Customer Reviews

The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580

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"The Stripping of the Altars", Eamon Duffy's erudite, meticulous yet flowing analysis of what he refers to as "traditional religion" in England in the years from 1400 to 1580 is a masterpiece of scholarship and also of presentation. Professor of the History of Christianity at Cambridge University, he states in his preface to the second edition (the book was originally published in 1992) that his intentions were academic and that he was himself surprised to find that it developed an audience among the general public. He should not have been so shocked. Leavened with anecdotes, storytelling, humor and engaging descriptions of the thoughts, customs and nature of life in those times, his work, while painstaking -- painfully so at times -- reads comfortably and absorbingly throughout most of its highly approachable 593 pages (plus bibliography and index).

Duffy's thesis is that, contrary to what has been taught and generally believed about the Protestant Reformation in England, satisfaction with the Roman Catholic "traditional" religion, its fêtes, rituals and observances was almost universal at the time of the Reformation and that the Reformation, itself, was imposed upon the people by royal and civil authority, not popular will. Early on and fairly enough, Duffy describes his irish Catholic background, yet while that outlook must be constantly borne in mind while reading his book, the fact is that he makes a convincing case.

He does so systematically, painting the nature of English existence at the time, largely rural, generally peaceful in the wake of the Hundred Year's War, isolated, provincial and soaked in pervasive religiosity. Suggesting that the abuses, indulgences and corruption of the Continental church had few echoes in England, Duffy works through the nature of categories of traditional practice -- liturgy, catechesis, mass, gild, prayers, primers (in preference to Bible study), and the sometimes cultish fixations on death and purgatory -- and in doing so creates an image of an idyllic world, cohesive, communal and warmly and constantly involved with its faith. In the process he uses plentiful plates and illustrations that correlate with specifics in the text and which, themselves, are a pleasure to review.

Voices around Henry VIII, who despite his quarrels with the papacy remained ambivalent about his religious identification, radicalized his policies in the persons of ranting Hugh Latimer and Machiavellian Thomas Cromwell and Thomas Cranmer, culminating in 1533 in the ultimate break with the Roman church and, in the name of removing idolatrous objects, the subsequent eponymous stripping of the altars, art, and statuary of the churches and the destruction of abbeys and monasteries, a sad price to pay for the concepts of religious individualism and personal responsibility for salvation.

The reaction of the traditionalists was varied. Some resisted while others went underground or accommodated and accepted the new authority; however, given the opportunity, Duffy emphasizes, the "vast majority" of the people quickly reverted to traditional religion after the deaths of Henry in 1547 and of the young King Edward VI in 1553 and the brief accession to the throne of Catholic Mary Tudor. As the reign of Elizabeth I began in 1558 and the Protestant Church of England was reinstated, many quickly changed sides of the aisle again, but, Duffy asserts, the ultimate defeat of the traditionalists was the result only of lengthy systematic repression, an effort that finally subverted the true will of the people. (There is some irony in the fact that in two brief paragraphs Duffy passes over, almost with a "boys will be boys" flippancy, the burnings of "heretics" under the Marian regime.)

So be it. Duffy's is an interesting concept. Yet questions remain: Why if the dedication to traditional religion was so deep, did it virtually disappear in well less than a century as a significant factor in English life? Were the Protestant propagandists that convincing or their "draconian" measures that intimidating? To what extent was the acceptance of traditional religion itself, as opposed to deep faith, an accommodation to existing authority, its methods and its mores, and a reflection of humanity's characteristic inclination to adapt to surroundings and make the joyful best of them?

Those last are comments, not criticisms, issues that should not detract from appreciation of this work. "The Stripping of the Altars" is a magnificent book.

Eamon Duffy is hell-bent to demonstrate the meaning and legitimacy of traditional English piety, and succeeds by and large with smart scholarship, winningly original ideas, and fret-free, up-tempo prose. The book wears well a mediaevalist scholar's sympathetic penchant for the full color world of his subject; you have no trouble entering Duffy's exotic world. He knocks down the calumny of 'superstition' by REVEALING it with teaching. The Henrician religious revolution is exactingly covered, but forget your mild English sentiments here; the author means to prove his point and does relentlessly. England's masses did NOT rise up and demand what the King unfortunately demanded! Some of the local evidence unearthed by Duffy is among the most compelling in providing armament for his argument that Roman piety remained the daily staple of the common Englishman even as revolution was imposed by royal will. The last section --The Attack on Traditional Religion-- (including a final segment on Elizabeth I) is the best in the book- arguments are focused in, & the prose is clean and responsive. The book is a huge achievment, even at 650+ pages! A fetching bibliography provides extensive evidence of the openness of Duffy's scholarship, and is fascinating marginalia in its own right. Photo of the vandalised bas relief of the mass Sacrifice on the cover is completely moving. No faint-hearted history allowed.

