Throwback review - Retired priest was worse than we thought at the time

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Welcome to the Second Thought for the Day podcast.
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We fill that rather niche spot for anyone who
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has ever been even mildly irritated by Thought
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for the Day on Radio 4 and wondered why no one
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was doing anything about it or even holding them
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to account. This is a throwback episode. We revisit
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an earlier review. We knew when we started that
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we'd likely make the odd mistake and in the spirit
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of keeping an open mind we went back through
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the feedback we had to see what leads there were.
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for further consideration. We found one. The
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first one. The first thought for the day that
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we reviewed was presented by Angela Tilby. Tilby
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is a retired Anglican priest in Oxford. There
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was much wrong with her contribution that day,
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the 10th of April. There was though a niggling
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doubt at second thought, shared by one or two
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of those who'd been kind enough to provide feedback,
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that we'd perhaps been a touch harsh in our...
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criticism of Angela's account of how theology
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of marriage was brought out of the dark ages
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by an English archbishop. Now let's be clear,
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it wasn't. This archbishop made several important
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changes, but the vows and the theology behind
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them were for the most part unchanged. At least
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they were in all the ways that are relevant to
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what Tilby said. The doubt we had centred on
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whether or not we'd taken too general an approach
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to dismissing Angela Tilby's claim that Cramner
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had revolutionised the theory of marriage, when
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perhaps Tilby was just making a point more focused
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on the words of the ceremony. Here's what we
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said at the time. We were led to believe that
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medieval clerics in England saw marriage as somewhat
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removed from the church and little more than
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a contractual means of reigning in fornication
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and enforcing social order. We're then invited
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to contrast this dark spell of matrimonial theology
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with the enlightenment that accompanied the first
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English prayer book of 1549. The prevailing requisites
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of fornication, abatement and societal control
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were there but now accompanied for the first
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time by a suggestion that those getting married
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should love and cherish each other. Quite frankly,
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rubbish. I'm not an expert, but there's a lot
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of straightforward and verifiable information
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out there for anyone with 20 minutes to spare
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and a passing familiarity with the internet.
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For the vast majority of Christian history before
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1549 in England, direction for the church was
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provided exclusively by Rome, and marriage had
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long been considered by the Roman church to be
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an act of divine significance, at least since
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a thing called the Fourth Lateran Council of
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1215. Since then, marriage was understood to
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be a reflection of the union between the church
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and Christ, of some importance, love and cherishment,
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had been somewhat obviously front and centre
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in marriage since long, long before the scribblings
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of an English archbishop in 1549 were turned
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into a prayer book. So we set about fact -checking
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her and us and what we discovered was astonishing.
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Tilby had been much worse than we'd appreciated
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at the time. It was clear that our criticism
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of her claims about Cranmer were not only justified,
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but spectacularly incomplete. That said, our
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comments on Tilby's claim about the use of love
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and cherish was slightly off. We'd conflated
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the content of the vows with the content of Cranmer's
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little sermon on why marriage was ordained by
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God. In our defence, Tilby started that, but
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we remain thankful this error made no material
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difference. Everything else we criticised was
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bang on. On to those that we missed. These were
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all in a relatively short section on how Tilby
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described the changes to the marriage ceremony
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in England in the 1500s. In the theology of the
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Middle Ages, marriage was a kind of contract,
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a way of ordering society and holding lust in
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check. It was. It still is. As far as the Church
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is concerned, nothing here has changed. Tilby's
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implication that it has is false. Marriages took
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place in the church porch, as if they were half
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-worldly and pragmatic, half -holy. Vows were
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indeed exchanged in the porch, but to suggest
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this diluted their holiness is groundless speculation.
