To what extent was the Church in need of reform by 1532?
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Course
Breadth study
Institution
AQA
An essay examining the problems apparent in the Church in 1532, including absenteeism, simony, nepotism, pluralism, and sexual misconduct. The essay does not take the existence of these problems within the church for granted, but instead asks how far the image of a problem-riddled church was an inv...
To what extent was the Church in need of reform by
1532?
The Church was in clear need of reform by 1532 due to its increasing problems: simony,
nepotism, absenteeism and sexual immorality. Many bishops held multiple titles (pluralism) but
couldn’t be in multiple places at once. Consequently, others were hired in their place whose
theological knowledge was unimpressive. Furthermore the Church had to fend off attacks from
several groups, including that of the humanists and the Lutherans, and quite often the criticisms
these groups made were valid.
One humanist scholar who highlighted some of the Church’s shortcomings was John
Colet: ‘how much greediness… is nowadays in men of the Church?’ Probably he had in mind
the immense amount of the Church’s income that went into the pockets of the one man in
charge. The Valor Ecclesiasticus revealed, for example, that on average, one-quarter of a
monastery’s income was paid directly to the head of the house, usually an abbot. Humanists
believed that the Church should be reformed in a way that mirrored the lives of the early
Christians, so values such as humility and poverty were seen as important, and greediness
therefore was unacceptable. Colet also objected to the increasingly evident ‘carnal
concupiscence’ within the Church (this criticism goes as far back as Chaucer). The comperta
revealed that hundreds of monks had been involved in homosexual practices, many with young
boys. Others had strings of mistresses, and many nuns admitted to having borne children. Such
information could now be spread at much greater speed with the invention of the printing in
Europe, aided by the enthusiastic response of both Henry VII and Henry VIII towards this
invention.
Modern historians, however, have argued that these accounts may not be particularly
reliable. Visitors to monasteries would have had no reason to give a balanced view, and thus
their accounts are often misleading. Nonetheless, it is incredible that these accounts are entirely
false. However caricatured, however exaggerated, however misleading, the comperta reveals
that there were problems with the Church, and therefore it was in need of reform.
Another key group of dissenters from the Catholic Church were the Lutherans. Luther’s
ideas (since he lived in Germany) were mostly brought across by merchants and traders from
Europe. The spread of Lutheranism was also greatly aided by the advent of printing. Luther
criticised many key beliefs of Catholicism in his 95 Theses (1517). He wrote, for example, that
‘those preachers of indulgences are in error who say that by the Pope’s indulgences a man is
freed from every penalty and saved’. This refers to the Church’s practice of offering to shorten a
person’s time in purgatory in return for a payment. Luther was right in criticising this because the
doctrine of purgatory is one the Church concocted with scant Biblical foundation. This again
shows the fragility of the Church and its need of reform; Luther was able to make a valid
criticism only because the Church had strayed so far from the true teachings of Christianity. It is
also implied in Luther’s words above that the Pope had little real legitimacy, which is, of course,
completely opposed to the Catholic view.
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