Book Reviews

Mark Stoyle, A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549

Posted on by Tony Rossell

In his book The Western Rising of 1549, Mark Stoyle explores an event that history has largely overlooked, offering a sympathetic remembrance of the rebels who took part in the rising, which came close to dramatically transforming English history.

Stoyle describes the book’s simple aim as “to provide a new history of the Western Rising, and to consider the disturbances afresh” (p. 3, all based on the paperback version of the book).

Stoyle is eminently qualified to write this book. Born and raised in Mid-Devon, he describes himself as “a proud West Country man.” Early in his career, he conducted archaeological work in Exeter, where much of the story is set. He serves as a professor of early modern history at the University of Southampton and is the author of seven books. For Western Rising, he won the Devon History Society Book of the Year Award in 2023.

Stoyle presents his work as a chronological narrative history. He divides the book into three sections: The Background, The Rising, and The Aftermath. The chapters in these sections include clear signposts for the story’s progression, with titles such as Foreshocks, Escalation, and Retribution.

For sources, Stoyle provides an extensive list of manuscripts, court records, and letters. One of the challenges in writing the book was the limited number of eyewitness accounts. Many of the rebel documents were destroyed. John Hooker provided one contemporary source on which Stoyle relied. Hooker was from Exeter and “the most influential historian” and the “chief primary source on which all subsequent histories of the rebellion have been based.” However, as a loyalist, Stoyle recognizes him as a partisan source (p. 83).

After Hooker, there followed a historical silence, with the exception of William Hal’s history in 1680 (p. 126). The history was picked up again in the foundational work of Francis Rose-Troup’s 1913 book, which Stoyle says “has remained the standard history of the rising.” (p. 126) He supports and amplifies her central thesis “that religion lay at the very heart of the Western Rising.” (p. 294) He also acknowledges Aubrey Greenwood’s 1990 PhD dissertation, which challenged the traditional view that the Western Rising was primarily a “priestly plot”. He argued that Devon and Cornwall residents rebelled voluntarily to defend traditional religious practices.[i]

An example of this relative silence appears in the book by Robert Buchholz and Newton Key, Early Modern England 1485 – 1714, where the Western Rising merits only a few sentences. Summed up with, “At about this time, a second royal army put down the Western rebellion at Sampford Courtenay in a similarly brutal fashion.” [1]

In reviewing The Western Rising, one can argue that Stoyle’s goal is to push back against the historical royalists’ view of the rebellion by offering a sympathetic, almost apologetic view of the rebels and by highlighting the contingency of what almost changed the course of English history.

One can find numerous instances of Stoyle’s sympathetic view of the rebels. Indeed, in many places in the book, Stoyle notes that “writers, both at the time of the rising itself and ever since, have been far more scathing both about the protesters and about their aims.” (p. 289) Instead, in his view, he describes the rebels as “the brave men and women who gather there to defend both their faith and their accustomed way of life.” (p. 297)

For example, Stoyle presents a conflicting view of the Crown’s assessment of Body’s murder as a personal attack by his enemies (p. 71) and of the priest, Harper, as an instigator of the conflict (p. 89). He blames the likely first shots, fired by Carew’s followers, which killed ten protesters, for lighting the match that “supercharged” the confrontation and launched the rebellion (p. 103). At the culmination of the fighting, Stoyle recognizes that “the rebels’ desperate courage had proved of little avail against the superior training and equipment of the royal forces” (p. 200). Finally, during the trial of the rebel leaders, Stoyle rejects the widely promoted claims that the rebellion was class warfare, saying, “there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that the West Country insurgents had called for the killing of gentlemen” (p. 279). He insists that their faith was the prime motivator.