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Indeed, Tilby, on this point, could hardly be
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more wrong. In the First English Prayer Book
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of 1549, a more positive view was stated. No,
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it was not. Tilby here makes a veiled false claim
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that there was something negative about the porch
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vow pre -Cranmer marriage service. The ceremony
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was brought into the body of the church. It was,
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but not because Cranmer thought this would make
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weddings more holy. And was now accompanied by
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a compulsory little sermon on why God had ordained
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marriage. Cramner's prayer book made a significant
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addition to one of the wedding vows on the God
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-ordained estate of holy matrimony, so some sort
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of exposition in the service itself was likely
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felt necessary. Three reasons were given. First,
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to provide for the procreation of children and
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to ensure they were brought up in the fear of
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the Lord. Second, for the avoidance of the sin
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of fornication, sex outside marriage. So far,
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so good. But then Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop
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of Canterbury who drafted the new service, added
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something quite new. Marriage was instituted
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for the mutual society, help and comfort that
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the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity
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and adversity. Except this was not new. It had
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been in the vows themselves for centuries. The
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new bit from Cranmer came next. But inexplicably,
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Tilby... left it out. She went straight on to
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be wrong about something else. Cranmer also added
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the words to love and to cherish to the marriage
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vows. Technically, it could be argued, this is
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correct but to do so would obscure the truth
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of the changes Cranmer made. Love and cherish
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were very much part of the wedding rite long
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before 1549. The historian Dermot McCulloch suggests
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that we owe these additions to Cranmer's own
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happy experience of marriage. No. While the experience
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of Cranmer's two marriages almost certainly informed
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his approach to the revision of this service,
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the statement from Tilby is misleading. Apparently,
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deliberately so. It is true to say that it's
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possible to infer a suggestion from McCulloch
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on what Cranmer drew from his own experience
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of marriage. It is not true to say that McCulloch
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made this suggestion. We never imagined that
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we'd have to read a biography of a dead bishop
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to fact -check a retired priest. Life is full
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of surprises. It is, though, an excellent book.
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The Canon Tilby can barely type without unjustifiable
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speculation and blatant falsehoods filling the
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pages. In fewer than 200 words, Tilby manages
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to stuff a calvacade of errors that we didn't
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spot the first time around. Let's take each in
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turn. Tilby's presentation of a 1549 Enlightenment
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in matrimonial theology is a simple strawman
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fallacy. The contrast that she describes between
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the Middle Ages and what came later does not
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exist, at least not as Tilby presents it. Attacking
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one side or other of an invented comparison,
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is cowardly and dishonest. We should, though,
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pause for a second on straw man. From experience,
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it's one of the least well understood of the
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common logical fallacies. Oddly, humans, at least
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several large subsets of humans, appear to have
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a natural ability to use a straw man fallacy
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to their advantage, despite no knowledge of what
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it is. Rather than tackle the subject of a discussion,
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someone using a straw man will project an invented
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alternative discussion on the other person as
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though they'd said it and then attack the projection
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instead. They stand up and then they knock down
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the straw man, leaving the relevant subject well
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alone. For example, someone says, blue is cool.
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And the person they're talking to says, why do
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you hate red? The subject here established by
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the first person is blue and its alleged coolness.
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But instead of engaging with that subject, the
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respondent creates a fake subject, the straw
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man, which is the hatred of red, which is then
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used to make an irrelevant and groundless allegation
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about the first person. Now clearly, no one's
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actually arguing about red and blue. More common
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straw man arguments are similar to these examples.
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Politician 1. We have a problem that can only
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be solved by giving our schools more resources
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for art and for music. Politician 2. This is
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outrageous. My opponent wants to undermine our
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schools by defunding maths and science. Politician
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A. We must cut carbon emissions to prevent a
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climate catastrophe. Politician B. There is no
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way our economy can support the immediate banning
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of petrol and diesel cars. Using a straw man
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argument is an inherently dishonest act. There
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is an implicit acknowledgement. in every example
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that the user does not have the arguments or
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perhaps the skill to tackle the actual subject
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so rather than capitulate or acknowledge the
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merits of the other side they frustrate understanding
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they derail the debate and they start a battle
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against reason another form uses the straw man
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to advance a fallacious position for example
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We've known for decades that camembert causes
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heart disease. It's important to note that Edam
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was not involved in any of those studies of camembert
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and it has not been implicated as a hair loss
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cheese. Perhaps now we can live as hairy Edam
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cheese eaters in the comfort of this knowledge.
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Presumably, a representative of the Dutch dairy
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industry thinks that she can sway the camembert
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eaters to try Edam, so she opens with a plausible
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but false assertion, and then she leans on the
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consequences of this falsehood while adding others
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to promote a different cheese. This, if you'll
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forgive the cheese, is precisely what Tilby does.
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Her straw man is the dark theology of the Middle
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Ages, which she contrasts with a positive change
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brought about by a prayer book. In fairness,
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this change did somewhat neatly coincide with
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the end of the Middle Ages, as it's usually understood,
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but this is a correlation, not a causation, and
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more pertinently, the contrast Tilby is claiming
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simply doesn't exist. It is an invention to promote
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Archbishop Cramner, his prayer book, and an awful
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lot of other Anglican stuff. Tilby casts the
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Middle Ages as the before and as inferior. Specifically,
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it's the theology of the Middle Ages on which
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Tilby throws shade. The contrast, if there is
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one, is not between the theology of the Middle
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Ages and what came from Cramner. The contrast
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is between the established doctrine of the Church
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of Rome and the Reformation ideas that were bubbling
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across Northern Europe. Tilby is simply slinging
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mud at Catholicism, notably without any justification.
