Matthew Parker, the eldest son of William and Alice Parker, was born in Norwich on the 6th of August 1504, entering a world where the fate of the English Church was about to be irrevocably altered. He was one of six children, the third son and eldest surviving child, raised on Fye Bridge Street, now known as Magdalen Street, in a city that would shape his early identity. His father, a wealthy worsted weaver and grandson of Nicholas Parker, registrar to successive archbishops of Canterbury between 1450 and 1483, provided a foundation of stability that allowed Parker to pursue an education that would eventually place him at the center of religious upheaval. His mother, Alice Monins, originally from Kent, may have been related by marriage to Thomas Cranmer, the future Archbishop of Canterbury, creating a familial thread that would later weave through the most critical moments of Parker's life. After his father died around 1516, Alice married John Baker, and their son, also named John, would later be nominated as one of Parker's executors, ensuring that the family legacy remained intact even as Parker ascended to the highest ecclesiastical offices.
Parker's early education was informal yet rigorous, taught by six men, mostly clerics, who instilled in him a deep respect for learning and the scriptures. By 1520, at the age of 16, he had moved to Cambridge University, studying at what is now Corpus Christi College under Richard Cowper. There, he obtained a scholarship on the 20th of March 1520, after just six months, and became the Bible clerk, allowing him to move from St Mary's Hostel to rooms within the college. It was at Cambridge that Parker first encountered the works of Martin Luther and had access to books by married theologians from the Continent, leading him to commend clerical marriage as early as his student days. He was associated with the circle of Thomas Bilney, remaining loyal to him throughout their university days together, even as Bilney was accused of heresy in 1527, recanted, and was later condemned to be burnt at the stake as a relapsed heretic on the 19th of August 1531. Parker was present at Bilney's execution and afterwards defended him against accusations that he had recanted at the stake, a moment that would define Parker's character as a man of principle and compassion.
In around 1527, Parker was one of the Cambridge scholars whom Cardinal Thomas Wolsey invited to Cardinal College at Oxford, but like Thomas Cranmer, he declined the invitation. The college had been founded in 1525 on the site of St Frideswide's Priory and was still being built when Wolsey fell from power in 1529. Parker began his Master of Arts degree in 1528 and was licensed to preach by Cranmer in 1533, quickly becoming a popular preacher in and around Cambridge, though none of his sermons have survived. He would have had to adhere to the Ten Articles enforced on the clergy during that period, but his influence was already growing. After being summoned to the court of Anne Boleyn, he became her chaplain, and through her influence, he was appointed dean of the college of secular canons at Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk in 1535, a post he held until 1547. The college had been secularised in 1514, and the duties of the residents involved the regular performance of the offices of the church and prayers for the founder's family, but little direction was provided in the statutes for other times during the day. Parker transformed the college by introducing new statutes to ensure regular preaching occurred, and under his deanship, scholars came from Cambridge to deliver lectures, greater care was taken over the education of the boy choristers, and a free grammar school for local boys was built within the precincts. His successful revitalisation of the college caused its reputation to spread, and he was able to protect it from being dissolved by citing the good work being done there; it retained its status until after Henry's death in 1547.
Shortly before Anne Boleyn's arrest in 1536, she charged her daughter Elizabeth to Parker's care, something he honoured for the rest of his life. He obtained his Bachelor of Divinity in July 1535, and in 1537 was appointed chaplain to Henry; he graduated Doctor of Divinity in July 1538. In 1539, he was denounced to the Lord Chancellor, Thomas Audley, by his opponents at Stoke-by-Clare, who accused him of heresy and using disloyal language against Easter, relics and other details. Audley dismissed the charges and urged Parker to go on and fear no such enemies. In 1541, he was appointed to the second prebend at Ely, a sign of royal approval. On the 4th of December 1544, on Henry's recommendation, he was elected master of Corpus Christi College. Such was his devotion towards the care of the college, he is now regarded as its second founder. Upon his election, he began the process of putting organising its finances properly, which enabled him to repair the buildings and construct new ones: the master's Lodgings, the college halls and many of the students' rooms were improved. He worked hard to make Corpus Christi a centre of learning, founding new scholarships. In January 1545, after two months in the post of master of Corpus, he was elected vice-chancellor of the university. During his year in office, he got into some trouble with the Chancellor of Cambridge University, Stephen Gardiner, over a play, Pammachius, performed by the students and censored by the college, which derided the old ecclesiastical system. Parker was obliged to make enquiries into the nature of the play, but then allowed to settle the matter himself on behalf of the university authorities.
