Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ph.D.: "Thomas Cranmer:" Ch. 4--Anne Boleyn, 122ff.

1534. Cranmer attempts a visitation of dioceses in 1534 but with limited access and success. Stokesley, Nix, Longland and a few others complain about the “title” of legate of the apostolic see, to wit, wanting (conveniently) to avoid the praemunire matter that Wolsey tripped over. Where Dr. Cranmer did preach, it was “moralizing” and “scolding” (our words). Words to the clergy: avoid “…clerical wonder-working, avarice, belly-cheer, drunkenness…avoid clean, all pomp, all pride, all vainglory and specially all manner of covetousness…all ambition, al delicious fare…depart and dispose among the people of this realm lands, goods, money and whatsoever other thing they now possess superfluously” (128).