BISHOPS come and go, “like snow upon the desert’s dusty face”, leaving little behind. Dunstans, Beckets, Cranmers, and Lauds are few and far between. This is also true of the later Middle Ages, when few but historians can think of a name, apart from the founders of Oxford and Cambridge colleges.
Thomas Arundel is not a star to us, and yet he was a great figure of his own day and left a deeper imprint on church history. Born in about 1353, the son and brother of an earl, he was a bishop at 20: remarkable even then. He was Chancellor of England at 31 and Archbishop of Canterbury at 44 in 1396. A year later, he had been deposed from his see and was an exile in Europe: a victim of the downfall of his brother and the paranoia of Richard II.
By 1399, he was back again in the train of Henry IV, urging Richard’s deposition, crowning Henry as King, resuming his archbishopric for another 14 years, and spending two more terms as Chancellor. He died in 1414 and was buried in his cathedral, although only fragments remain of his tomb.
To this extent, Arundel was a great prince-bishop of the Middle Ages, symbolising the link between Church and State and being involved (not admittedly by his own wish in 1397) in the great convulsion of the English monarchy from Richard II to Henry IV. But he also left his stamp on the Church in another respect: the history of dissent and heresy.
Author’s photoThis heraldic boss displays the Arundel arms in the bay known by that name in the cloister of Canterbury Cathedral. From the book
John Wyclif’s radical ideas, up to his death in 1384, fused with popular scepticism and anticlericalism to produce a new and intoxicating compound: Lollardy. It found supporters among university scholars, knights, parish clergy, and urban craftsmen. It translated the Bible into English, produced a substantial literature of tracts and sermons, and boldly called for Church reform, fixing one set of demands to the doors of Parliament.
The Crown and the church authorities opposed it resolutely. Adherents were arrested, interrogated, and forced to recant. After Arundel returned in 1399, repression increased. In 1401, he presided over the trial of William Sawtre, the first of many Lollards to be burnt.
In 1407, the Archbishop drew up “Constitutions” against Lollardy which remained in English church law until the Reformation. These brought in tight regulations about preaching and schoolteaching, unauthorised discussions of religion, and the reading of Lollard literature. They banned the reading of the English Bible without permission, effectively restricting it to kings and the nobility. This helped to bring about a notably different atmosphere in 15th-century England from that of Chaucer’s time: less tolerance was given to religious questioning.
Arundel’s life was the subject of a substantial biography by Margaret Aston, published in 1966. It followed his career only to 1397, however, and a sequel was never produced. Professor Given-Wilson has completed the task admirably. After a summary of Arundel’s first career, he gives us a detailed survey of the last and more important 14 years. Nothing is wanting in terms of the research and judgements, and the story is told in a clear and attractive manner. We now have an exceptional archbishop interpreted for us in two definitive books.
Dr Nicholas Orme is Emeritus Professor of History at Exeter University. He is the author of Going to Church in Medieval England (Yale, 2021).
Archbishop, Chancellor, Kingmaker: A life of Thomas Arundel
Chris Given-Wilson
Yale University Press £30
(978-0-300-28640-3)
Church Times Bookshop £27