THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AND HIS ENGLISH AUDIENCE 1533-54

Ayris, Paul. "THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THOMAS CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, AND HIS ENGLISH AUDIENCE 1533-54." Reformation & Renaissance Review: Journal of the Society for Reformation Studies 3 (2000): 9. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 6 Nov. 2010.

We are pulling citations from Dr. Paul Ayris's scholarly work. Paul is working from Cranmer's correspondence. A most commendable works.

Cranmer and the Prayer Book,

"Of all the letters reproduced below, perhaps the most important is letter K which concerns the use of the 1552 Book of Common Prayer. The 1552 text represents a thorough revision of the first edition of 1549 and was necessary when Stephen Gardiner's Explication and Assertion of 1551 demonstrated that the doctrine of the real presence could be found in Cranmer's work. The rite of 1552 dramatically altered the shape of the liturgy in the communion rite. No trace of the mediaeval canon of the mass survived. The emphasis in the 1552 service is on the reception of the bread and wine by the faithful. This represents a radical development on the doctrine and practice of the 1549 rite.(n13)"

Cranmer and Knox on kneeling to receive HM's body and blood at Holy Communion

"The Duke of Northumberland was an enemy of Cranmer, being influenced by the radicalism of John Knox, whom he brought south from Newcastle and Berwick. Knox's views were similar to those of John Laski and, when he arrived in London, Knox picked a quarrel with Cranmer over the issue of kneeling at the communion. Knox denounced this practice in a sermon before the king and the Privy Council. The Council were impressed by Knox's views, and his zeal, and ordered the printer Grafton to stop work until Cranmer explained himself.(n14)"

Cranmer pulls the trump card on the regulative principle of Knox

"Cranmer then turned to specific theological concerns, as though he were disputing a point with an undergraduate at Cambridge. His opponents objected that kneeling was not commanded in Scripture and that what is not commanded in Scripture is unlawful. Cranmer then produced his trump card by identifying this as the doctrine of the Anabaptists, representing a subversion of all order. If this assertion is true, asked Cranmer, why bother to have any prescribed form of service at all? This was a devastating argument and Cranmer drove his attack home by pushing his opponents' arguments to a form of conclusion. The latter maintained that Scripture did not expressly state that Christ ministered the sacraments to his apostles kneeling. Nor, insisted Cranmer, did they find that he ministered it standing or sitting. If the plain word of Scripture were to be followed, those receiving the bread and wine would receive it lying on the ground, as was then the custom and, as Cranmer pointed out, the Tartars and Turks still did."

Cranmer and the Black Rubric (1552) which disappears in the 1559 BCP, but reappears in the 1662 BCP, the benchmark for classical Anglicanism to this day (Tractarians are radical and fundamentalistic Puritans)

"The letter reveals a startling side to Cramer's character, one far removed from the traditional image of a 'doubting Thomas'. On the contrary, here was a man at the height of his career. Both Cranmer and Knox were invited to give further thought to the matter. On 22. October, just two weeks after Cranmer had sent his letter, the Council took the decision to add the Black Rubric to the 1552 Prayer Book. This text justified the practice of kneeling and ruled out any imputation of idolatry by that action, rejecting any notion of the real presence. It is usually taken that the publication of the Black Rubric represents a defeat for Cranmer and a victory for his opponents. Professor Diarmaid MacCulloch has maintained that, on the contrary, the Black Rubric marks Cranmer's victory over his adversaries, since it supports Cranmer's own theological understanding of the sacrament. This revisionism is probably going too far, since it was only the opposition of men like Knox that led to the publication of the Rubric in the first place. Nonetheless, Professor MacCulloch is right to claim that the Black Rubric supports, and does not overturn, the position which Cranmer took in his letter of 7 October. Despite lacking parliamentary sanction, the Rubric defends Cranmer's text in the rite of 1552 and the spirit of the Book presented to parliament.(n15)"

Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer--principal targets for the Marian regime for the purpose of international publicity of their fame as heretics

"In March 1554 Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley were all sent to Oxford.(n20) This triumvirate was a principal target for the Marian regime. Between them, they represented the whole span of the English Reformation, starting in the 1520s. The government had decided to put the trio on trial at Oxford. The instrument was to be a delegation of the Canterbury convocation, headed by Hugh Weston, which was to act as a tribunal to investigate the prisoners. This was not a trial, rather a disputation which would display the heresies of the three men, all Cambridge graduates, to the world, thus providing material for a full heresy trial once Roman obedience has been re-established. The disputation lasted from 14 until 20 April.(n21)"