Religious conformity in early modern England was as much
about loyalty to the crown as acceptance of a particular theological
doctrine. Attendance at Sunday services was
compulsory, so refusal to attend became both a secular and temporal crime,
particularly in the face of conflicts with Catholic France and Spain. However, both Jesuit missionaries and puritan
dissenters fought against conformity as dangerous to their faiths. As the
seventeenth century progressed toward the English Civil War the penalties for
religious non-conformance increased, ensuring that more and more dissenters of
both Catholic and Protestant stripes.
The primary theme is the question of whether church attendance was a
solely religious issue, or one of loyalty to the English crown.
The most visible religious dissenters were Catholics, called
recusants, who refused to attend the Church of England’s services in accordance
with dictates of the Pope.
Recusants faced imprisonment, fines, and loss of lands if prosecuted for
non-attendance. As a result, most
Catholics, called conformists or church papists, chose to attend Anglican
services. For some Catholics church
attendance provided a visible declaration of loyalty to the crown in addition
to avoidance of civil or criminal penalties. While attending church preserved the lives,
freedom, and property of conformists, Papal decrees stated that attendance at
Anglican services was a mortal sin.
Catholics that repeatedly attended Protestant services were ineligible
for absolution from the sin of attendance.
Jesuit missionaries sought to discourage conformity by
Catholics with a propaganda campaign.
Priests used hidden presses to publish and distribute tracts denouncing
conformity in part because they lacked the traditional parish structure to
distribute their message.
Missionaries secretly distributed manuals to teach Catholics the best
way to respond to queries about their refusal to attend church. In this way, the act of refusal became a
positive assertion of their beliefs, not a negative reaction to authority.
Not only did the missionaries struggle to bring lapsed
Catholics back to the faith, but they worked to prevent conformists from
accepting Protestantism through osmosis.
Jesuits worried that long-term exposure to proselytizing from the pulpit
would win Protestantism new converts from conforming Catholics attending
services. Missionaries also warned
Catholics against falling into the error that they could be responsible for
their own spiritual health.
A key Jesuit tactic in their battle against conformity was
to exalt the suffering of the heroic martyrs punished by the government for
their dedication to their faith.
Catholics in England were enjoined to accept penalties for recusance as
God’s gift to the faithful. Loss of
property and relationships were akin to the vows of cloistered monks and
nuns. Recusants could thus expect
heavenly rewards for their suffering in England. Missionary
tracts urged recusants to reject personal associations with conformists,
arguing that conscientious Catholics should pursue total separation from
Protestants and conforming Catholics in order to maintain their own spiritual
purity.
Being a recusant was not the only form of dissent open to
Catholics. Some Catholics expressed
their dissent by refusing to participate in Protestant communion rituals. Conformists could also
remain silent during responsorial liturgies, or could make a public declaration
of dissent before their congregation rather than remaining absent from church
services. Finally, some
Catholic families chose to have husbands attend services while wives became
recusants. Wives hen became responsible
for raising children in religion. Some
Catholic theologians argued that these lesser forms of dissent were acceptable
for normal people, particularly landed gentry.
Extreme measures like recusancy were necessary only for clergy and
magistrates, because it represented the perfection of the Catholic faith in
England. Only those mentally and
spiritually prepared for the great sacrifice of matrydom should embark on this
course. Those needing to
demonstrate political loyalty could attend church services as long as they did
not partake of the sacraments.
Conformists had this leeway for two reasons: persecution of recusants,
and the facts that laws requiring church attendance were solely designed as
tests of loyalty to the state.
Catholics were not the only religious dissenters in
sixteenth and seventeenth century England.
Puritans also either refused to attend services conducted in an overly
ceremonial manner or still dependent on some religious iconography. When puritans did attend services, they were
frequently disruptive, denouncing “false doctrine.” The presence of conforming Catholics was also
offensive to puritans. Anglicans
sometimes viewed puritan non-conformity the same way they viewed Catholic
recusants: as a plot to damage the church. Lancelot Andrewes went further to describe
puritan focus on inward religion and the gospels as a form of idolatry, and an
act of denial of the totality of God’s creation.
Andrewes also argued that puritan non-conformity could lead
to rebellion against secular authority.
If anything, since puritans were Protestants, their non-conformity was
more dangerous than that of recusants because it had the force of popular piety
behind it. Unlike Catholics had to wait for an invasion to free them, Puritans could create an English army of
rebellion. Anglicans also detected a dangerous disrespect for
authority inherent in the doctrine of predestination. If the elect were saved regardless of their
actions on earth, they were free to ignore secular authorities. Thus, like recusants who were due to
perceived links to potential invaders, puritan non-conformists were suspect due
to their perceived ability to rise in rebellion against the crown.
A significant historical question is whether Jesuits in
England acted as evangelists or acted more to restore parochial life and
maintain England’s Catholics against the eventuality that Catholicism returned
to England. The evidence
seems to indicate that Jesuits and other missionaries spent more time working
to protect Catholics from the Protestant majority, as seen in their constant
harping on the dangers of conformity.
Preaching against conformity in person or print was the Jesuits primary
activity in England.
The dichotomy created by historians between lay and clerical
responses to the issue of conformity is another challenging issue. While the traditional interpretation is that
conformity was the response of a leaderless laity, while the clergy argued for
non-conformance, Alexandra Walsham argues that this is overly simplistic. As penalties for recusance grew, the clergy
were forced to adopt a more tolerant attitude toward conformance, as did
missionaries who understood that diatribes against lay people were likely to
have an adverse affect on their loyalty.
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