Thomas Cranmer by Diarmaid MacCulloch

Thomas Cranmer Reviews

• 
  Barry

  Be forewarned: MacCulloch's biography of England's first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury is a big book and is sometimes heavy sledding. But I've given it five stars because it is the definitive work on one of the English Reformation's greatest heroes.
  
  England became a Protestant nation during the reign of Henry VIII and remained so during the brief reign of his son Edward. When Edward died, Henry’s Roman Catholic eldest daughter, Mary, became queen. During the five years of her reign (1553-1558), Mary restored England to Roman Catholicism. In the process, she had more than 280 Protestant leaders condemned for heresy and burned at the stake, earning her the sobriquet “Bloody Mary.” Mary’s re-establishment of Catholicism was reversed by her successor and half-sister, Elizabeth I, and England remains a Protestant nation today.
  
  Among the Reformers killed during the Marian Persecutions, Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer, Bishop of London Nicholas Ridley, and Bishop of Worcester Hugh Latimer are known as the “Oxford Martyrs.” The three were tried for heresy at the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin on High Street in Oxford, and burnt at the stake just outside the city walls to the north. Latimer and Ridley were burnt on October 16, 1555. Latimer’s final words to his friend Ridley were: “Play the man, Master Ridley; we shall this day light such a candle, by God’s grace, in England, as I trust shall never be put out.”
  
  Thomas Cranmer was burnt five months later on March 21, 1556. During two and a half years of isolation and interrogation in prison, Cranmer held out at first and refused to deny his Protestant faith, but he eventually broke and signed several recantations. Three days before his death, Cranmer was told that he was to make a final recantation in public at the University Church of St. Mary. Sensing that they had the ultimate prize in their fight against the Reformation, Mary’s officials packed the church and even built a special platform across from the pulpit for Cranmer to speak from. But on the day of his execution, Cranmer unexpectedly renounced the recantation, saying, “I have sinned, in that I signed with my hand what I did not believe with my heart. When the flames are lit, this hand shall be the first to burn.” He then added, “And as for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy, and Antichrist with all his false doctrine.”
  Cranmer was pulled from the platform and taken to the same spot where Ridley and Latimer had been burnt five months before. True to his word, as the flames were lit, Cranmer thrust his right hand first into the fire. His dying words were, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. I see heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
  
  There is a small cobbled brick cross in the middle of Broad Street that marks the spot where the Oxford Martyrs were burnt. The Martyrs’ Memorial was erected just north of that spot in 1841.
  
  While visiting St. Mary’s Church and the Martyrs’ Memorial last year I prayed:
  
  “Keep us, O Lord, constant in faith and zealous in witness that, like your servants Hugh Latimer, Nicholas Ridley, and Thomas Cranmer, we may live in your fear, die in your favor, and rest in your peace; for the sake of Jesus Christ your son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.”
  
• 
  Matt

  Diarmaid McCullough did such a thorough job with this biography of Thomas Cranmer that I can’t give it any less than 5 stars.
  
  Thomas Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VIII’s and King Edward VI’s reign and he was responsible for most of the English Reformation of the 16th century, and their schism/split with the Catholic Church. His crowning achievement was the English Book of Common Prayer which made the liturgy accessible in the English language to laypeople.
  
  I learned many things about Cranmer as a person and the minefields he traversed in England during his time as Archbishop. He was first and foremost uber-loyal to King Henry VIII and then his son Edward VI, but he also brought his skills from his Cambridge doctoral degree in divinity to the table to craft the Prayer Book, a breviary, and numerous defenses for his beliefs and the canons of the Church of England. His fights and arguments with his primary antagonist, Stephen Gardner, came through in this book as the main struggle during his career. Gardiner was constantly a thorn in Cranmer’s side, fighting his reforms point by point. Archbishop Cranmer absolutely defied the Catholic Church in all of his evangelical reforms, which ultimately (and ironically) ended in his downfall. One part of his theology that didn’t make sense to me was that Cranmer did not believe in transubstantiation of the Eucharist, but he never let go of his belief in predestination. For some reason, these things conflicted for me.
  
  This biography was so very well written and researched, I could tell that the author really put a lot of effort into writing this book. It was rather difficult and dense reading at times which made it kind of a slog for me to get through, but I’m glad I persevered and got through all of it. Cranmer’s story is fascinating and I recommend this biography if you want to learn more about the man behind the English Reformation and the Book of Common Prayer.
• 
  Patricia

  Definitive, conscientious, and well-written. The go-to for anyone who wants a thoughtful and well-researched account of pretty much any aspect of Cranmer's life. Much more than I could absorb but worth the read.
• 
  Steve Comstock

  This is probably the definitive Cranmer biography. MacCulloch treats his subject with great fairness. His extensive research shows in every chapter. Don't let the size of this volume fool you, it is remarkably readable. I am glad to see such an underappreciated churchman treated without bias.
• 
  Wyatt Graham