On the passing of the Act of Parliament in 1545 enabling the king to dissolve chantries and colleges, Parker was appointed one of the commissioners for Cambridge, and their report may have saved its colleges from destruction. Stoke, however, was dissolved in the following reign, and Parker received a generous pension. He took advantage of the new reign to marry in June 1547, before clerical marriages were legalised by Parliament and Convocation, Margaret, daughter of Robert Harlestone, a Norfolk squire. They had initially planned to marry since about 1540 but had waited until it was not a felony for priests to marry. The marriage was a happy one, although Queen Elizabeth's dislike of Margaret was later to cause Parker much distress. They had five children, of whom John and Matthew reached adulthood. During Kett's Rebellion, he preached at the rebels' camp on Mousehold Hill near Norwich, without much effect, and later encouraged his secretary, Alexander Neville, to write his history of the rising.
Parker's association with Protestantism advanced with the times, and he received higher promotion under John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, than under the moderate Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset. At Cambridge, he was a friend of the German Protestant reformer Martin Bucer after he was exiled to England, and preached Bucer's funeral sermon in 1551. In 1552, he was promoted to the rich deanery of Lincoln. In July 1553, he supped with Northumberland at Cambridge, when the duke marched north on his hopeless campaign against the accession of Mary Tudor. As a supporter of Northumberland and a married man, under the new regime, Parker was deprived of his deanery, his mastership of Corpus Christi and his other preferments. However, he survived Mary's reign without leaving the country, a fact that would not have endeared him to the more ardent Protestants who went into exile and idealised those who were martyred by Mary. The historian James D. Wenn has suggested that Parker may have enjoyed the protection of Sir Rowland Hill of Soulton, Shropshire, during this time. Hill is associated with the publication of the Geneva Bible and joined Parker as a Commissioner for Ecclesiastical Cases in 1559.
Parker respected authority, and when his time came, he could consistently impose authority on others. He was not eager to assume this task, and made great efforts to avoid promotion to Archbishop of Canterbury, which Elizabeth designed for him as soon as she had succeeded to the throne. Elizabeth wanted a moderate man, so she chose Parker on the recommendations of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, her chief adviser. There was also an emotional attachment. Parker had been the favourite chaplain of Elizabeth's mother, the queen Anne Boleyn. Before Anne was arrested in 1536, she had entrusted Elizabeth's spiritual well-being to Parker. A few days afterwards, Anne was executed following charges of adultery, incest and treason. Parker also possessed all the qualifications Elizabeth expected from an archbishop, except celibacy. Elizabeth had a strong prejudice against married clergy, and in addition, she seems to have disliked Margaret Parker personally, often treating her so rudely that her husband was in horror to hear it. After a visit to Lambeth Palace, the Queen duly thanked her hostess but maliciously asked how she should address her, For Madam I may not call you, mistress I should be ashamed to call you. Parker was elected on the 1st of August 1559, but, given the turbulence and executions that had preceded Elizabeth's accession, it was difficult to find the requisite four bishops willing and qualified to consecrate him, and not until the 19th of December was the ceremony performed at Lambeth by William Barlow, formerly Bishop of Bath and Wells, John Scory, formerly Bishop of Chichester, Miles Coverdale, formerly Bishop of Exeter, and John Hodgkins, Bishop of Bedford. The allegation of an indecent consecration at the Nag's Head public house seems first to have been made by a Jesuit, Christopher Holywood, in 1604, and has since been discredited. Parker's consecration was, however, legally valid only by the plenitude of the Royal Supremacy approved by the House of Commons and reluctantly by a vote of the House of Lords 21, 18; the Edwardine Ordinal, which was used, had been repealed by Mary Tudor and not re-enacted by the parliament of 1559. In 1562, Parker granted a special licence to Thomas Ashton to become the founding headmaster of Shrewsbury School, which his associate Sir Rowland Hill had helped to on the grounds that that Ashton not being available would damage the progress of the school's foundation, potential significance attaches to this because of the innovative approaches to teaching and drama that institution went on to exhibit. The article does not name the parish from which Ashton was absent.
The Validity Debate
Parker's consecration gave rise to a dispute, which continues to this day, in regard to its sacramental validity from the perspective of the Roman Catholic Church. This eventually led to the condemnation of Anglican orders as absolutely null and utterly void by a papal commission in 1896. The commission could not dispute that a consecration had taken place which met all the legal and liturgical requirement or deny that a manual succession, that is, the consecration by the laying on of hands and prayer had taken place. Rather, the Pope asserted in the condemnation that the defect of form and intent rendered the rite insufficient to make a bishop in the apostolic succession according to the Roman Catholic understanding of the minima for validity. Specifically, the English rite was considered to be defective in form, i.e., in the words of the rite which did not mention the intention to create a sacrificing bishop considered to be a priest in a higher degree, and the absence of a certain matter such as the handing of a chalice and paten to symbolise the power to offer sacrifice.
