Wednesday, June 18, 2025

It is the 18th of June 2025. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

I’ll admit- a “Puritan manifesto” doesn’t have the pizazz that other “manifestos” have- but its author, Robert Crowley, was a fascinating controversialist in the heart of the English Reformation, and learning his story gives us some insight into that tumultuous 16th century in England.

Crowley was born, in or around the year 1517- so we know he’s going to be in the thick of things- Henry and Mary and Elizabeth and all that… so, let’s do this as a list- the five things to know about Robert Crowley and how he helps us understand the English Reformation.

5. Robert Crowley went to Oxford, where he was at Magdalen College in the 1530s. This is important as 1) in the 1530s, Henry VIII was going through his “great matter,” and the break between the English crown and the Pope gave birth to reforming ideas to make their way into, and spread about, England. Magdalen College was a particular hotbed for reformers, and Crowley would become one of the most outspoken. And as Henry was perceived to have been waffling, Cowley would be a critic.

4. He first took to printing- an important 16^th-century profession still in its modern infancy. He would print a number of things, including his own verse, often on moral and religious subjects. You may see “Christian Socialist” appended to Robert Cowley’s name, but this blurs some early modern distinctions. He was a commonwealth man —not a Leveller— that is, he saw the pooling of wealth and land among a few as inherently un-Christian.

But his other publications would be more significant. One was the first copy of the gospels in Welsh. Another would be the first metrical psalter with the music arranged for four parts- this would be the center of Puritan worship in the coming decades and centuries. And perhaps his most popular work, as he published it three times, was the story “Piers Ploughman” by William Langland. We mentioned this work on the weekend show, as it was a 14^th-century English dream narrative/allegory that predates and presages The Pilgrim’s Progress and was an example of medieval anti-clericalism that was repurposed in the debates during the Reformation. If Crowley gets any attention in larger treatments of the era, it is for his work in bringing this medieval text to the attention of the Reformers.

He would also write a famous poem against the killing of Anne Askew- one of only two women in England to be tortured in the Tower of London and burned at the stake for her refusal to recant her opposition to transubstantiation and refusal to give up the names of other Protestants.

3. Crowley was ordained in 1551- he left his work as a printer and believed with others that this was the time to make England a properly Protestant nation- after all, Edward VI had succeeded his father, and while he was very young, his tutors were predisposed towards reform.

All of this, however, would come crashing down with the death of the young king and the reign of Queen Mary (yes, of “bloody Mary” fame).

So- 2. Robert would flee with the other “Marian exiles” to Frankfurt in Germany, where they would find sympathetic hosts. It was here that Cowley would be introduced to a slightly stronger flavor of Reform- that of the exiles from Calvin’s Geneva (and the same that John Knox would take up north to Scotland). Cowley was radicalized- while he himself would be opposed to bishops (which is episkopos, BTW- sorry for my misspeaking on Monday- Diakonos is deacon, episkopos is bishop)- but this hierarchy would be done for in Crowley’s mind. With the end of Mary and the ascension of the Protestant Queen Elizabeth, Crowley was back- but feistier than before.

And this leads to number 1. his “puritan manifesto” and what was its topic? The title is “A Briefe Discourse Against the Outwarde Apparel of the Popishe Church”- that’s right- against vestments. No fancy “popish” clothes- and this becomes the bedrock for the “puritan” movement, wanting to “purify the church of catholic excess”. There’s even a story of him threatening violence to some men wearing surplices into his church for a funeral… it might seem niche, but what people could SEE became central to the battles for the Puritans and the later English Reformation.

Robert Crowley- printer, exile, and puritan firebrand died on this, the 18th of June in 1588. Born around 1517, he was roughly 71 years old.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and back in Psalm 124- same as yesterday, but today in the style of the metrical Psalter:

¹ Had not the Lord been on our side,
may Israel now say;

² Had not the Lord been on our side,

when men rose us to slay;

³ They had us swallow’d quick, when as

their wrath ’gainst us did flame:

⁴ Waters had cover’d us, our soul

had sunk beneath the stream.

⁵ Then had the waters, swelling high,

over our soul made way.

⁶ Bless’d be the Lord, who to their teeth

us gave not for a prey.

⁷ Our soul’s escaped, as a bird

out of the fowler’s snare;

The snare asunder broken is,

and we escaped are.

⁸ Our sure and all-sufficient help

is in JEHOVAH’s name;

His name who did the heav’n create,

and who the earth did frame.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of June 2025, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who can look Popish or Amish… it depends on the day- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man who could go for a ploughman’s lunch- especially the pickled onions… I’m Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.