In some ways, Stoyle’s sympathetic view of the rebels may have been swimming against the tide of contemporary historical and social opinion. In an interview (starting at minute 26), James Clark describes a prejudice against the Catholic influence in England. He relates that as an undergraduate, he was surprised by the history that portrayed Edward as good, Mary as bad, and Elizabeth as better. He said he was stunned by how this ran through all the historiography and that there were no voices challenging it. He claimed that the contrast reduced the history to an old-fashioned 1950s Western in which the bad guys wear black hats and the good guys wear white hats.[2]

A further theme supporting the rebels and his view of what almost happened is the contingency he sees in the rebellion’s possible outcome. Indeed, the rebel effort “came much closer than generally realized to turning the world upside down.” (p. 7) At the decisive Battle of Fenny Bridges, Stoyle notes that Lord Russell’s army was in an extremely vulnerable position. Hooker notes that a fresh supply of Cornish troops arrived just after the battle. (p.179) If they had arrived just a day or two earlier, Stoyle argues, they might have turned the battle in the rebels’ favor. (p. 293)

For an American audience, the impact of the contingency Stoyle describes is similar to that of the historian James McPherson, who wrote about how the world would have changed if Pickett’s Charge had succeeded at the Battle of Gettysburg.

In the end, there were few, if any, winners in the Western Rising. The rebel leaders were executed, and Somerset’s role was sunset by Dudley. The conflict between Protestants and Catholics would continue. Nevertheless, Mark Stoyle’s retelling and reframing of the faith, suffering, and lives bring them back to life.

[1] Bucholz, Early Modern England 1485-1714.

[2] James Clark: The Dissolution of the Monasteries. YouTube Video.

[i] AI results for Aubrey Greenwood, Western Rising Prayer Book Rebellion.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History

Posted on by Nathanael Bendix

Book Review

In his book, The Dissolution of the Monasteries, James G. Clark discusses what he calls “a study of the end of the monasteries in England and Wales”.(19). What Clark is discussing is the Dissolution of the Monasteries, an event in history in which King Henry VIII dissolved over 850 religious houses in England by 1540. This event, a seismic shift in religion in England, is the focus on the book, The Dissolution of the Monasteries by James G. Clark. Clark covers the event from the perspective of the men and women affected by it, not just the perspective of King Henry VIII. Clark, A professor at the University of Exeter who has written a lot of material regarding monasteries, is the right author for this book due to his extensive knowledge about the subject at hand and his unique take on it. This book would have been much different if it had been viewed through Henry’s point of view. It is a very dense book with a lot of information, but the author is clearly educated on the topic that he is covering.

            Clark separates his book into three parts. Part One goes over how important monasteries were in Tudor society. Part two covers what kind of relationship the Tudors had with monasteries. Part Three is about “ the early consequences of the extinction of regular religion” (20). Over the course of the book, Clark shows the place of the monastery in English society, the actions of King Henry and his administration against these monasteries, and the consequences thereafter.

            The book begins with Clark recounting the place of the Monastery in English society in the 16th century. Monasteries had a sense of fascination among the English people. For example, Clark recounts that because many people believed in the spiritual power of certain objects, the monasteries that took care of these objects would become famous. (45). Clark also describes an old anecdote where people say that “fat men were said to have abbot faces” and how nuns and priests were not always beloved by the public. (50). This first part of the book illustrates for the reader the role and fascination the everyday Englishmen had with their monastery.

            Part Two goes into the actual Dissolution of the Monasteries. First, Clark gives us historical context, discussing the English Reformation and the events leading up to the Dissolution of the Monasteries. A part I found interesting was that Clark writes that “The aims of the regime were abstract and ambitious, and hence they were often not readily understood either by those called upon to carry them out or by those who confronted them.”(316). Putting this into perspective, Clark shows the reader that the purpose behind the Dissolution of the Monasteries was not even clearly seen by those serving the King and those who were against the act. This shows the complexities and political chaos of the time. Part Two also includes the Pilgrimage of Grace, a rebellion lead by Sir Robert Aske in response to the Dissolution of Monasteries. The Dissolution of Monasteries was so divisive that it caused a rebellion, albeit a quickly crushed rebellion. The second part of Clark’s Dissolution of the Monasteries

            Part Three examines the aftermath of the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Fittingly, Clark begins this part with a story of the destruction of a church in Lewes, its destruction is a fitting metaphor for the Dissolution of Monasteries (379-380).  Clark writes that “Historians have found it difficult to look on the years after 1540, the last years of Henry’s reign and those of his children, Edward and Mary, without the impression of new worlds being cut rapidly anf roughly from the old.”(470). This quote stands out because the Dissolution of the Monasteries’ impact was so great that the 1540s and the 1530s seemed to be from different worlds.