The Stripping of the Altars is excellent in every way. Duffy has examined up parish records, scoured primary sources, and provided a superlative overall view of pre-Reformation English Catholicism.

The Lollards, minor pre-Lutheran dissenters whose influence, beliefs, and practices have been listed as evidence of tumult in the English church, are also succinctly covered. Duffy casts doubt on their reputation, which has sometimes been blown out of proportion by Protestant scholars.

Catholic life was flourishing in the era, as parish records attest. A major social center of the time, attendance was high and community guilds furnished the physical building, assisting funerals and providing some paid employment to the poor. The belief in Purgatory was hardly questioned, and practices of remembering the dead in prayer continued in many areas until the 1700s--despite sustained Protestant attack on the doctrine. Though Duffy does not bring in this particular work, Catholic purgatorial beliefs are featured in Shakespeare's Hamlet, written a generation after the official break with Rome.

Detailed, too, are the many devotional works of the period, which with the advent of the printing press had become inexpensive enough even for the lower middle class. He also counters some assertions that English Catholics were half-pagan, tracing many alleged "magical amulets" and incantations to their source: Christian liturgical practice and prayer. Most sorrowful are his photographs and catalogues of vandalized statuary and churches, whose desecration was strongly supported by Cramner, his iconoclastic lackeys--and very few others.

Whatever the Protestant movement was elsewhere, in England, at least, it was largely imposed from the top.

The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England by Eamon Duffy is an excellent study of the Protestant reformation in England by a top-notch historian. Mr. Duffy has delved deeply into the period's primary sources including hundreds of church logs, primers, manuals, wills, and diaries. An intellectual tour de force, it is accessible to the average reader.

The Stripping of the Altars is the story of traditional Catholics desperately trying to preserve their faith against tyrannical rulers who tear down their altars, change the language of their Mass, mock their devotions, destroy their statues, and decimate their liturgical year. It is a tale of courage amid great tragedy and it proves that the Faith in England was stolen, not lost. Most of all it presents the beauty and power of traditional Roman Catholicism.

The Stripping of the Altars is a wonderful examination of the faith of medieval Englishmen and it is an excellent complement to Cranmer's Godly Order by Michael Davies.

Be forewarned - even the most avid students of the Tudor era will find that many of their notions are challenged. The work is overwhelming in its intriguing detail, fleshing out the entire picture of English medieval devotion as well as social conditions, and the impact of certain negative aspects of the Reformation that many of us would prefer not to consider.

Challenging and enriching as a work of history, the Stripping of the Altars also will cause the devout to ponder many a point. This is no "light read" - but the time and attention it takes to get through this actually quite readable work will not be stressful, because it is so totally engrossing. Put this on the shelf of anyone who wishes to fulfil the Anglican exhortation to have an inquiring mind.

This is the most enjoyable book I've read in the last five years. I learned so much about what the church was like in England before the Reformation. There was so much of this I didn't know, and finding it out was like recovering a long-lost treasure. The details are marvellous.

Reading about the changes which came about in the reigns of HenryVIIIth, Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth was extremely informative. Now I understand how the reformers and the monarchs who supported them managed to change the church of England from the Catholic church it was into a very different, and very protestant organisation.

Whether you have religious inclinations or not, this book is a great read. At the very least, you'll like reading about this period in history.

If you're an Anglican, you might be particularly fascinated to read about what your church was like before the Reformation. I was, and I think we lost a lot of the richness of traditional worship when Cramner et all came along and ripped away so many beautiful traditions from the church.

I am very grateful to Eamon Duffy for writing such a detailed account, and for making it all such a great read.

The 600+ pages of THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTARS lie beside me now, their once-smooth softbound spine wrinkled and creased, its bends evidencing my progress from cover to cover. Books of this scope (and length) really ought to be produced only in quality bindings. I regret the obvious wear and tear that even a single reading leaves on such an otherwise fine object. But then perhaps I'm reverencing the object rather than its contents. Of course, in so doing, I'm in the company of many 15th century Christians who, though incapable of understanding the Latin in their Primers (Books of Hours or Horae), nevertheless revered their treasured copies as being themselves sacred objects.

