Thomas Cranmer

• 1. Origins And Early Education

  ›

  Thomas Cranmer entered the world on the 2nd of July 1489 at Aslockton in Nottinghamshire, England. He was a younger son of Thomas Cranmer and his wife Agnes Hatfield. The family held modest wealth but belonged to an established armigerous gentry lineage that took its name from the manor of Cranmer in Lincolnshire. A ledger stone in the Church of St John of Beverley, Whatton, near Aslockton bears the inscription: Hic jacet Thomas Cranmer, Armiger, qui obiit vicesimo septimo die mensis Maii, anno d(omi)ni MD centesimo primo. This stone marks the death of one of his relatives on the 27th day of May in the year of our lord 1501.

  Cranmer attended a grammar school in his village before entering Jesus College, Cambridge, at age 14. Two years after his father's death, he began studies there following a curriculum of logic, classical literature, and philosophy. It took him eight years to earn his Bachelor of Arts degree. During this period, he collected medieval scholastic books which he preserved faithfully throughout his life. For his master's degree, he studied humanists Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples and Erasmus. He completed the course in three years.

  Shortly after receiving his Master of Arts degree in 1515, Cranmer was elected to a fellowship of Jesus College. Sometime after taking his MA, he married a woman named Joan. Although not yet ordained as a priest, he was obliged to give up his fellowship, resulting in loss of residence at Jesus College. To support himself and his wife, he worked as a reader at Buckingham Hall, later reformed as Magdalene College. When Joan died during her first childbirth, Jesus College reinstated his fellowship. He then began studying theology and by 1520 had been ordained, with the university naming him one of its preachers. He received his Doctor of Divinity degree in 1526.

• 2. Archbishop Appointed To Canterbury

  ›

  While Thomas Cranmer followed Emperor Charles V through Italy, he received a royal letter dated the 1st of October 1532 informing him that he had been appointed Archbishop of Canterbury following the death of Archbishop William Warham. The appointment had been secured by the family of Anne Boleyn, who was being courted by Henry VIII. When Cranmer's promotion became known in London, it caused great surprise since he had previously held only minor positions in the Church.

  Cranmer left Mantua on the 19th of November and arrived in England at the beginning of January. Henry personally financed the papal bulls necessary for Cranmer's promotion to Canterbury. The bulls were easily acquired because the papal nuncio was under orders from Rome to please the English in an effort to prevent a final breach with the Holy See. The bulls arrived around the 26th of March 1533, and Cranmer was consecrated as a bishop on the 30th of March in St Stephen's Chapel by John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter; and Henry Standish, Bishop of St Asaph.

  Even while waiting for the bulls, Cranmer continued working on annulment proceedings requiring greater urgency after Anne announced her pregnancy. Henry and Anne were secretly married on 24 or the 25th of January 1533 in the presence of a handful of witnesses. Cranmer did not learn of the marriage until 14 days later. For the next few months, he and the King worked on establishing legal procedures for how the monarch's marriage would be judged by his most senior clergy. Several drafts of these procedures have been preserved in letters written between the two.

• 3. Henrician Church Reforms

  ›

  In June 1533, Cranmer confronted the difficult task of disciplining reformers while also seeing them burned at the stake. John Frith was condemned to death for his views on the eucharist: he denied the real presence. Cranmer personally tried to persuade him to change his views without success. Although he rejected Frith's radicalism, by 1534 he clearly signaled that he had broken with Rome and set a new theological course. He supported the cause of reform by gradually replacing the old guard in his ecclesiastical province with men such as Hugh Latimer who followed the new thinking.

  Cranmer intervened in religious disputes, supporting reformers to the disappointment of religious conservatives who desired to maintain the link with Rome. When he attempted canonical visitation, he avoided locations where resident conservative bishops might challenge his authority. In 1535, he had difficult encounters with several bishops including John Stokesley, John Longland, and Stephen Gardiner among others. They objected to Cranmer's power and title and argued that the Act of Supremacy did not define his role.

  Initial meetings to start what would eventually become the 1549 Book of Common Prayer were held in the former Chertsey Abbey and in Windsor Castle in September 1548. The list of participants can be only partially reconstructed, but it is known that members were balanced between conservatives and reformers. These meetings were followed by a debate on the Eucharist in the House of Lords which took place between 14 and the 19th of December. Cranmer publicly revealed in this debate that he had abandoned the doctrine of the corporeal real presence and believed that the Eucharistic presence was only spiritual.

