare, as shown in Cardinal Morton’s visitation of Suffolk in 1499, where although there were forty-eight clergymen were absent from their benefices, but only two of these did not assign deputy substitutes (41). With instances like this, a well-run community of parishes in a county, being very common, it further shows how the anti-clerical thoughts of the people could have been widely exaggerated.

Ironically, the parishioners themselves usually provided the means for a mass to be held, in an incredibly decorated church, allowing the Church to provide the means to satisfy the needs of the people for salvation. Throughout the Middle Ages and up until the Reformation, donations to the Church were very common and often went towards expansions and updating decorations. Seen in the records of churches as in Ashburton, Yatton, and Morebath, parishioners were constantly funding the repairs of these churches, hinting that they supported the ideals of the church, such as the prayers to saints (Haigh, 30- 31). These investments in the church allowed for laity to feel ownership of their church and allowed for participation in the church. Usually given as gifts by individuals or collections from church members, “many folk, well-to-do ones in the know, as well as the humbler sort, were endowing many of the old structures right up to the moment when they were abolished” (Scarisbrick, 12). This hints that many did not even think that these institutions would face their demise in the near future, proving that they were not warned by the wide-spread dissatisfaction among the laity of the Church and its beliefs, claimed by later Protestant propaganda and some historians. This dissatisfaction was obviously exaggerated as well.

It could be argued that these people were merely not involved in national politics or religious trends to foresee this bad investment. However, Robert Burgoyne, an auditor of the Court of Augmentations, “the government agency in charge of the dissolution of monasteries” founded his own chantry and funded others mere weeks before the dissolutions of chantries started (Scarisbrick, 8). If there was any indication of a massive upheaval of religious institutions, one would think that he would have invested better. Another example is George Earl of Shrewsbury, “a no-nonsense Tudor aristocrat” who wrote his will leaving a plethora of money to nunneries and monasteries months before their obliteration (8). Scarisbrick continues saying, “a man sufficiently involved in national affairs [should] have known which way the wind was blowing” (8). With these examples, it seems obvious that there were extremely few warning signs of the upcoming Reformation, therefore suggesting that the laity was satisfied with how the Church was meeting their needs.

Another major path to salvation according to Catholic doctrine is the prayers of the souls departed. Catholics believe that when one dies, one soul is in Purgatory, a ‘waiting-room’ to get to Heaven. The way to get to Heaven from Purgatory is through the prayers of those still living for the dead. Parishioners had many ways of ensuring that they were prayed for after their deaths. Often in their wills there was an outline for how they wanted their finances to be used and were riddled with Catholic ideals. Through wills there was an obvious support for the Church. Donations were given in mass amounts with an estimation of sixty percent of people gave gifts and services in the first half of the sixteenth century (Haigh, 29). Wills however only give a small dose of the gifts given to the Church, as many of them could have been given during the lives of these parishioners.

Wills also give insight into the devotion of the people to the beliefs of the Catholic Church. It is suggested that “two-thirds of all will-makers made some formal arrangement for prayers or masses after death” (Haigh, 37). The remaining third merely assumed their family and friends would fulfill this without having to request it (37). The domination of these wills by requests for prayer shows the enthusiasm people had for this belief. It can be questioned on whether or not there was fabrication by the priest, usually also the writer of the wills, dictated to by the parishioner, of the will. However, Scarisbrick suggests that “it is difficult to see why the local priest should have encouraged bequests to (often) six, eight, ten or more parishes besides his own” (10). Also, these wills were often filled with references to an extensive amount of family members, quite a hard topic to forge (10). Wills also showed the giving of benefactions and prayer requests to several guilds or fraternities.

Guilds were extremely popular leading up the Reformation as a way of ensuring the necessary prayer counts for one to get into Heaven. These guilds based on membership fees, supported its brethren by often providing funeral arrangements and subsequent prayers on death anniversaries and special events. These guilds were usually “under the patronage of a particular saint, the Trinity, Blessed Virgin Mary, Corpus Christi or similar” (Scarisbrick, 19- 20). The main function of these guilds was to employ priests to say masses for the souls of departed members (Haigh, 35). Some of these guilds had other objectives as well such as implementing high moral standards. For example, some guilds would not allow the membership of adulterers (Scarisbrick 20). Therefore, the initial belief of the Catholic Church in the prayer for the departed in order to achieve salvation led to the establishment of these guilds, which led to the implementation of a stricter moral standard, fulfilling the need of the people to abstain from sin. These guilds also provided a number of social benefits such as funding for schools and highways (21). Guilds also helped fund the production of Catholic literature in the secular language in order for the literate to become informed of their religion and further their relationship with God. Scarisbrick adds that “the bulk of the numerous religious works produced by the printing press (in England as elsewhere), presumably to satisfy public tastes, consisted of wholly tradition works of piety and devotion—and the lives of saints” (15). The literature was bought and distributed widely, many works often needing multiple editions (Haigh, 26). The books provided more religious guidance foe the masses. Therefore, these guilds, and subsequently the Church, helped the social, religious, and economic needs of the people as well.

Religious guilds were extremely popular and “[i]n London, eighty-one fraternities are known to have existed after 1500” (Haigh, 35). Relative numbers coincide for smaller regions. It can be argued that guilds were in decline after 1530, but this was most likely caused by economic troubles that struck urban areas on England, as can be proven by the thriving of rural fraternities (36). Membership into the fraternities was extremely easy in most cases. There were several tiers of fraternities in order to fit the social-economic statuses of parishioners. Guild membership was quite diverse. Women were often members of guild or formed their own guild such as the Young Maiden’s Guild (Scarisbrick, 25; Haigh, 31). In fact, “[a]ll the surviving guild registers except that of St. George’s Norwich, include single women and widows in their lists” (Scarisbrick, 25). Guilds were now providing the means for salvation for all peoples.

The Catholic Church not only provided for the needs of the people, but inspired other factions of society to provide additional needs. Through the use of wills as a source, it can be seen that people leading up to the Reformation still had a passionate approach to the Church, often leaving the majority of their material goods to it in the event of their death. In these wills they also secured the means of praying for their souls after death, often through the use of guilds. These guilds flourished and provided many social and education, as well as religious services for the populace. By looking at the active population in these associations, coupled with the proof of clerical satisfaction and investments in church renovations, one can assume that the mass population did not see any warning signs of the Reformation.

Works Cited
Haigh, Christopher. English Reformations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993
Harper-Bill, Christopher. The Pre-Reformation Church in England, 1400-1530. London: Longman, 1989
Scarisbrick, J.J. The Reformation and the English People. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publisher Limited, 1984