Beyond reverence for Primers, 15th and early 16th century Christianity is fascinating for its cults of the saints, its cult of the five wounds of Jesus, and especially its observances such as the annual Rogationtide processions, during which fields were blessed and demons were driven from the parish boundaries. The evolutionary links from Christianity back to Pagan religions are starkly evident in many of the practices and devotions of the period examined by Duffy.

The author's goal in the writing of this book was to demonstrate that, contrary to some historians' assertions, popular adherence to traditional religion, i.e., Roman Catholicism as then practiced, was alive and strong until its forced abandonment by successive monarchs during the Protestant Reformation. Consequently, its title notwithstanding, THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTARS is primarily a study of English religious practices in late medieval times preceding and culminating with the Reformation, and these practices are most interesting indeed. In fact, although Duffy does not speculate on this, I thought that I saw several such practices that have endured, more or less transformed, of course, into today's cultural norms. As one example, I wonder if the modern practice of bringing food to the family of one newly deceased does not have ties to the soul-saving practice of giving food to the poor of the parish who came to help pray for the soul of the dying 15th century Englishman?

As I hope this single example illustrates, it would be an error to consider this book "ancient history," for the beliefs and practices that it studies underlie today's Christianity, whether it be practiced according to Catholic or to Protestant customs. At the very least, Duffy's book should leave the reader with a heightened appreciation of the continuity that we share with our English ancestors of 450 years ago (assuming, obviously, that "we" equate to Caucasian European Christian immigrants to the New World, although converts to Christianity from other ethnic and religious ancestry should also find the history of their chosen religion to be of interest).

In speaking of Duffy's book, I have used the word "study" several times, and that is a most intentional word choice. Duffy has not written a popular history but a scholarly examination of his topic. In so doing, he assumes that his reader is knowledgeable of many items used in religious observances. In this regard, let us say that I often had recourse to a dictionary. He also includes frequent quotations that are written in English of the Late Middle and Early Modern periods. If one reads Chaucer with ease, this will not be a challenge; otherwise, reading such passages aloud, usually more than once, may help the reader "translate" them into Modern English. Still, this makes for occasional slow going. Duffy's own use of (modern) English is precise and erudite, yet not what I would describe as scintillating and is the reason that I have given his book four stars rather than the five that its detail and excellent research would otherwise deserve.

For the reader interested in this period of history and in the evolution of modern Christianity, THE STRIPPING OF THE ALTARS is a valuable resource. I also recommend WIDE AS THE WATERS by Benson Bobrick, IN THE BEGINNING, THE STORY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE by McGrath and GOD'S SECRET AGENTS by Alice Hogge. May you enjoy your studies!

I fear that Mr Armistead fails to appreciate the rigour of Dr Duffy's appraoch to popular Catholicism in sixteenth century England. It is precisely his degree of fastiduous detail in research which has been lacking from an often hypothetically fuelled debate. Without such examination of the experience of Reformation in specific cases, how can the early modern historian safely back up her grand theories? It is a shame that Mr Armistead finds such a wealth of detail a hindrance to his understanding. Duffy's illustration of inertia and gentle resistance to change in the localities is precisely the kind of reaction to externally enforced change which the above reviewer claims is absent from the Stripping of the Altars. Surely better that a revisionist history of such importance is so solidly rooted in tangeable research than left riding high on polemic.

Duffy shows that, contrary to the received wisdom, the reformation was not a necessary aggiornamento of a worn out church, but was imposed by a few determined extremists on a largely faithful population. While some may feel that he gives more detail than is strictly necessary, and the many and lengthy quotes in 16c. spelling get wearisome, the overall effect is very powerful, and from the Catholic viewpoint, very encouraging. The Reformation did not need to happen. There is no reason to believe that in time it cannot be reversed.

A warning to potential readers with strong Christian convictions: this book may send you into a frenzy! Duffy's complex look into the character and nature of late medieval Christainity, and the subsequent effect of the English Reformation upon it is, to say the least, different. His style, if fairly biased, is both fluid and engaging, and his research is of the finest quality. Although one may find it quite easy to pick apart Duffy's argument, as I found myself doing, it nevertheless stands as quite an achievement. He spends an enormous amount of time and energy delving into a rather compelling arguement about the common practices and beliefs of 15th century English catholics, largely in an attempt to show that the Reformation in England was not as popular a movement as many people might believe. Truly a fascinating, well written, and vastly debatable work of history; without a doubt a "must-read" for the Reformation historian or devotee.