In Thomas Cromwell's garden, July 1538

When you hear of our lady of Walsingham, our lady of Ipswich, our lady of Wilsdon, and such other; what is it but an imitation of the Gentiles idolaters? - from the Third Part of the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry.

The tweet from the Church Union regarding the burning of the image of Our Lady of Walsingham brought to mind this reference from the Book of Homilies.  Taken alongside Thomas Cromwell destroying the image, it all suggests a violent state-sponsored Protestant iconoclasm, overturning the traditional populist piety of Merrie England, and leaving emptiness in its wake ('the stripping of the altars').

But is this the case?  To begin with, we need to recall that the medieval popularity of the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham was due in many ways to royal patronage and favour.  This patronage also brought considerable wealth and property to the shrine.  In other words, the messy realities of power, politics, and money were not only the concern of Thomas Cromwell: they also defined the pre-Reformation experience of the shrine.

And if - as some Roman Catholic commentators routinely claim - the Reformation was a precursor of secularism, with iconoclasm regarded as a particularly potent illustration of this, the reality is that the re-establishment of the Anglican (1938) and the Roman Catholic (1897) shrine was itself a fruit of a secular order.  It would have been inconceivable for either Church or State to tolerate such an event in previous centuries.  The shrine itself, then, is a sign of modernity and secularism.

Nor is the shrine a straightforward embodiment of an older catholic Latin Christianity against a narrow English Protestantism.  As the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry in the Book of Homilies emphasises, the Reformation critique of images stands in continuity with the earlier Latin rejection of Nicaea II by the Council of Frankfurt: "against images, and against the second council of Nice assembled by Irene for images". Ratzinger in The Spirit of the Liturgy (2000) summarised this earlier Latin tradition:

if we think of St. Augustine or St. Gregory the Great, the West emphasized, almost exclusively, the pedagogical function of the image.  The so-called Libri Carolini, as well as the synods of Frankfurt (794) and Paris (824), came out against the poorly understood Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II ... By contrast, the western synods insist on the purely educative role of the images: "Christ", they said, "did not save us by paintings".

In Dominion, Tom Holland also reminds us that challenging and overturning the traditional role of images "was not nearly as radical a break with the past as either their supporters or their enemies liked to insist" (p.319).  The overturning of images "was itself a Christian tradition".  Nor was it an act of 'disenchantment'.  Such iconoclasm "did not imply any doubt that the divine was manifest in every aspect of the universe".  The Book of Homilies again points to this.  The Sermon against Peril of Idolatry significantly opens with an account of the ordinary parish church:

the Church or house of GOD, is a place appointed by the holy Scriptures, where the lively word of GOD ought to be read, taught, and heard, the Lord's holy name called vpon by public prayer, hearty thanks given to his Majesty for his infinite and unspeakable benefits bestowed upon us, his holy Sacraments duly and reverently ministered, and that therefore all that be godly indeed, ought both with diligence at times appointed, to repaire together to the said Church, and there with all reverence to use and behave themselves before the Lord.

The tearing down of shrines and images (and the suppression of monasteries) restored a focus on the parish church as the place where the Christian community was formed by prayer, scripture, and sacrament.  The removal of images from the parish church also ensured that focus was on the table and font, prayer desk and pulpit, as the Homily for repairing and keeping clean the Church stated:

God's house the Church is well adorned, with places convenient to sit in, with the Pulpit for the preacher, with the Lord's table, for the ministration of his holy supper, with the Font to Christen in ... The fountain of our regeneration is there presented unto us, the partaking of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ is there offered unto us: And shall we not esteem the place where so heavenly things are handled?

The removal of images at least contributed to this renewed focus on the ordinary parish church, and the ordinary materials and rites of the parish church.

Likewise, the Sermon against Peril of Idolatry also pointed to the poor as "the lively images of God", exhorting that these, rather than idols, be clothed and adorned:

thou hast another way appointed thee, to clothe Christ in the poor, to visit him in the sick, feed him in the hungry, lodge him in those who doe lack harbour, and especially such as be of the houshold of faith.

The Reformation removal of images, then, was not about disenchantment but, rather, a recognition of the enchanted nature of the ordinary.

Cromwell's destruction of the shrine at Walsingham was not, then, a simple narrative of power and greed overcoming popular piety: Walsingham was also (and entirely unsurprisingly) caught up in power and greed.  Nor was the destruction of the shrine a sign of impending secularism because of Protestantism.  The very existence of the shrines at Walsingham today is possible because of a secular order.  Finally, it was not a matter of a rich, traditional Latin theology being confronted by a theologically impoverished Protestantism: the Reformation case against images invoked a rich account of the ordinary, of the plain wood and plain glass of the parish church, of the poor neighbour, echoing the older Latin suspicion of images.

All of this suggests that, amidst the confrontations and violence and power-struggles of 16th century England, Anglicans need not be embarrassed by or ashamed of the iconoclasm which accompanied the English Reformation.  Confrontations, violence, power-struggles, and mixed motives have routinely accompanied theological dispute and controversy throughout Christian history.  The destruction of the shrine and image of Our Lady of Walsingham emerged was not an act of mindless violence (however distasteful the idea of such destruction is to us).  It gave expression to a Reformed theological agenda which profoundly shaped the Anglican experience over centuries and continues to do so, with Our Lady of Walsingham being a devotion known to a small minority of contemporary Anglicans.  

Thomas Cromwell's action on 18th July 1538 should not, of course, be celebrated: to do so would be uncharitable, a cause of offence to brother and sisters in Christ.  But nor should Cromwell's actions be repudiated as shameful.  As with the suppression of the monasteries, the destruction of images and shrines enabled a vibrant piety of parish and home, vernacular, and commonweal to flourish.  To repudiate Cromwell's action on that July day in 1538 is to repudiate defining features of the Anglican experience.

(The picture is of The Middle Church, Ballinderry, constructed by Jeremy Taylor.)