Diaramid MacCulloch, Ph.D.: "Thomas Cranmer," Ch. 3--Campaign to end a m...

” Virginia Murphy has shown that the Collectanea was a summary of 2-years of research by Henry’s lawyers for use in the 1529 summer Blackfriars trial. Hence, Cranmer was not breaking new ground, but was updating and modifying the work, arguing that loving English bishops should “rebuke, reprove, beseech and exhort” the Pope. Two more works appeared in 1531 which Cranmer may have had a significant hand: The Glass of Truth and The Determinations. Hence, when Cranmer goes on his 3^rd ambassadorial tour to the Court of Charles V in 1532, he already is armed for aerial combat missions. Both have a popular angle: help the English resist Papal excommunications or inhibition. Also, a Lollard piece, Disputatio inter clericum et militem, a 13^th century piece but circulated by Lollards in the 14^th-15^th centuries, gets published, compliments of Thomas Crumwell. Prof. MacCulloch avers that Cranmer worked over and translated The Determinations. Curiously, Simon Grynaeus tours England in an extended way as a scholar and courtier, meeting Cranmer, Latimer, Tunstall, the inner circle of More, and maybe even a meeting with Henry. This enthusiastic reformer of Basel sees possibilities of attaching the reform movement to Henry’s push-off of Rome. Word gets back to Bucer of Strasbourg. All of this in 1531 before Dr. Cranmer is off to Ratisbon.