In the introduction to his book, Clark writes “The dissolution in England is the most visible drama of the Tudor reformations and stands in sharp relief on a European stage, and yet it is the least well-documented of all.” (9). This statement is important for understanding the book because of this fact. Because this event has not been well-documented, in a way, it causes historians to fall back on certain perspectives such as the perspective of Henry VIII. Despite Clark saying earlier that this was one of the least documented events, Clark uses a plethora of sources, from regular townspeople to scholars like Hugh Latimer and John Foxe. I am not contesting that what Clark say isn’t true. But, for a moment in history which is not very well documented, there is a lot of evidence.

One critique to be had of The Dissolution of the Monasteries is its length. The book is very dense. While a book’s length does not automatically mean it is a slog, to say that James G. Clark was not being a little indulgent would be fibbing. He is an expert on monasteries and It is not a crime to say that a book is very long. But, Clark’s knowledge helps rather than hinders.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries could have just been a book about that one act Henry VIII signed in 1536. It could have just covered a basic understanding of the English monastic life, why Henry did what he did, the closing of the monasteries and the aftermath. But, this would have been very different than the book James G. Clark would come to write. You see, the main character of the book is not King Henry. The main character is the monastery. Clark spends a large amount of time on these monasteries. Because Clark’s specialty is monasteries, it works (though it can slip into indulgence occasionally).

If you ask someone who is the main character or actor in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, many will say Henry VIII, some might mention Sir Thomas Cromwell, even say Sir Robert Aske who led the Pilgrimage of Grace in response to this. But the correct answer is that the main character of the Dissolution of the Monasteries were the monasteries and those that lived in them. They were the ones most effected by the closing of the monasteries. James G. Clark captures this quite well in his sprawling book about the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

The Dissolution of the Monasteries

Posted on by Max Smith

Book Review of The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History, by James Clark

 

As Professor of History at the University of Exeter, author James G. Clark has spent his professional career uncovering the role of English monasteries in the medieval and reformation eras. His work titled The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History, attempts to demonstrate the various ways in which monastic life became unraveled in the early 16th century during the Tudor Reign. The central thesis of his work argues against the long standing belief among scholars that this dissolution was swift, uniform, and absolute in its lasting effects. 

 

The book is divided into three main sections; the first of which sets up key context for the role of monasteries in England and their complicated relationship with the secular public. Clark argues that monasteries were not simply features of the landscape that the public had grown accustomed to seeing from town, but in many ways contained the very essence of those landscapes themselves. He provides evidence to show how their influence extended far beyond the walls of those looming structures, intermingling with everyday activities such as travel and commerce. Their ancient existence served as key markers on maps, and their longstanding presence provided a sort of repository for myth and symbolism for medieval England as a whole. (55) 

 

Clark takes this section beyond their geographical and commercial role however, extending his research into areas of familial, gender, and class relationships in order to demonstrate the ways in which they acted as sources of power in the time of Henrician era. His use of ordination records as primary sources provides key insight into who decided to take sacred vows, their reasonings behind that decision, and the rising and falling of those statistics over time. Through this research, Clark reaches the conclusion that individuals, both men and women, who joined monasteries rarely did so as a result of coercion but were instead influenced by factors such as opportunity, education, and propriety. (58) Despite this, he believes that public criticism had already begun to pave the way for the dissolution arguing that the very entice that had drawn so many towards monastic life, acted as symbols of exclusion and confinement to many others. (100)

 

In section two of this work, Clark seeks to uncover the shift from monasteries as an example of generally private religiosity and spirituality over their territory, towards a much more public, personal, and even subservient relationship with the crown and their patrons. This primarily happened in the year 1535 following the act of supremacy, and consisted of sworn testimonies by monastic leaders regarding information of their salaries and property holdings. He makes particularly good use of royal commission records which were intended to annex Church leaders from their monastic positions into ones closer to the sphere of influence of King Henry VIII, showing that such encounters contradict typical narratives of an all out “assault on the religious houses.” (207) 

 

Although the inclusion of primary sources accounts throughout the book certainly lends more credibility to his arguments, the decision to keep their old English spelling proves at times decidedly more difficult for the reader to decipher their ultimate meanings. Clark also admits to the shortcomings of these commission reports acknowledging that evidence of their effects have not survived nearly as well as the more widely cited parliamentary statutes which initiated them. (208) Overall, he claims that this reorganization was not in and of itself a cause of the dissolution and warns against interpreting this event as the “first warning cracks of an inevitable collapse.” (263) Furthermore, he encourages readers not to be misled to notions of swiftness or uniformity by the pace of this transformation, demonstrating that tensions between the church and the crown varied widely from year to year and from location to location. 