  Brilliant, a work of genius.
• 
  Samuel Farrugia

  The English Reformation played out very differently than those on the Continent, and by the time it got underway, the continental reform movements were already welcoming a second generation of leaders. In modern evangelical contexts, much attention is given to the nonconformists of 17th & 18th-century England while those figures who initially moved the English Church away from Rome during the 16th century are largely unknown due to neglect. Surely Puritans, Baptists and Wesleyans are easier to include in the evangelical family tree than paedobaptist Bishops who struggled to reform an established Church from the top down. I believe that this “life” of Cranmer will serve 21st-century evangelicals by introducing them to a theological ally (and ancestor), albeit one who found himself at the head of an established Church and involved in matters of state at the highest level, and who was obliged to navigate all the ethical and theological ambiguity associated with such a position.
  What was once famously said of the NT Gospels could just as easily be claimed about MacCulloch’s magisterial biography of the first “evangelical” Archbishop of Canterbury – it is a passion narrative with a rather lengthy introduction. The book’s penultimate chapter consists of a sensitive account of Cranmer’s trials – both psychological and ecclesiastical – leading up to his condemnation, following that of his fellow Oxford martyrs, as a heretic. Cranmer was arrested in September 1553 and burned at the stake on 21 March 1556 by order of Queen Mary, who had taken the throne following her younger brother’s untimely death and was intent on undoing the “evangelical” damage done during Edward’s reign. Cranmer’s struggle for survival and his prevarication during his imprisonment between a “traditionalist”, Roman position and his particular Reformed stance mirrored that of the Church of England since Henry VIII’s 1534 Act of Supremacy, i.e. the struggle both to define its theological identity and negotiate its political allegiances (or lack thereof) to crown and Pope. In the words of the author, “In him, the whole of the English Reformation was put on trial” (p. 618). Throughout a lengthy series of both public disputations and private interrogations, Cranmer was obliged to explain his views on the nature of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist as well as justify his failure to recognize the universal primacy of the Bishop of Rome. His loyalty to Mary as his Queen was also questioned, and Cranmer repeatedly insisted throughout the proceedings that he would submit to the rule of Mary and her Spanish husband Phillip if ever he was afforded the chance to serve them as a free man. Although the principle of Cuius regio, eius religio could perhaps not be applied to Henry, by the time his daughter Mary had been crowned, it was most definitely the case. Under Mary, England lurched back into a state of “papal obedience” akin to that which had existed prior to 1534. As successive English monarchs tottered between agendas of reform and allegiance to Rome, the incarcerated Cranmer, for his part, struggled against the temptation to reconsider the validity of those views he had come to embrace over decades of theological reflection (and publication) and political maneuvering.
  Eventually, the long months of isolation, the distress at having to witness the burning of his friends Latimer and Ridley, and the strain of being constantly interrogated, entreated and threatened wore Cranmer down to the point where he issued a series of six statements, the final one written just a few days before his death, offering recantations of his heretical views and promising submission to the Pope and the rites of the Roman mass. By this point, it was clear that he would not be shown clemency by the Queen. Cranmer prepared a final discourse to be delivered during the service at the Oxford University Church, to be followed immediately by his execution. The text of the speech was submitted to the authorities in advance and consisted of a penitential plea for God to have mercy on his many “errors”. However, in a dramatic departure from his prepared remarks, Cranmer shouted to the large assembly that he recanted all his recantations, called the Pope the Antichrist, and affirmed his published (and “heretical”) views on the Eucharist. Thus, Cranmer went to the stake, not a repentant son of the Roman Church, but rather as the martyr of his Reformed views and champion of the evangelical cause. Ironically, Cranmer was condemned by Mary I for his decades-long defense of the right of the monarch to be the Supreme Head of the Church in England, a right that the Queen repudiated. However, a mere three years later, the Elizabethan Settlement would consolidate enough of Cranmer’s theological and political gains to allow the Church of England to maintain its unique theological identity within a polarized Western Christendom.
  Of especial interest are MacCulloch’s discussions of the evolution of Cranmer’s views on the Eucharist and predestination. Cranmer abandoned transubstantiation in favour of a more Lutheran understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, before ultimately arriving at a view somewhat akin to that of Zwingli, all the while not reducing the bread and wine to mere symbols (cf. pp. 614-15; also 173-84). Cranmer’s fully-developed views resemble the “symbolic parallelism” of H. Bullinger (1504-75), who, together with Calvin (1509-64), published the Zurich Agreement of 1549. The author is confident that had Lady Jane Grey remained queen, Cranmer would have been able to fully reform the English Church, indeed to make it the preeminent Reformed Church in close theological affinity to that of Calvin (pp. 618-20). On the question of predestination, it is interesting to note that though Cranmer firmly believed in this doctrine, he was loth to preach about it openly, for fear that it would not serve to comfort the faithful (pp. 210-12)!
  All in all, I heartily recommend this book. The fruit is well worth the work required to pluck it from its many pages.
• 
  Daniel Mcgregor