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Now, in England, these Reformation ideas were
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given a significant... constitutional lift when
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the Pope told Henry VIII that his marriage to
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Catherine of Aragon would not be annulled. Now
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Henry was in need of an heir and for that he
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was in need of a wife, a new wife and hence a
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new church, one that would not be subject to
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the whims of the Pope. Cranmer, the reformer,
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was hired as Archbishop and this new Archbishop
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clearly saw his chance and took it. Back to Angela.
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She suggested that pre -Reformation marriage
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was inferior, merely a contract to order society
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and to keep lust in check. Apparently, marriages
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were also then insufficiently godly. Now this
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godliness deficit is something that Angela quite
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incorrectly inferred from pre -Reformation vows
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being exchanged at the church door before the
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ceremony moved inside. This happened for two
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reasons. One practical. and one symbolic. The
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practical reason was so that the exchanging of
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the vows was public. Those outside and inside
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the church would hear the vows and all would
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have an opportunity before the making of those
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vows to raise an impediment, and thus making
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themselves enormously popular with the bride
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and the groom and whomever was paying for the
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reception. It had nothing to do with Angela Tilby's
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muddled musings on the half -holiness of medieval
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marriages and inappropriate use of the word pragmatic.
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to the symbolic now somewhat obviously the church
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doors symbolize the threshold between the secular
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and the sacred once the vows were made the couple
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would cross the threshold into the sacred space
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of the church from the secular exterior while
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also entering the holy sacrament of marriage
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thresholds appear elsewhere in marriage traditions
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these though hinge on folklore that thresholds
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were inhabited by evil spirits Weirder still,
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that the soles of the feet of women were somehow
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vulnerable to these spirits. Hence the groom
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would carry the bride over the threshold of the
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matrimonial home to prevent the bride from becoming
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possessed through her feet. Men's feet presumably
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featured some natural spirit repellent, and as
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far -fetched as it all sounds, I'm sure there
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are many brides who will testify to the repellent
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nature of their husband's feet. In the first
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English prayer book of 1549, a more positive
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view was stated. Ceremony was brought into the
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body of the church and was now accompanied by
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a compulsory little sermon on why God had ordained
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marriage. Angela's claim that this new prayer
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book gave a more positive view is hogwash. And
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as we've seen, her attempt to justify this claim
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by the change in location for the vows only compounds
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that falsehood. Several of Angela's errors appear
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rooted in an approach to research that never
00:14:40.240 --> 00:14:43.620
ventured beyond Wikipedia. So first, some background.
00:14:44.500 --> 00:14:48.019
The revision to marriage on which Tilby was commenting
00:14:48.019 --> 00:14:51.299
was called the solemnization of matrimony, part
00:14:51.299 --> 00:14:54.539
of this 1549 prayer book. The service described
00:14:54.539 --> 00:14:57.019
in the new prayer book, though, was in substantial
00:14:57.019 --> 00:14:59.960
part simply a translation of its predecessor
00:14:59.960 --> 00:15:03.840
from Latin to English. Now that predecessor was
00:15:03.840 --> 00:15:06.110
the order for the consecration of marriage in
00:15:06.110 --> 00:15:08.370
a thing called the Sarum Rite, which was the
00:15:08.370 --> 00:15:11.129
prevailing church manual of the time. Sarum denoted
00:15:11.129 --> 00:15:13.450
Salisbury, which was the diocese in which the
00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:16.649
most widely adopted manual was developed. The
00:15:16.649 --> 00:15:18.809
Sarum Rite was in Latin, but it instructed the
00:15:18.809 --> 00:15:21.570
priest to conduct the marriage in his mother
00:15:21.570 --> 00:15:24.330
tongue. The Sarum Rite was very similar to the
00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:27.049
rite on which it was based of the Church of Rome.
00:15:27.490 --> 00:15:31.450
Now Cranmer was an enthusiastic Protestant reformer.