 

The final section of Clark’s work addresses the aftermath of the dissolution, and by extending his scope beyond those of other traditional narratives he aims to refute the idea that monastic existence and influence was abruptly halted. He points to scenes such as the destruction of the Cluniac priory of St Pancras at Lewes whose violent removal would later influence the perception of the dissolution in the minds of Elizabethan writers. Clark points out that the reality of most of this period did not match the extraordinary examples such as the Lewes Priory, and the narrative of their swift and decisive obliteration is a result of writers referencing sources which did not chronicle events as they happened, but rather, were books filled with patchy and conflicting accounts. 

 

Ultimately, Clark states that the dissolution was not a concise, nor a uniform event across the country, but rather one that heavily depended on the Church leaderships’ willingness to cooperate with the crown’s commissaries, as well as the public’s perception of their role and influence upon everyday life. He relies on a variety of evidence to prove this point such as ordination records, commission reports, first and second-hand accounts of monastic rule post-1535, and archaeological evidence which demonstrates that monasteries were dismantled over a long period of time rather than being subject to an extreme and swift destruction like that of Lewe. 

 

This is not an introductory reading, but a book for those who are already well versed and familiar with the subject of the Henrician era and the dissolution of English monasteries. It is a dense read, full of early English primary source accounts which will take quite some time for the average reader to decipher. That being said, Clark’s narrative is worth the time, and provides an account whose argument distinguishes it from most other works on the subject. It separates itself from other works on the subject by not falling victim to popular sources, and instead examines accounts from those such as church officials and commision reports who provide a better understanding of the transition from an English society as a primarily monastic one, to a society which was ruled almost entirely by the crown and its cohorts. 

 

Peasants Making History by Christopher Dyer

Posted on by Hyrum Higgins

Peasants Making History: Living in an English Region 1200-1540 is a social history of medieval English peasantry written by Christopher Dyer, an emeritus professor of local history from the University of Leicester. The book stands out because of the breadth of topics it covers and the depth with which it explores them. Dyer focuses on a specific region in England, the West Midlands, and looks at it holistically using sources such as tax records, maps, and ridge and furrow analysis. From these sources, Dyer seeks no only to reveal the realities that peasants faced, but also the choices they made and the reasons why they may have made them. In the process, Dyer hopes to reveal the variety of ways in which peasants shaped the society they lived in, and to do so from their own perspective. (1)

 The first chapter after the introduction (chapter two) deals with the relationship between peasants and the landscape they inhabited and is a good example of the approach of the book. In it, Dyer highlights the various ways in which the landscape affected peasant lives. For instance, the fertility of the soil affected the degree to which peasants farmed rather than engage in industry or animal husbandry. But Dyer emphasizes that peasants were not passively affected by the land — they actively shaped it. For example, in areas subject to sea flooding, Dyer describes the complex systems of seawalls and ditches that peasants built to allow access to fertile meadows and arable land. (19)

 Dyer acknowledges, however, that peasants were not the only ones shaping the land. Lords frequently controlled the changing landscapes as they encouraged the clearing of forests to make fields and enclosed fields to pasture sheep. But peasants also made changes to the land of their own initiative and Dyer argues that lords often only recognized them after the fact. (24) Sometimes peasants even opposed the lords directly in order to preserve their preferred landscapes as when Dyer gives an example of peasants tearing down newly built fences and filling newly dug ditches. (22) Dyer is nuanced in his description of the actions of peasants and lords and emphasizes peasant agency without minimizing lordly power.

While Dyer gives frequent examples, one strength of his work is the degree to which he looks at patterns and specific details. In this chapter, some of the details he examines include cottage locations, numbers of households, land allocation, and number of assarts (land clearances). These details help to paint a picture not just of what was happening (e.g. expanding settlements into the forest) but also who specifically was involved, what they gained and risked, and how their actions related to their circumstances.

