Albert Frederick Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation,"...

1.     Parentage, Birth and Early Years, 1-23. Thomas Cranmer was born in Aslacton[1] on 2 Jul 1489. In Pollard’s times, there are 500 inhabitants for the 1300 acres. Quoting Strype, this was "the first Protestant archbishop of this kingdom, and the greatest instrument, under God, of the happy Reformation of this Church of England: in whose piety, learning, wisdom, conduct, and blood the foundation of it was laid.” [2] The lineage is traced back to old Nottinghamshire families. Thomas (Sr.) and Agne (nee Hatfield) Cranmer had three sons and at least four girls: John (b.1487), Thomas, Edmund,[3] Dorothy, Agnes, Margaret, and Emmet. John inherited the estate upon the father’s passing on 27 May 1501 while Thomas and Edmund were “quartered on the Church” (8). In youth, the father sent Thomas Jr. “to school with a marvelous severe and cruel schoolmaster."[4] Pollard postulates four possibilities of boyhood local schools: Grantham, Nottingham, Newark, and Southwell (9). The father died when Thomas was twelve and was buried in St. John of Beverly at Whatton, the parish church.

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[1] Pollard notes that “Aslacton” was the reading in Cranmer’s times, but that it is also spelled Aslockton and Aslocton.

[2] Strype, John. Cranmer, 1.

[3] Edmund. born c. 1491) followed Thomas to Cambridge and was made an Archdeacon of Canterbury. He fled the Marian persecution and died on the Continent in 1571.

[4] Morice, Ralph. Anecdotes (Narratives of the Reformation), pp. 238-9.