00:15:31.850 --> 00:15:34.529
This enthusiasm infused an extensive operation
00:15:34.529 --> 00:15:37.169
to anglicise the Church in England under his
00:15:37.169 --> 00:15:40.230
direction as Archbishop. Reformers put emphasis
00:15:40.230 --> 00:15:43.990
on accessibility and understanding. English was
00:15:43.990 --> 00:15:46.909
favoured over Latin. Congregational participation
00:15:46.909 --> 00:15:49.490
was encouraged, with much less prominence for
00:15:49.490 --> 00:15:52.389
ritual, for the centrality of the priest and
00:15:52.389 --> 00:15:55.720
the altar. It was the end of the road in this
00:15:55.720 --> 00:15:58.279
English church for Roman concepts such as purgatory,
00:15:58.480 --> 00:16:01.440
penance and the veneration of the saints. Another
00:16:01.440 --> 00:16:04.179
major casualty was a concept represented by the
00:16:04.179 --> 00:16:07.600
truly wonderful word transubstantiation. This
00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:09.620
was the Roman church belief that the ceremonial
00:16:09.620 --> 00:16:12.259
bread and wine of communion was the actual flesh
00:16:12.259 --> 00:16:14.580
and blood of Jesus, meaning that Christ's body
00:16:14.580 --> 00:16:17.139
and blood were, for believers, physically present
00:16:17.139 --> 00:16:22.190
and eaten during the ceremony. Cramner and his
00:16:22.190 --> 00:16:25.049
Protestant reformer allies had a much less permissive
00:16:25.049 --> 00:16:28.730
approach to sacraments than the Romans. They
00:16:28.730 --> 00:16:31.309
held that only baptism and something called the
00:16:31.309 --> 00:16:34.769
Eucharist would remain as sacraments. Before
00:16:34.769 --> 00:16:38.230
having read about this, to understand just how
00:16:38.230 --> 00:16:40.509
willing Angela Tilby was to deceive the audience
00:16:40.509 --> 00:16:43.889
of Radio 4, I had little idea of what a sacrament
00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.429
was. I now have a little more and rather wish
00:16:46.429 --> 00:16:49.570
I didn't. There are much better things. with
00:16:49.570 --> 00:16:52.669
which to fill a mind. In any event, the Roman
00:16:52.669 --> 00:16:55.590
Church has seven sacraments. This revision down
00:16:55.590 --> 00:16:59.389
to two by Cramner was quite a hefty cut. His
00:16:59.389 --> 00:17:02.370
prayer book saw to it that marriage was demoted
00:17:02.370 --> 00:17:06.150
from this lofty holiness. Now, contrary to Tilby's
00:17:06.150 --> 00:17:08.890
intimation, the prayer book, it could be argued,
00:17:09.029 --> 00:17:12.730
objectively reduced the holiness of the marriage
00:17:12.730 --> 00:17:15.950
ceremony. Never mind her confusion over church
00:17:15.950 --> 00:17:19.740
porches. For this fall from sacramental grace,
00:17:19.799 --> 00:17:22.019
though, marriage was given something of a parachute.
00:17:22.680 --> 00:17:24.660
Cranmer may not have believed in marriage as
00:17:24.660 --> 00:17:27.720
a sacrament, but he did believe that it was ordained
00:17:27.720 --> 00:17:30.160
by God and that it constituted something called
00:17:30.160 --> 00:17:33.319
a holy estate. So having whipped off the stripes
00:17:33.319 --> 00:17:35.900
of sacrament, the Archbishop felt obliged to
00:17:35.900 --> 00:17:38.319
make up the difference, and he did this with
00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:41.670
a new vow. Technically it was an addition to
00:17:41.670 --> 00:17:44.910
one of the existing five vows. But this addition
00:17:44.910 --> 00:17:48.109
obliged the couple getting married to live together
00:17:48.109 --> 00:17:51.789
after God's ordinance in the holiest state of
00:17:51.789 --> 00:17:55.170
matrimony. So let's focus for a second on these
00:17:55.170 --> 00:17:58.269
vows. The original vows of Rome and Salisbury
00:17:58.269 --> 00:18:00.650
can be separated into five sections. You could
00:18:00.650 --> 00:18:04.269
broadly say there were five vows. Important to
00:18:04.269 --> 00:18:07.339
note there were other manuals. and many variations
00:18:07.339 --> 00:18:11.079
in the Latin word choice and translation. Broadly
00:18:11.079 --> 00:18:13.640
though, there was consensus, and the five sections
00:18:13.640 --> 00:18:16.480
of the Latin vowels were in order. At number
00:18:16.480 --> 00:18:20.220
one, consent. Number two, cherishment. Number
00:18:20.220 --> 00:18:23.900
three, constancy. Number four, commitment. And
00:18:23.900 --> 00:18:27.240
number five, ceaselessness. Now on our website,
00:18:27.500 --> 00:18:30.460
secondthoughtfortheday .com, the Latin is reproduced
00:18:30.460 --> 00:18:32.559
next to each of the vowels that we're just going
00:18:32.559 --> 00:18:35.789
to... run through. So first consent, do you wish
00:18:35.789 --> 00:18:38.329
to have this man stroke woman as your groom stroke
00:18:38.329 --> 00:18:41.390
bride? Next came cherishment. The cherishment
00:18:41.390 --> 00:18:45.150
vow features a notorious difference between that
00:18:45.150 --> 00:18:47.930
for the bride and that for the groom. Instead
00:18:47.930 --> 00:18:50.109
of vowing to love, honour, hold and protect,
00:18:50.529 --> 00:18:53.210
the bride was saddled with having to obey, serve,
00:18:53.410 --> 00:18:57.769
love, honour and protect. It's also worth noting
00:18:57.769 --> 00:19:02.009
the love in this cherishment section of the vows.