Dyer’s theme of peasant agency and his detailed approach continue in the subsequent chapters throughout this work. In chapter three he covers peasant landholding including leasing and subleasing approaches. He emphasizes the control that peasants had over who received their properties(both by official and unofficial channels). In chapter four, Dyer covers the agency of peasants to move, both geographically and socially as they migrated and advanced their social class. Chapter five covers the various ways that peasants organized their households. Chapter six emphasizes the agency of peasants in planning their crops and adopting or rejecting agricultural innovations. Chapter seven goes into detail about how peasants used each of the animals they kept. Here Dyer emphasizes the synergistic nature of animal husbandry and agriculture and shows how peasants, through raising animals, raised their standards of living. In Chapter eight, Dyer pushes back at the view that towns were the result of central planning by elites, and argues that they often organically grew from communities built by peasants. In chapter nine, Dyer complicates the distinction between preindustrial and industrial. He argues that peasants spent a great deal of time doing activities that could be described as industry.  Finally chapter ten examines the peasant worldview and compares it to the idealistic vision expressed in Piers Plowman of a society in which each class plays their role harmoniously. Dyer pushes back at this vision, but does so with nuance, emphasizing the ways in which peasants supported their secular and religious authorities, but also took initiative at the local level and were willing to stand up for their rights.

Dyer’s book is occasionally dry. This is a weakness that might have been improved at times by changes to the prose, although he generally does an excellent job. It is, at times, a difficult read because of the time he spends on details such as the percentages of peasants who owned halfyardlands and the measurements of farm animals. However, these details are also what makes the book so fascinating. Dyers goes beyond describing the generalities of peasant existence and instead describes a working model of their lives. Through the details he includes, the reader is able to visualize peasant society and to begin to understand it. One might question some of his conclusions about the peasant worldview. For example, I felt he overstated his point in his description of peasant families as cold units of order and discipline. (144) Nevertheless, even if one disagrees with aspects of Dyer’s analysis, the details he provides make an excellent base for alternative interpretation.

Dyer argues at the beginning of his book that he didn’t set out to write a book about peasants because they have been neglected by historians; he acknowledges that they haven’t.(1) Rather, Dyer seeks to showcase how peasants were impactful in history. Throughout his book, he shows how peasants transformed their landscape, built up villages and towns, and engaged in industry. Rather than viewing peasant actions through the lens of contestation with manorial power, Dyer describes a heterogenous class of people in which individuals had their own disparate concerns, disputes, ventures, and opportunities. He presents peasants, not as the servants of the lords, but as the body of the society itself. Rather than a class that was pushed aside to make way for modernity, Dyer argues that peasants played their part in its creation. (345)

Christopher Dyer – ‘Peasants Making History’

Posted on by Matt Zilic

Peasants Making History: Living in an English Region, 1200-1540 (2022) is a highly detailed and excellently crafted book by English historian Christopher Dyer. Himself a historian of the Midlands and everyday English life, Dyer’s work is the culmination of years of research into a vast swath of documentary and archaeological evidence that originate from the West Midlands region of southwest England (Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire). The author’s choice of geography stems largely from familiarity with the region and its varied landscape. In addition to his own studies, Dyer draws on the efforts from historians of other topics and also across disciplines into fields such as archives and archaeology. As his title suggests, he takes a peasant-centered approach to the analysis from the High to Late Middle Ages. His emphasis is on the ways in which peasants brought about, adapted to, and resisted changes in their worlds. Whilst he concedes that medieval peasants have not been wholly ignored by historians, he does claim that  “no one has attempted an overview of the importance of peasants over a wide range of themes, from agriculture to religion,” (Dyer, 1). Likewise, Dyer scrutinizes the perception of peasants viewed as a mass — a largely negative one — and instead breaks West Midland peasants into small groups and individuals. His findings lead him to argue that contrary to peasants being subject to the whims of lords and other superiors in society, they in fact had a large amount of agency and were “people with varied ambitions, concerns, knowledge, and the ability to make something of their lives,” (Dyer, 1). It is ultimately these advancements and and labors by peasants that enable England to undertake the role it assumes during the sixteenth century. This idea is not entirely new, as showcased in the 2021 article by Claridge and Gibbs “Waifs and Strays: Property Rights in Medieval England,” who make similar arguments in regards to the stray animal system in England; that it was run on the ground effectively by peasants. While not necessarily a novel idea, Peasants Making History is a deeply humanizing work that brings peasants to the forefront of their worlds. 

