The Stripping of the Altars

The Stripping of the Altars
Name	The Stripping of the Altars
Author	Eamon Duffy
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Subject	Late Medieval and Reformation England, Religious Practice
Publisher	Yale University Press (US), Yale University Press/Basic Books (UK)
Pub date	1992
Pages	662
Isbn	9780300051476

The Stripping of the Altars is a 1992 monograph by Eamon Duffy that examines late medieval Catholic devotional culture in England and the changes wrought by the English Reformation. Duffy argues that pre-Reformation religion was vibrant, communal, and deeply rooted in parish life, challenging narratives that depict it as corrupt or moribund prior to the reforms of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I. The book sparked wide debate across scholarship on Tudor society, devotional practice, and ecclesiastical history.

Background and Historical Context

Duffy situates his study in the context of debates involving historians such as A. G. Dickens, Christopher Haigh, Patrick Collinson, Geoffrey Elton, and J. H. Hexter about the nature of late medieval piety in England. He engages with evidence from institutions including parish churches, monasteries, cathedrals, and guilds to reassess the impact of royal acts like the Act of Supremacy (1534), the Dissolution of the Monasteries, and the Act of Uniformity (1559). Duffy’s narrative intersects with events and figures such as Thomas Cromwell, Thomas Cranmer, Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Aragon, Mary I of England, and the broader European backdrop of the Protestant Reformation, the Council of Trent, and the Peasants' War (1524–1525).

Publication and Thesis

Published by Yale University Press in the United States and Yale/Basic Books in the United Kingdom, Duffy's thesis contends that parish religion before the Reformation involved elaborate rituals, images, feast days, chantries, and sacraments sustained by lay confraternities, guilds, and local patrons such as the gentry, merchant families, and urban elites. Key primary contexts include wills, chantry certificates, churchwardens' accounts, and inventories from dioceses like Canterbury, York, Durham, and Lincoln. Duffy frames his argument against revisionist narratives popularized by scholars who emphasized clerical corruption and popular apathy, instead aligning with evidence from sources associated with Bede, William of Ockham only for medieval intellectual milieu references, and parochial records tied to local elites and institutions like the Livery Companies and Guildhall corporations.

Reception and Scholarly Debate

The book generated responses from historians across institutions including Cambridge University, Oxford University, Harvard University, Yale University, and Princeton University. Reviewers such as A. G. Dickens (in earlier debates), Christopher Haigh, Patrick Collinson, Eamon Duffy’s contemporaries, and scholars of liturgy and material culture debated Duffy’s use of evidence from sites like Gloucester Cathedral, Salisbury Cathedral, Winchester Cathedral, Norwich Cathedral, and parish records from Essex, Kent, Sussex, and Norfolk. The contention engaged specialists in fields connected to figures and institutions like John Foxe, Foxe's Book of Martyrs, Cardinal Wolsey, Stephen Gardiner, Nicholas Ridley, and the Marian Persecutions.

Influence on Tudor Historiography

Duffy’s work influenced subsequent scholarship on Tudor religion, prompting reassessments by historians such as Christopher Haigh, Ashley Abramson (note: placeholder for related revisionists), Patrick Collinson, and comparative studies that linked English parish life to continental cases in France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands. It affected studies of material culture in institutions like British Museum collections, conservation at Historic England sites, and shaped curricula at universities including King's College London and University of Cambridge. The monograph has become a touchstone in debates about continuity and change involving religious figures such as William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, Lollardy, and movements like Catholic recusancy under Elizabeth I.

Methodology and Sources

Duffy employs an interdisciplinary methodology drawing on archival material from diocesan record offices, ecclesiastical court records, parish inventories, testamentary wills, guild books, and material culture examined in places such as St. Paul's Cathedral, local parish churches, and monastic ruins. He interprets artifacts including rood screens, altarpieces, processional banners, and liturgical books, referencing manuscript sources from repositories like the British Library, Bodleian Library, and county record offices in Lincolnshire, Lancashire, Devon, and Cornwall. Duffy cross-references iconographic evidence, liturgical calendars, and burial patterns to argue for a dense fabric of devotional practice anchored in local institutions, lay confraternities, and benefaction networks involving patrons like medieval mayors, aldermen, and noble houses such as the Howards.

Criticisms and Reassessments

Critics raised issues about Duffy’s sampling methods, selection bias toward well-documented parishes, and his interpretation of sources compared with the work of revisionists such as A. G. Dickens and Christopher Haigh. Questions were posed about regional variation highlighted by studies of Yorkshire, Lancashire, Cornwall, and urban centers like London, Bristol, York, and Norwich. Later reassessments incorporated quantitative approaches, prosopography, and digital humanities projects hosted by institutions including The National Archives (UK), Cambridge Digital Library, and university research centers to refine understanding of late medieval devotion, chantry endowments, and parish liturgy. Subsequent scholarship continues to debate the balance between continuity and rupture across the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, and Elizabeth I.

Category:Books about the English Reformation