00:19:02.650 --> 00:19:06.630
The Latin word used here was diligere, which
00:19:06.630 --> 00:19:08.970
I've almost certainly not pronounced correctly.
00:19:10.009 --> 00:19:12.369
But it means much more than having affection,
00:19:12.589 --> 00:19:14.769
and it's not Christian love, it's not erotic
00:19:14.769 --> 00:19:18.509
love. Of particular relevance, it meant an expression
00:19:18.509 --> 00:19:21.569
of love demonstrated by having committed to a
00:19:21.569 --> 00:19:24.430
choice. The object of your affection is dignified
00:19:24.430 --> 00:19:28.990
by your choice to love it. The word is also often
00:19:28.990 --> 00:19:33.359
translated as esteem. and worship, alongside
00:19:33.359 --> 00:19:36.519
cherish and various others. We then have the
00:19:36.519 --> 00:19:40.559
constancy vow, familiar to everyone, in sickness
00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:43.799
and in health. The commitment section had two
00:19:43.799 --> 00:19:47.079
parts, and this is important because this is
00:19:47.079 --> 00:19:49.099
one of the sections that Tilby claims was brand
00:19:49.099 --> 00:19:52.279
new in that little sermon she mentioned. And
00:19:52.279 --> 00:19:54.660
it's the bit that demands that the bride and
00:19:54.660 --> 00:19:57.579
the groom each be to each other as they ought
00:19:57.579 --> 00:20:01.029
to be. And then the second was the familiar forsaking
00:20:01.029 --> 00:20:05.690
of all others. In fairness, Cranmer did expand
00:20:05.690 --> 00:20:08.109
a little with a couple of explanations of what
00:20:08.109 --> 00:20:11.430
being to the other what you ought to be involved,
00:20:11.910 --> 00:20:14.670
the way he put it was for mutual society help
00:20:14.670 --> 00:20:18.470
and comfort. I guess that might be necessary
00:20:18.470 --> 00:20:21.650
if the bride and groom weren't aware of how they
00:20:21.650 --> 00:20:24.250
ought to behave towards one another in a marriage.
00:20:25.109 --> 00:20:28.539
And then finally we have ceaselessness. and stay
00:20:28.539 --> 00:20:30.700
with him or her for as long as you both shall
00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:35.799
live. Now, the prayer book added to these vows.
00:20:35.980 --> 00:20:38.480
The new bit joined the consent vow right at the
00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:42.559
top, which became, using the 1549 wording, Wilt
00:20:42.559 --> 00:20:44.859
thou have this man to be thy wedded husband,
00:20:44.940 --> 00:20:47.140
to live together after God's ordinance in the
00:20:47.140 --> 00:20:51.859
holy estate of matrimony? Now, there was no explanation
00:20:51.859 --> 00:20:55.950
in the Sarum rite. of the wedding service, on
00:20:55.950 --> 00:20:57.849
why God ordained marriage, although you could
00:20:57.849 --> 00:20:59.890
reasonably infer from Tilby's account that there
00:20:59.890 --> 00:21:02.950
was, but it wasn't as though there was no understanding
00:21:02.950 --> 00:21:05.029
among priests and their congregations of the
00:21:05.029 --> 00:21:07.769
reasons that God did ordain marriage. It's simply
00:21:07.769 --> 00:21:09.869
that this understanding didn't get a mandatory
00:21:09.869 --> 00:21:13.809
plug in the order of service. But since Cramner
00:21:13.809 --> 00:21:17.549
has made this ordination an addition to an actual
00:21:17.549 --> 00:21:20.329
vow, you can understand his motivation to sex
00:21:20.329 --> 00:21:23.490
up the order. with some well -placed explanatory
00:21:23.490 --> 00:21:28.450
notes. And it was the third reason included in
00:21:28.450 --> 00:21:32.549
the explanatory notes of God's ordination in
00:21:32.549 --> 00:21:34.769
the new prayer book that Tilby claimed was quite
00:21:34.769 --> 00:21:37.869
new. And this is how it appears in the 1549 original.
