'Monks, Miracles and Magic': The Medieval Church in English Reformation Polemic

Abstract

English evangelical writers in the sixteenth century argued that the age of miracles had long since passed. In part, this argument served as a defence against the allegation that the Protestant Church could adduce no evidence that it enjoyed divine approbation, given the apparent lack of wonders and miracles associated with its members. However, the denunciation of the miracles of the medieval Church also helped to cast the Roman Catholic Church and its saints as the false congregation of Antichrist, and thus to reinforce the identity of the nascent Protestant Church. The consensus among Catholic and Protestant writers that the devil could and did work wonders opened up a debate over exactly which (if any) miracles claimed by the medieval Church deserved to be seen as signs of God's favour. From the premise that true miracles had ceased, evangelical writers were able to portray medieval miracles as deceptions, magic or diabolic wonders, and there was a great deal of polemical capital to be made from these interpretations. This article uses the works of early English evangelical writers, including William Tyndale and John Bale, to argue that the condemnation of medieval miracles, and accusations of magic and necromancy in the Church, were central to the reinterpretation of the history of the medieval Church during the era of the Reformation, and a crucial part of the search for a Protestant historical identity in the events and personalities of the past.