  Parliament backed the publication

• 4. Edwardine Liturgy Creation

  ›

  of the prayer book after Christmas by passing the Act of Uniformity 1549; it then legalized clerical marriage. The use of the new prayer book was made compulsory on the 9th of June 1549. This triggered a series of protests in Devon and Cornwall where the English language was not yet in common usage, now known as the Prayer Book Rebellion. By early July, the uprising had spread to other parts in the east of England.

  Cranmer wrote a strong response to these demands to the King in which he denounced the wickedness of the rebellion. On the 21st of July, he commandeered St Paul's Cathedral where he vigorously defended the official Church line. A draft of his sermon, the only extant written sample of his preaching from his entire career, shows that he collaborated with Peter Martyr on dealing with the rebellion.

  On the 13th of November 1553, Thomas Cranmer and four others were brought to trial for high treason, found guilty, attainted by legislation passed by parliament, and condemned to death. Numerous witnesses testified that Cranmer had encouraged heresy and had written heretical works, and he was charged with heresy. Through February 1554, Jane Grey and other rebels were executed, and attention then turned to religious leaders of the reformation. On the 8th of March 1554, the Privy Council ordered Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer to be transferred to Bocardo prison in Oxford to await a second trial for heresy.

  During this time, Cranmer was able

• 5. Marian Persecution Trials

  ›

  to smuggle out a letter to Peter Martyr, who had fled to Strasbourg, the last surviving document written in his own hand. He stated that the desperate situation of the church was proof that it would eventually be delivered. Cranmer remained isolated in Bocardo prison for seventeen months before the heresy trial started on the 12th of September 1555. Although it took place in England, the trial was under papal jurisdiction and the final verdict would come from Rome.

  Under interrogation, Cranmer admitted to every fact that was placed before him but denied any treachery, disobedience, or heresy. The trial of Latimer and Ridley started shortly after Cranmer's but their verdicts came almost immediately and they were burned at the stake on the 16th of October. Cranmer was taken to a tower to watch the proceedings. On the 4th of December, Rome decided Cranmer's fate by depriving him of the archbishopric and giving permission to secular authorities to carry out their sentence.

  In his final days, Thomas Cranmer's circumstances changed, leading to several recantations. On the 11th of December, he was taken out of Bocardo and placed in the house of the Dean of Christ Church. This new environment was very different from that of his two years in prison. He was in an academic community and treated as a guest. Approached by a Dominican friar, Juan de Villagarcía, he debated issues of papal supremacy and purgatory. In his first four recantations, produced between end of January and mid-February, Cranmer submitted himself to authority of king and queen and recognized Pope as head of Church.

  On

• 6. Final Martyrdom Execution

  ›

  the 24th of February, a writ was issued to mayor of Oxford and date of Cranmer's execution set for the 7th of March. Two days after writ was issued, fifth statement, first which could be called true recantation, was issued. Cranmer repudiated all Lutheran and Zwinglian theology, fully accepted Catholic theology including papal supremacy and transubstantiation, and stated there was no salvation outside Catholic Church. He announced joy at returning to Catholic faith, asked for and received sacramental absolution, and participated in mass.

  At pulpit on day of execution, the 21st of March 1556, he opened with prayer and exhortation to obey King and Queen but ended sermon totally unexpectedly deviating from prepared script. He renounced recantations written or signed with own hand since degradation and stated consequence would be punishment of right hand being burnt first. Then he said: And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine. He was pulled from pulpit and taken where Latimer and Ridley had been burned six months previously.

  Thomas Cranmer's family had been exiled to Continent in 1539. It is not known exactly when they returned to England, but soon after accession of Edward VI in 1547 that Cranmer publicly acknowledged their existence. His daughter Margaret likely born in 1530s and son Thomas came later probably during reign of Edward. Around time of Mary's accession, wife Margarete escaped to Germany while son entrusted to brother Edmund Cranmer who took him to Continent. Margarete eventually married Cranmer's favorite publisher Edward Whitchurch. Couple returned to England after Mary's reign and settled in Surrey.

  When Elizabeth I came to power in 1558 she restored Church

• 7. Posthumous Legacy Impact

  ›

  of England independence under Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Church re-established represented snapshot of Edwardine Church from September 1552. Thus Elizabethan prayer book basically Cranmer's 1552 edition without Black Rubric. In Convocation of 1563 Forty-two Articles which were never adopted by Church altered in area of eucharistic doctrine to form Thirty-nine Articles. Most exiles returned to England and resumed careers in Church.

  Scholars note Cranmer best remembered for contribution to realms of language and cultural identity. His prose helped guide development of English language and Book of Common Prayer influenced many in Anglophone world guiding Anglican worship for four hundred years. The marriage vow from prayer book occupies singular place in cultural life of English language. Church of England commemorates Thomas Cranmer as Reformation Martyr on the 21st of March anniversary of death.