Leslie Williams: "Emblem of Faith Untouched: Short Life of Thomas Cranme...

3. Cambridge, 7-12. Williams walks through the educational shifts at Cambridge from the old scholasticism as per 1488 curricular changes towards the newer humanism. Williams claims Cranmer inherited a “maelstrom of thought” in 1503. It takes Cranmer eight years to get his BA, 1503-1511 with the MA in 1515. Williams places the Joan Black story into 1515-1519 with stock narrative. Foxe claims it took Cranmer 8 years for the BA due to “peevish masters” (8). He meets Latimer and Gardiner at Cambridge, two figures of significance in Cranmer’s later life. Erasmus was at Cambridge in 1515 and published his Greek NT in 1516. Erasmus’s preface sounds almost positively Lollardian and Wycliffian: “The mysteries of king it may be safer to conceal, but Christ wished his mysteries to be published as openly as possible. I wish that even the weakest woman should read the Gospel and the epistles of Paul….I long that the husbandman should sing portions of them to himself as he follows the plough, that the weaver should hum them to the tune of his shuttle, that the traveler should beguile with their stories the tedium of his journey” (9). “Swarms of footnotes” would fuel both sides of later controversies (9). One may predict the Tyndales of the world will run with that. Erasmus is 23 years older than Cranmer, but it is difficult to think that Cranmer escaped this influence. Joan dies. Cranmer is ordained in 1520 and back into Jesus College with his theological studies. Williams claims Cranmer got his doctorate in 1526 (but the jury is out there)—she gives no footnotes. She raises one good point—if Cranmer was slow and laborious in his academics, he must be evaluated by his writings and the BCP. Soon enough, Cranmer’s days—as he once knew them—would be over. Henry needed him.