  This book is a drudge to get through. The reason for this is Diarmaid's focus on the small details of the most important person in Anglican history. The author's style is stiff and dry. Still, it is certainly not a book one breeze through or a life one should take lightly. You get the impression from this book that Cranmer is a political animal, testing and navigating a dangerous world of court conspiracies until circumstances outside of his control entrap him. Cranmer is not so much a radical reformer (aka Luther) but a man who sought to appease everyone even as he was still working out the implications of his core theological convictions. I find it odd that MacCulloch ends the book explaining to the reader that Cranmer's most lasting contribution is the standardization of English Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer helped standardize. Out of everything Cranmer did, this is the one that lasted the longest or had the greatest impact?
• 
  Stephen

  Definitive work, at least for now. As an Anglican I found MacCulloch's book both helpful as well as a bit unsettling at times. Helpful because it left no stone unturned, and unsettling because the waters out of which the CoE was birthed were certainly murky. MacCulloch's portrait of Cranmer is so up close and candid. Cranmer was, throughout his life, a work in progress and, as such, his life should be an inspiration to Christians and theologians today that humbly approach the text of Scripture in dialogue with peers ancient and contemporary in an attempt to understand and define their views on a myriad of complex theological issues.
  
  
• 
  Philip Zoutendam

  A comprehensive account of Cranmer's life, and essential for anyone hoping to understand the man, his time, or his church. It's *so* comprehensive as to be almost un-readable at points—scholarship sometimes overwhelms narrative, and the book becomes rudderless—but it's worth it to keep reading anyway, especially because the author's own prose can almost match his subject's in its ability to finely summarize a point. I'm glad I (finally) finished it, and I have not doubt I'll return to several particular sections.
• 
  Joel Zartman

  Whew!
• 
  Robert

  Dense, through story of first years of Anglican Church. Now have an informed concept and empathy for early protestants of traditional Church. Glad to be done with smug scoffing.
• 
  John Anthony

  A weighty tome, very literally, but it largely maintained my interest throughout. Cranmer remains something of an enigma- perhaps the sign of a successful biography. His humanity and principled courage, his almost callous, even cynical delivery to execution of others whose views he appeared to share or would shortly do.He worked quietly but effectively in the shadows, particularly in relation to Cromwell. I found MacCulloch's examination of his (Cromwell's) role, particularly in the Reformation, insightful.
  
  Cranmer's relationship with Henry VIII is fascinatingly dealt with here. Gripping at times, when the chips are down and it looks as though TC's days are numbered, touching in its portrayal of the affection that these vulnerable men had for each other; Cranmer as Henry's friend and father in God and Henry the deeply conservative/superstitious and almost frightened Head of the Church. Cranmer's influence over Henry was considerable and his survival instinct no less.
  
  Cranmer's legacy to the English language and the liturgy of the church is remarkable and his influences are examined thoroughly with no attempts to hide the warts - eg some of his trite attempts at versification.
  
  Little seems to survive re TC's early life though what does is very interesting. His role under Edward VI and the 2 prayer books was somehow less readable.
  
  His last years and inevitable execution by Mary are richly worked. Tortured in body and soul - the enigma of Cranmer and what he believed and stood for reaches its crescendo.
• 
  Greg

  A very well researched biography on Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Henry VIII, and architect of what would become the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. The book delves into the effect of the Reformation in England, the different parties and perspectives that pulled against each other, and the cast of characters involved. Particularly fascinating is the development of the Book of Common Prayer, used by Anglican communion churches throughout the world.
• 
  Carolyne

  For a man who took part in what was not only considered momentous events in Tudor History not to mention English History...this was a surprisingly boring read. If you want to read a great book on a notable Tudor player; I would read "The ebbs and flows of Time: the life of Thomas Howard. Third Duke of Norfolk" What a great read! Loved it!
• 
  John

  A bit slow going but a very thorough bio of the Archbishop of Canterbury who brought the Reformation to England in the 16th Century. Oddly, while brilliant, Cranmer comes off a bit smaller than life notwithstanding his historical stature.
• 
  GFWTRES

  Excellent biography of a central character in the English Reformation
• 
  Patrick\

  He walked the line, sometimes more than one, but did his best. A brilliant, learned man, gifted in spiritual pragmatism, and his legacy endures.
• 
  Calvin Coulter

  A big book in every way, huge scope, great depths of detail and texture, a rewarding excursion into the 16th Century to learn much I had never read before.
• 
  Wendy Dunn

  Wonderfully researched, this is a very readable biography.
• 
  Frostik Dar

  whew! 700 magisterial pages on Cranmer -- plus a fascinating appendix musing over the two marriages of Henry and Anne Boleyn.
• 
  Duncan V

  Absolutely amazing