The Church of England archbishops of Canterbury and York rejected the pontiff's arguments in Saepius Officio in 1897. This rebuttal was written to demonstrate the sufficiency of the form and intention used in the Anglican Ordinal: the archbishops wrote that in the preface to the Ordinal the intention clearly is stated to continue the existing holy orders as received. They stated that even if Parker's consecrators had private doubts or lacked intention to do what the rites of ordination clearly stated, it counted for nought, since the words and actions of a rite (the formularies) performed on behalf of the church by the ministers of the sacrament, and not the opinions, however erroneous or correct, or inner states of mind or moral condition of the actors who carry them out, are the sole determinants. This view is also held by the Roman Catholic Church and others with few exceptions since the 3rd century. Likewise, according to the archbishops, the required references to the sacrificial priesthood never existed in any ancient Catholic ordination liturgies prior to the 9th century nor in certain current Eastern-rite ordination liturgies that the Roman Catholic Church considers valid nor in Orthodoxy. Also, the archbishops argued that a particular formula in this respect as a sine qua non made no difference to the substance or validity of the act since the only two components that all ordination rites had in common were prayer and the laying on of hands and, in this regard, the words in the Anglican rite itself gave sufficient evidence as to the intent of the participants as stated in the preface, words and action of the rite. They pointed out that the only fixed and sure sacramental formulary is the baptismal rite. Saepius Officio, IX; arguments based on Saepius Officio reviewed by The Reverend William J. Alberts, The Validity of Anglican Orders, National Guild of Churchmen, Holy Cross Magazine, West Park, NY. They argued that it was not necessary to consecrate a bishop as a sacrificing priest since he already was one by virtue of being a priest, except in ordinations per saltim, i.e., from deacon to bishop when the person was made priest and bishop at once, a practice discontinued and forbidden. Saepius Officio, XIII. They also pointed out that none of the priests ordained with the English Ordinal were re-ordained as a requirement by Queen Mary - some did so voluntarily and some were re-anointed, a practice common at the time. Saepius Officio, VI. On the contrary, the Queen, unhappy about married clergy, ordered all of them, estimated at 15% of the total at the beginning of her reign in 1553, to put their wives away.
Parker was ordained in 1527 in the Latin-language rite and before the break with Rome. As such, according to this rite, he was a sacrificing priest to which nothing more could be added by being consecrated a bishop. The orders of the Church of Ireland were also condemned as part of the wider denunciation of Anglican orders. The Popes at the time did not object to the Edwardine Ordinal but regarded those done from 1534 to 1553 as valid but illicit since they had not given permission for them. In regard to the legal and canonical requirements, the government was at pains to see all were met for the consecration. None of the 18 Marian bishops would agree to consecrate Parker. Not only were they opposed to the changes the bishops had been excluded from decision-making regarding changes in liturgy, doctrine and the Royal Supremacy. The Commons approved the changes and the Lords 21-18 approved after pressure was brought to bear on them; concessions were made in a more Catholic tone in eucharistic doctrine, and allowance made for the use of Mass vestments and other traditional clerical dress in use in the second year of the reign of Edward VI, i.e., January 1548 to 49, when the Latin Rite was still the legal form of worship (the Ornaments Rubric in the 1559 Prayer Book seems to refer to the allowance as set forth in the 1549 BCP). The government recruited four bishops who had been retired by Queen Mary or gone into exile. Two of the four, William Barlow and John Hodgkins had in Rome's view valid orders, since, having been made bishops in 1536 and 1537 with the Roman Pontifical in the Latin Rite, their consecrations met the criteria according to the definition stated in Apostolicae Curae. John Scory and Miles Coverdale, the other two consecrators, were consecrated with the English Ordinal of 1550 on the same day in 1551 by Cranmer, Hodgkins and Ridley who were consecrated with the Latin Rite in 1532, 1537 and 1547 respectively. This ordinal was considered defective in form and intention. All four of Parker's consecrators were consecrated by bishops who themselves had been consecrated with the Roman Pontifical in the Church of England which at the time was in schism from Rome. Even though two of the consecrators had orders recognised as validity by Rome, the consecration was considered to be null and void by Rome because the ordinal used was judged to be defective in matter, form and intention. In the first year of his archiepiscopate, Parker participated in the consecration of 11 new bishops and confirmed two who had been ordained in previous reigns.
