LUTHERAN THEOLOGICAL REVIEW - Brock University

MAAS: BARNES AND EARLY ENGLISH LUTHERANISM 77
Whatever finally pushed Barnes over the thin line separating orthodox
humanists from heretical Protestants, what finally brought him to the
attention of conservative authorities was a sermon of Christmas Eve 1525.
Barnes was not a cloistered monk, but a friar, which means he was free (and
even expected) to preach in pulpits outside of his Augustinian house. But as
prior of the house, and as one with teaching responsibilities, it seems that
this was something he rarely did before 1525. But on Christmas Eve of that
year, Robert Barnes and Hugh Latimer exchanged pulpits. Latimer was to
preach in the friary, while Barnes would preach in the nearby church of St
Edward’s. Shortly after he descended the pulpit, Barnes was censured; in the
next few days he was examined by university authorities on three separate
occasions (two of which were broken up by an angry mob of students, who
believed Barnes was being mistreated); five weeks later he was officially
tried in London by a panel of bishops; and in the next week he began the
first of several imprisonments. Something in his sermon had clearly hit a
nerve.
There are a number of sources, which, when read together, give us a
fairly accurate picture of the content of Barnes’s sermon. 9 The picture that
emerges is undoubtedly one of a fiery preacher, both critical and humorous,
quick with a pun or an intentional verbal slip. Taking deadly aim at the
highest ecclesiastical official in England, Cardinal Wolsey, Barnes’s
reference to certain “carnal sins” consciously slipped out as “cardinal sins”.
Likewise, his mention of the Cardinal’s red gloves was made with an
unmistakable allusion to their being the colour of blood. Asides like this,
though depicting Barnes’s sense of humour, also illustrate that he was not
altogether prudent considering the times. He went on in his sermon to
question the importance of holy days and to inveigh against ecclesiastical
wealth, clerical pride, and rampant pluralism; he criticized the church’s
trafficking in indulgences and dispensations; he questioned the benefit of
mumbled masses which no one could understand; and he neglected prayers
to the virgin Mary and for souls in purgatory.
None of this, it should be noted, was as radical as it might sound,
however much it appears typically Protestant in hindsight. Much of it was
common fare, even in the late fifteenth-century preaching of orthodox sons
of the Roman church. What set Barnes apart from the orthodox preachers of
the late fifteenth century was the simple but deciding factor of Luther. By
this it should not be understood that Barnes was simply regurgitating Luther;
only that to suspicious hearers it sounded like he was. And this is not
9 The fullest accounts, on which this paragraph is based, are found in Barnes’s own writings,
A Supplicatyon made by Robert Barnes doctoure in divinitie unto the most excellent and
redoubted prince kinge henry the eyght (n.p., n.d. [Antwerp, 1531]), and its later revision, A
supplicacion unto the most gracyous prynce H. the viij. (London, 1534).