Religious Reform and Religious Orders in England, 1490-1540: The Case of the Crutched Friars
By Michael Hayden
The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. 86.3 (2000)
Introduction: Thirty years ago the then pre-eminent historian of English religious orders,Dom David Knowles,wrote that he doubted whether the documentation existed to learn anything more about the Crutched Friars. In particular: “Spiritually and intellectually, we are presented with a total blank.”
In fact, subsequent research has made it possible to provide more details not only about the lives but also the minds and the religion of the Crutched Friars. Further, this information, though sparse, can now be combined with recent work of historians and archaeologists to provide important information about religious life in England during the period 1490–1540.
The disappearance of the Crutched Friars from England in 1538 was a minor and almost unnoticed result of the policies of King Henry VIII which led to the closing of the religious houses because of the alleged moral, religious, and financial abuses of their inhabitants. The involvement of several members of the London priory of the Crutched Friars in events resulting from Henry’s religious policies and, perhaps,the “quaint”name of the order, has led some historians to mention the Crutched Friars in passing, often in a footnote or two.For most historians,however,the Crutched Friars remain what a historian of London churches once called them,“one of the dim little orders. . . .”
In so far as is possible, given the extant records, this article moves the Crutched Friars from the footnotes to the text of the religious history of early sixteenth-century England. It will be argued that a careful reading of government and ecclesiastical records reveals that Henry VIII was wrong about one religious order and probably many more. The Crutched Friars were striving successfully to maintain a reformed way of life while they resisted what would come to be called the English Reformation.
The purposes of the article are twofold. The first is to propose a model of the response to Henry VIII’s religious policies by a number of religious orders whose English members received significant religious direction from outside England.
The second purpose of this article is to contribute to the evidence being gathered by a number of historians which indicates that throughout the fifty years between 1490 and 1540 traditional Catholic religion,as well as many convents and friaries,maintained strong popular support in England because it and they fulfilled the spiritual needs of many ordinary people.
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