Dyer organized his book into nine main chapters, plus his introduction. Rather helpfully for readers, he begins each chapter with a brief abstract and summary of the chapter’s goals and questions, and each chapter’s conclusions are equally as concise and readable. Each chapter is organized more-or-less chronologically, with a divide in the chapters for studying the West Midland pre-Black Death and then post. Dyer notes that while the disease was undoubtedly a huge factor in West Midland society, many of the changes that he illuminates among peasants were in fact beginning well before the outbreak. He points to the commonly cited example of women seizing more responsibility for themselves after the Black Death, and notes that “records used for this book show women behaving decisively in the management of their inheritance in the early fourteenth century,” (Dyer, 7). Rather than being the sole driver for the death of serfdom, Dyer clarifies that it was but one factor. He states that “The rise and slow death of serfdom seems more straightforward, as it is essentially a story of peasants pressing for freedom,” (Dyer, 82). 

He employs a wide array of topics to cover in each of his chapters, all of which lend further credence to the notion of peasants being active agents in the West Midlands. His survey begins with the landscape and how peasants directly affected it before and during the period covered. Despite the landscape offering limited opportunities due to its varied makeup, Dyer argues it was still changed to fit the needs of its inhabitants. He states that the changing of landscape in the West Midlands was not purely peasant-driven or lord-driven, but a collaborative effort on both a conscious and an unconscious level. Surviving road networks from the Roman period were still used centuries later and seawalls were built by inhabitants along the Severn estuary (Dyer, 19). Peasant landholding continues to be a prevalent theme in his book as he discusses topics like tenure, agricultural and pastoral activities, and migration. A particular interest of his in this book is exploring how peasants exploited opportunities of their life chances, looking beyond the relationship between lords and peasants. Chapter 4, ‘Peasants Changing Society,’ talks about this in detail. He argues that even though social mobility was severely limited, and migration did not always work in a peasant’s favor, the choices they made had important consequences. New tenants in towns, marriages, and the spread of ideas from one settlement to another are all examples he names, (Dyer, 112). Dyer also provides an intervention in history’s understanding of the nature of a “pre-industrial” society. He argues that labelling the West Midlands (and possibly by extension, the rest of Medieval Europe), as pre-industrial, it ignores the labor of people done in manufacturing and non-agricultural activities, (Dyer, 271). These themes ultimately contribute to his concluding argument that the “brave new world” of sixteenth century England — oceanic voyages, the Protestant Reformation, new government reform, and much more — were made possible by the advances of peasants in the centuries prior (Dyer, 342-343).

The discussion of sources opens a question he asks in the introduction: “How can we write peasant­ centred history, emphasizing their contribution to change without any sources written by them?” (Dyer, 8). It is in finding this answer that Dyer’s methodology shines through brilliantly. Primary sources like court rolls, manorial surveys, clerk’s writing last wills, and also material culture discovered through fieldwork reveal the lives of peasants. He says that behind many of the sources, the voices of the peasants can be found. In Chapter 6, “Peasants and their crops,” Dyer draws on 383 documentary references and 250 finds from fieldwork (Dyer, 168). In another example during Chapter 8, “Peasants and towns,” he is able to draw a conclusion about coins that were owned specifically by peasants based on where they are dug up and cut. As coins were not plentiful, they would have been highly valued by peasant families and not typically lost in houses or villages, but instead in fields, where peasants may have misplaced them (Dyer, 261).

Peasants Making History delivers on what is promised as an examination of the West Midlands peasantry from 1200-1540. The one question I was left with at the end of the book was how may this be applied to other regions? By his own admission, the west midland region is atypical from its neighbors in that it does not have a powerful lord dominating it, nor was it heavily urbanized or as densely populated (Dyer, 7). With that in mind, was the experience of peasants in other regions of England vastly different to conflict with his argument that peasants enjoyed much more agency than is believed? These questions aside, the book is easily digestible, even for inexperienced readers of the field, and made even more so by helpful charts and maps of the region.