Let’s explore the revival of Anglo-Saxon History in Tudor England with the remarkable efforts of Tudor scholars. In this video, we delve into the societal and religious transformations under the Tudor monarchs that led to the revival of Old English texts.
Discover how figures like Matthew Parker and Laurence Nowell played pivotal roles in unearthing a forgotten past that shaped the Church of England and reinforced a unique English national identity. Uncover how these early efforts laid the groundwork for preserving England’s medieval heritage and continue to influence English historical scholarship today.
So the Tudor period was of course transformative for England and that’s why it remains so popular. That’s why we keep talking about it. There were the shifts in governance in the rise of the middle class, the printing press, the reformation, so many things.
One of those things was the rediscovery of Anglo-Saxon England, a revival that played a crucial role in shaping the English national identity and the religious landscape of the time. Central to this cultural Renaissance were figures like Matthew Parker, who was Elizabeth’s Archbishop of Canterbury, and Laurence Nowell, whose scholarly efforts resurrected a nearly forgotten language and its literary treasures.
So this all started under Henry VIII, when he was dissolving the monasteries. This was a seismic policy carried out between 1536 and 1541 which dismantled monastic institutions that had been integral to English religious life for centuries.
As these religious houses were dissolved, their vast libraries, repositories of medieval manuscripts were scattered. Many manuscripts were sadly lost or destroyed, but some found their way into private hands, private collectors. And emerging scholars setting the stage for a Renaissance in Old English studies.
There were three people who were really at the heart of this scholarly revival. We have Matthew Parker, John Joscelyn and Laurence Nowell. Parker was the Archbishop of Canterbury under Queen Elizabeth, and was instrumental in recovering and studying many of these ancient manuscripts.
He had a keen interest in proving the antiquity of the church of England. Parker sought manuscripts that could trace the church’s doctrines back to the Anglo-Saxon period. Assisting him where scholars like John Joscelyn, who became an expert in Old English, and Laurence Nowell, a polymath who dedicated his life to the study and mapping of Old English culture and law.
Their collaborative efforts laid the foundational stones of what would later become Anglo-Saxon studies. So the revival of Old English under Elizabeth was not merely an academic exercise, but a crucial component of the Tudor quest for a national and religious identity.
As the Tudor scholars like Parker and Nowell began studying the manuscripts, they initiated the process of publishing these texts, making the works of Anglo-Saxon England accessible for the first time in centuries. There was a significant work called a Testimony of Antiquity published, showcasing the Old English texts alongside contemporary English translations.
However, this task was daunting. There was a lack of comprehensive dictionaries and grammar, which made the translation and interpretation of Old English a huge challenge. These initial publications were often filled with errors and misinterpretations, underscoring the need for systemic study tools, which would slowly develop in the 17th century as the field matured.
The rediscovery of Old English texts during the Tudor period played a pivotal role in the religious and political discourses of the time. These ancient texts were unearthed and interpreted. They provided crucial evidence that influenced the ongoing religious debates and development of English constitutional law.
Because if you think about it, people were trying to look for evidence of what the heart of the English church was and what the earliest English church, the earliest English law, and try to develop things that would use that as precedence.
So the publication of these Old English laws and religious texts allowed Tudor scholars to argue for a version of English governance and religious practice that was independent of Roman Catholic traditions. Thereby of course, supporting the church of England under Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
This scholarship fostered a burgeoning sense of national identity, reinforcing the notion that England had a very unique, spiritual and legal heritage that stretched back to the Anglo-Saxon period.
Now, like I said, one of the most influential publications of this period was called a Testimony of Antiquity and this book showed Old English texts alongside modern English translations. This work and others like it were crucial in supporting Tudor religious reforms.
By showcasing an ancient English church that predated and operated independently of Roman authority, by demonstrating that certain religious practices and beliefs had historical roots in England, these publications gave a scholarly justification for the Anglican split from Rome.
So this research by Matthew Parker and his colleagues served not only as academic endeavors but also as tools of religious and political policy, aiming to legitimize the reformation’s radical changes through historical precedent.
But like I said, this was difficult. There wasn’t an easy dictionary, there wasn’t a grammatical guide. So these Tudor scholars often had to rely on their knowledge of Latin and other ancient languages to make sense of the texts, leading to frequent misinterpretations and errors.
So one thing to keep in mind is the study called orthography, which is the systems and conventions of a written language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, punctuation, all of that. It’s a methodology and practice of writing words correctly within a specific language system.
And of course, Old English had a different orthography than Elizabethan English, just like Elizabethan English has a different orthography than modern English. Which is why, when we read Shakespeare, it’s kind of tricky and we need just sort of like work it out.
So Old English was kind of like that for the Tudors, only even more. So it was further removed. Of course the Tudors are just like 500 years from us. They’re looking at texts that are from 700 – 800 years different. Plus they’ve got more Danish, in different languages, possibly even some Celtic would have been in there as well. So that would have posed a challenge for them.
There was also a misrepresentation of phrases that no longer meant the same thing that they did then, which could dramatically alter the meaning of a text. And like I said, of course, by the 17th, 18th, 19th centuries, this started to grow as an academic field. And being methodically studied, but when it was very new under Parker and the Elizabethans, they didn’t have of course the benefit of years of scholarship behind them. So they were just sort of figuring this out as they went along.
The one really important thing though, is to understand that by reconnecting with their Anglo-Saxon heritage, Tudor England not only fortified its national identity but also established a scholarly tradition that continues to inform and inspire historical inquiry today.
They’re pioneering work, laid the groundwork for future studies and helped preserve England’s medieval past, enriching our own understanding of the cultural and historical context of the Tudor period.
So these early endeavors, imperfect and challenging though they were, set the stage for preservation and celebration, have a rich, linguistic and cultural heritage that might otherwise have been lost to time.
It’s really fascinating to think they were forging this national identity as they rediscovered these old texts and it all came from the disillusion of the monasteries. There are a lot of people who say things about like, it was the sack of Constantinople that really helped drive the Renaissance into Europe because of the discovery of all of these texts that were in Arabic and they got moved and translated all of that.
So this was like a smaller version of that really, with the disillusion that all of these texts from these libraries then got moved to different places and collectors, and really started to have people discover this history that they might not have known about. And also just to use it as the justification then for the reformation, so genius.
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Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, one of the longest running indie history podcasts, going since 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. She writes books, created the original Tudor Planner (a yearly diary filled with Tudor history) and in 2019 created the world's first Tudorcon (you can "attend" online this year!). She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 20 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history.