The Reformation in Microcosm?: Benchers at the Inns of Court, 1530-1580

Abstract

The Reformation in Microcosm? Benchers at the Inns of Court, 1530-1580 In recent years the scope of Reformation history has been truly enlarged from central policies and religious doctrines of particular people to implementation throughout the countryside and adherence of the populace at large. Various studies have stressed thefitfulnessof protestant appeal and the restiience of traditiond religion within society, across the country and over time. In general these works indicate an inverse relationship between protestant and catholic adherence from the centre outwards until later in 'Elton's century'. While this depiction of the English Reformation might be closer to the complex truth, its treatment is by and large qualitative, impressionistic and twodim ensiond.1 The purpose of this paper is to provide a case-study of reformation at the centre - London, amongst a professional elite - masters of the bench, at a particular institution - the Inns of Court, using a specific method - quantitative prosopography.2 Most members of the four Inns were gentlemen below the bar or barristers (76.8% and 16.5% in 1574),3 whose response to reform can only be divined by example and impression.4 Those lawyers who had generally continued for over twenty years when cdled to the bench as masters and governors of their societies may be treated more quantitatively: their names recur in minutes; most held office outside the Inns; many left persond and public records. As dispensers of the law, servants of the Crown and rulers of the countryside, this body of influentid gentlemen, justices, officials, parliamentarians, councillors and prospective judges obviously confronted the religious issues of the day. In investigating their position, severd assumptions have been made. Most 'See D.M. Palliser, Popular Reactions to the Reformation during the Years of Uncertainty, 1530-1570, in Church and Society in England: Henry VIII to James I, Felicity Heal and Rosemary O'Day, eds., London, 1977, Ch. 2; Christopher Haigh, The Recent Historiography of the English Reformation, Historical Journal 25, 1982, 995-1005; Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559-1625, Oxford, 1982; JJ. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People, Oxford, 1984; Rosemary O'Day, The Debate on the English Reformation, London, 1986. 2 See Wilfrid R. Prest, The Inns of Court under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts, 1590-1640, London, 1972; Walter C. Richardson, A History of the Inns of Court, Baton Rouge, 1977. 3 Public Record Office (hereafter P.R.O.), SP12/95, f.201, Census of Inns of Court, May 1574. 4 See m y Reform, Repression and Unrest at the Inns of Court, 1518-1558, Historical Journal 20, 1977, 783-801. 34 RM. Fisher benchers were men of property who composed wills of some religious connotation in committing their souls, bodies and possessions; despite the common difficulty of determining authorship, the usefulness of wills in this case-study can be assumed since lawyers formulated their own.5 Another assumption is that masters not only held religious views but usually developed them before reaching the bench at middle age; many were obviously dfected from youth.6 A third assumption is that the religious disposition of benchers cannot be assessed independently of their actions, careers and connections; consequently the approach here is heavily prosopographical. A further assumption underlies the classifying, counting and tabulating of lawyers as either reformed or traditiond in religious orientation - that thisrepresentsthe overall course of reformation at the Inns, even if the evidence is lacking for some individuals or some injustice is done to others. Findly, it is assumed that since each reign attempted its own religious solutions, the termind years for the early Reformation are 1547, 1553 and 1558, followed by 1569 and 1580 for the Elizabethan settlement; there is little sign of reformed activity amongst benchers before 1530, and the period dter 1580 has its own momentum. On this basis it is possible to plot the religious orientation of 361 benchers for five regnd periods between 1530 and 1580.7 1 Gray's Inn, 1530-1558 For Henry's period, 20 of the 39 benchers of Gray's Inn left some evidence of religious disposition.8 Edward Hall was certdnly a protestant dbeit a Registered wills at the Public...