Dr. Diarmaid MacCulloch's "Thomas Cranmer: Simple Esquire,: 1ff.

Cranmer. Privately, he was enormously self-controlled and was almost a pacific and quiet spectator to actions in Parliament and Court. Cranmer’s books are notoriously marked up and he had an elaborate, classification-system for his notes. Dr. MacCulloch prefers the term “Evangelicalism” to “Protestantism” or “Lutheranism” for the 1530s/1540s. Also, he prefers the terms “traditionalist” or “conservatives” for Thomas More, Bishop Fisher and the vast majority of the English population. He also believes that the historians of the hero-narrative, overall, distort fewer pieces of the evidence. Part 1: Academic Prelude 1. Simple Esquire: 1489-1503. Apparently, Alsockton, the small hamlet where Cranmer was born in 1489, has a secular and sacred sense of their famous son: two pubs in town are christened with “The Cranmer Arms.” On the sacred side, the Victorians—3 centuries later--built a parish church there with stained-windows commemorating two historic Thomases: A’ Becket and Cranmer. But, in Dr. Cranmer’s time, Alsockton had a tiny chapel entitled Holy Trinity Chapel. Apparently, that has been incorporated in some later building. As for family worship, Whatton had a parish church and was a mere 0.25 miles from Alsockton. A handy inference is made here that this is where the Cranmers worshipped—at least 3 boys and several girls with parents. (?? More details are needed here on the family.) Thomas’s father, Thomas Cranmer (Sr.), is buried at (in?) Whatton parish within that brief walking distance. Dr. MacCulloch has a wonderful drawing of the tombstone slab of Cranmer, Senior, having died 27 May 1501. The father’s tombstone slab has the Cranmerian heraldic sign of two cranes, perhaps, a play on the name Cranemer or Cranmer. As an aside, later, Dr. Cranmer would alter the heraldic sign to have two Pelicans, animals that will, if necessary, feed their own young their own blood to protect them. The symbology that Dr. MacCulloch notes is a self-conscious switch by the Archbishop to indicate Christ shedding His blood to protect His youngins.’ Inferably, Mrs. Cranmer, or Dr. Cranmer’s mother, is buried beside her husband in the Whatton parish. Dr. MacCulloch does not comment on Mrs. Cranmer’s burial place. Cranmer Senior died in 1501--Thomas Cranmer was fourteen years old. Mrs. Cranmer survived her husband. John Cranmer, the eldest son, was the heir. John’s two younger brothers, Thomas and Edmund, were bequeathed an annual income of 20 shillings. The will included a new bell for the Whatton parish. Notably, the will did not include monies for funerary masses. We raise the question/issue of the Sarum Missal in use at Whatton? Although not handled here, Dr. MacCulloch will later comment that the Cranmers owned land, farmed it, and made money from it in later years. There were six land-holding and farming families in/around Aslockton/Whatton, the Cranmers being one of the six families. The father’s will was probated in York, as memory serves. Mrs. Cranmer had enough money to send her second son to Jesus College, Cambridge in 1503. Edmund, 1534, would become the Archdeacon of Canterbury after his older brother became the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. If history may include moments of inspiration, we see a family dealing with hardships in the context of devout piety. 2. Cambridge years: 1503-1529--to be continued.