The Quiet Reformer
Parker avoided involvement in secular politics and was never admitted to Elizabeth's Privy Council. Ecclesiastical politics gave him considerable trouble. Some of the evangelical reformers wanted liturgical changes and at least the option not to wear certain clerical vestments, if not their complete prohibition. Early presbyterians wanted no bishops, and the conservatives opposed all these changes, often preferring to move in the opposite direction toward the practices of the Henrician church. The Queen herself begrudged episcopal privilege until she eventually recognised it as one of the chief bulwarks of royal supremacy. To Parker's consternation, the queen refused to add her imprimatur to his attempts to secure conformity, though she insisted that he achieve this goal. Thus, Parker was left to stem the rising tide of Puritan feeling with little support from Parliament, convocation or the Crown. The bishops' Interpretations and Further Considerations, issued in 1560, tolerated a lower vestments standard than was prescribed by the rubric of 1559, but it fell short of the desires of the anti-vestment clergy such as Coverdale (one of the bishops who had consecrated Parker) who made a public display of their nonconformity in London.
The Book of Advertisements, which Parker published in 1566 to check the anti-vestments faction, had to appear without specific royal sanction; and the Reformatio legum ecclesiasticarum, which John Foxe published with Parker's approval, received neither royal, parliamentary or synodical authorisation. Parliament even contested the claim of the bishops to determine matters of faith. Surely, said Parker to Peter Wentworth, you will refer yourselves wholly to us therein. No, by the faith I bear to God, retorted Wentworth, we will pass nothing before we understand what it is; for that were but to make you popes. Make you popes who list, for we will make you none. Disputes about vestments had expanded into a controversy over the whole field of church government and authority. Parker died on the 17th of May 1575, lamenting that Puritan ideas of governance would in conclusion undo the Queen and all others that depended upon her. By his personal conduct, he had set an ideal example for Anglican priests. He is buried in the chapel of Lambeth Palace. Matthew Parker Street, near Westminster Abbey, is named after him.
Parker's historical research was exemplified in his De antiquitate Britannicæ ecclesiae, and his editions of Asser, Matthew Paris (1571), Thomas Walsingham, and the compiler known as Matthew of Westminster (1571). De antiquitate Britannicæ ecclesiae was probably printed at Lambeth in 1572, where the archbishop is said to have had an establishment of printers, engravers, and illuminators. Parker gave the English people the Bishops' Bible, which was undertaken at his request, prepared under his supervision, and published at his expense in 1572. Much of his time and labour from 1563 to 1568 was given to this work. He had also the principal share in drawing up the Book of Common Prayer, for which his skill in ancient liturgies peculiarly fitted him. His liturgical skill was also shown in his version of the psalter. It was under his presidency that the Thirty-nine Articles were finally reviewed and subscribed by the clergy (1562). Parker published in 1567 an old Saxon Homily on the Sacrament, by Aelfric of Eynsham. He published A Testimonie of Antiquitie Showing the Ancient Fayth in the
The Manuscript Legacy
Church of England Touching the Sacrament of the Body and Bloude of the Lord to prove that transubstantiation was not the doctrine of the ancient English Church. Parker collaborated with his secretary John Joscelyn in his manuscript studies.
Parker left a priceless collection of manuscripts, largely collected from former monastic libraries, to his college at Cambridge. Bevill has documented the manuscript transcriptions conducted under Parker. The Parker Library at Corpus Christi bears his name and houses most of his collection, with some volumes in the Cambridge University Library. McMahon, Madeline (2023). Ancient Letters and Old Paper: How Matthew Parker (1504-1576) Understood Medieval Books. Book History 26 (Fall):237-273. The collection includes the important collection of early materials concerning St Erkenwald, the Miracula Sanct Erkenwaldi, preserved as a 12th-century manuscript in the Matthew Parker collection (Parker 161). The Parker Library on the Web project has made digital images of all of these manuscripts available online. The Parker collection of early English manuscripts, including the book of St Augustine Gospels and Version A of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, was created as part of his efforts to demonstrate that the English Church was historically independent of Rome and was one of the world's most important collections of ancient manuscripts. Along with the pioneering scholar Lawrence Nowell, Parker's work concerning Old English literature laid the foundation for Anglo-Saxon studies. The collection includes the important collection of early materials concerning St Erkenwald, the Miracula Sanct Erkenwaldi, preserved as a 12th-century manuscript in the Matthew Parker collection (Parker 161). The Parker Library on the Web project has made digital images of all of these manuscripts available online.