The Stripping of the Altars

Infobox Book
name = The Stripping of the Altars


image_caption =
author = Eamon Duffy
country = United Kingdom
language = English
subject = English Reformation
Roman Catholicism in Great Britain
publisher = Yale University Press
release_date = 1992
media_type = Print (Hardcover & Paperback)
pages = 654 pp.
isbn = ISBN 0-300-06076-9 (paperback)

"The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580" is a work of history written by Eamon Duffy and published in 1992 by Yale University Press.

ummary of the book's argument, part 1

While its title suggests a focus on iconoclasm, its concerns are broader, dealing with the shift in religious sensibilities in English society between 1400 and 1580. In particular, the book is concerned with establishing, in intricate detail, the religious beliefs and practices of English society in the century or so preceding the reign of Henry VIII.

The main thesis of Duffy’s book is that the Roman Catholic faith was in rude and lively health prior to the English Reformation. Duffy’s argument was written as a counterpoint to the prevailing historical belief that the Roman Catholic faith in England was a decaying force, theologically spent and unable to provide sufficient spiritual sustenance for the population at large.

Taking a broad range of evidence (accounts, wills, primers, memoirs, rood screens, stained glass, joke-books, graffiti, etc), Duffy argues that every aspect of religious life prior to the Reformation was undertaken with well-meaning piety. Feast days were celebrated, fasts solemnly observed, churches decorated, images venerated, candles lit and prayers for the dead recited with regularity. Pre-Reformation Catholicism was, he argues, a deeply popular religion, practiced by all sections of society, whether noble or peasant. Earlier historians’ claims that English religious practice was becoming more individualised (with different strata of society having radically different religious lives) is contested by Duffy insisting on the continuing ‘corporate’ nature of the late medieval Catholic Church, i.e. where all members were consciously and willingly part of a single institution.

Much previous historical work on the Reformation, says Duffy, assumed it was a straightforward progression from the decaying Catholicism to the more morally pure but also more functional Protestantism. Duffy acknowledges that his thesis demands explanation of how, given the popularity of Catholicism, Protestantism was able to wipe away centuries of accumulated tradition, and do so in an incredibly short space of time. Duffy does this by proposing what he feels are a number of salient explanations — the political power of the militant Protestant clergy undertaking visitations to England’s parishes and that continued loyalty to the monarch allowed the word of the King to play a significant role in influencing public behaviour. Duffy also articulates the fact that while Catholics had the capability of rebelling against laws and edicts it was difficult for such rebellion to be sustained; there were simply no concepts of revolution or working-class solidarity by which Catholics could provide continued resistance to unpopular events.

ummary of the book's argument, part 2

The second part of Duffy’s book concentrates on the accelerated implementation of Protestantism in the mid sixteenth century. It charts how society reacted to Henrician, Edwardian and Elizabethan reform and the changes in religious practice this entailed. Duffy uncovers a succession of records, notes and images that individually reveal an assortment of changes to liturgy and custom but taken together build up to demonstrate a colossal change in English religious practice.

So we see how candlesticks and church plate had to be melted down and sold off, altar tables removed, rood screens defaced or torn down and chasubles unstitched. How walls were whitewashed, relics discarded and paintings of saints hidden in parishioners’ houses. And we also read how the other aspects of the Catholic community, such as the guild groups or particular local feast days, quickly collapsed without the economic or religious practices on which they depended. It was a painful process for Catholics, and Duffy vividly illustrates the confusion and disappointment of Catholics stripped of their familiar spiritual nourishment. (One of Duffy’s later studies, "The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village", focuses on how one particular Devon village reacted to these changes.)

Duffy also uses to the second section to highlight the brief flame of optimism felt by Catholics ignited by the reign of the Catholic Mary from 1553 to 1558, a flame quickly extinguished by Mary’s death. But ultimately, the Marian reign is a secondary issue. Duffy’s narrative demonstrates how centuries of religious practice evaporated in the face of fierce centralist control.

Potential difficulties of the book

"The Stripping of the Altars" should not be considered an introduction to the Reformation. It assumes knowledge of the period’s historical framework, including its key moments and characters, edicts and laws and the alterations in theological orthodoxy it engendered. Readers new to the area are advised to get to grips with the basic chronology of the period before engaging with the book.

Two other aspects can make this book challenging for readers. Duffy has an intricate knowledge of Catholic liturgy and the rituals, beliefs and objects associated with it. The reader’s familiarity with function and appearance of objects such as the pyx or the monstrance or architectural elements such as the rood screen is taken for granted. A reader unfamiliar with these elements may miss out on their much broader symbolic significance. Additionally, there is no modernisation of the numerous quotations taken from sources in Middle English, making them more difficult to read through.