Reaction to the Sale of Church Goods at the Reformation

Abstract

The impact of the Reformation profoundly changed the visual look of churches. By 1530 parish churches were filled to overflowing with objects given by the parishioners or bought from church funds. Sometimes lack of space was a severe problem. A case from Norfolk shows how full churches could be: John Almyngham left £ 10 for a pair of organs and £ 10 for a canopy for the high altar, but specified that if there was no space left for the canopy the money should be spent on a tabernacle for the image of St Andrew.' The inventories of church goods compiled in the 1540s are testimony to the hundreds of objects tharcould be within churches. The 'small and unimportant church' of St Martin Outwich has the longest of the Reformation inventories from the London churches, stretching to fourteen printed pages.2 The inventories include gold, silver, copper and pewter objects; cloths and vestments, such as altar cloths, copes, surplices, hearse cloths, towels, banners, curtains, painted cloths; books including the Bible, Book of Common Prayer, procession books; and furniture such as chests, desks and organs. These objects were just the movable items. Other features included the rood screens and statues, murals and stained glass. Ten years later churches looked radically different. Candles were scarce, and the rood screens, plate and vestments had been sold off or destroyed. The walls had been whitewashed and passages of Scripture painted on them, and even the altars had been demolished and replaced by wooden tables in the naves. The changes were not only visual. Objects had previously played an important part in the local religious practices: medieval wills show that altars, images, statues and lights were a focus for devotion and burial. To cite one example of thousands, Nicholas Talbot in 1501 requested to be buried in Berkhamstead in the chapel of Our Lady, 'betwyx the ymage of our Lady of Pyte and the ymage of oure Lady of G[ra]ce' and left money for the light over the high altar. These items were broken up and destroyed. Yet amazingly there was little outcry about the destruction and sale of church goods. It is true that there was some physical resistance, especially in the West Country. In 1548 William Body was murdered in Helston because of the heavy-handed way he was pulling down images and in Exeter a group of women prevented workmen from pulling down a rood screen in the priory of 5t Nicholas. In London, too, there is an enigmatic phrase in an inventory of St Botolph, Aldersgate, 'for mending the glasse wyndowes being broken in the commocyon tyme with shoting of gonnes'.s Even so, these examples are isolated and do not constitute a national revolt on the scale of 'The Pilgrimage of Grace'. That this wholesale clearance of items during Henry VIII's and Edward's reigns was met by a lack of response is puzzling and some of the reasons will be explored. A small part of the answer may lie in the persuasive powers of the government at local