00:21:38.609 --> 00:21:41.309
Thirdly, for the mutual society, help and comfort
00:21:41.309 --> 00:21:44.109
that the one ought to have of the other, both
00:21:44.109 --> 00:21:47.269
in prosperity and adversity, into the holiest
00:21:47.269 --> 00:21:49.950
state these two persons present come now to be
00:21:49.950 --> 00:21:54.119
joined. The mutual society, mutual help and mutual
00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:56.519
comfort that the one ought to have of the other
00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:59.720
simply spells out what is already in the commitment
00:21:59.720 --> 00:22:02.640
section of the Sarum Rite vows. As a bride ought
00:22:02.640 --> 00:22:05.279
to be to her groom and as a groom ought to be
00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:08.599
to his bride. Then we have a pre -run of the
00:22:08.599 --> 00:22:11.180
constancy section of the Sarum Rite vow but health
00:22:11.180 --> 00:22:13.319
becomes prosperity and sickness becomes adversity.
00:22:13.880 --> 00:22:17.319
The genuinely new section is into the holiest
00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:19.740
state these two people now come to be joined.
00:22:20.430 --> 00:22:23.529
Tilby fails to include this new bit in her commentary
00:22:23.529 --> 00:22:26.930
about new bits, while also including old bits
00:22:26.930 --> 00:22:30.569
and claiming them to be new. That's quite a feat.
00:22:30.710 --> 00:22:33.269
It does provide an excellent illustration of
00:22:33.269 --> 00:22:35.789
how quickly the truth can suffer when confronted
00:22:35.789 --> 00:22:38.890
with a scarcity of curiosity and an abundance
00:22:38.890 --> 00:22:43.190
of faith. The presenters, particularly the Christian
00:22:43.190 --> 00:22:46.049
presenters of Thought for the Day, quite frequently
00:22:46.049 --> 00:22:50.619
mention truth and its seeking, yet... they demonstrate
00:22:50.619 --> 00:22:54.119
repeatedly a lack of curiosity for the truth
00:22:54.119 --> 00:22:56.880
and an abundance of faith that gets in the way
00:22:56.880 --> 00:23:00.079
of them exploring it. For now, back to Angela
00:23:00.079 --> 00:23:05.460
and her comments on love and cherish. Klanmer
00:23:05.460 --> 00:23:08.819
also added the words to love and to cherish to
00:23:08.819 --> 00:23:12.480
the marriage vows. Love had long been in the
00:23:12.480 --> 00:23:16.329
vows. Cherish, esteem, worship also feature in
00:23:16.329 --> 00:23:18.809
various translations of the various Latin church
00:23:18.809 --> 00:23:22.130
manuals. It wasn't that Cramner added love and
00:23:22.130 --> 00:23:25.109
cherish. What Cramner did was remove opportunity
00:23:25.109 --> 00:23:28.109
for interpretation by the priest that inevitably
00:23:28.109 --> 00:23:31.349
accompanied extemporaneous translation of the
00:23:31.349 --> 00:23:34.230
Latin into English. It was Cramner's view that
00:23:34.230 --> 00:23:37.349
love and cherish was appropriate as the translation
00:23:37.349 --> 00:23:40.250
to be in the first formal English order of the
00:23:40.250 --> 00:23:43.039
marriage service. he most certainly wasn't adding
00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:47.599
anything different. In Tilby's defence, the Wikipedia
00:23:47.599 --> 00:23:50.160
page on the Book of Common Prayer does say in
00:23:50.160 --> 00:23:52.279
the final sentence of its section about marriage,
00:23:52.599 --> 00:23:55.660
Cranmer added the words to love and cherish.
00:23:55.940 --> 00:23:58.460
This seems like an excellent advertisement for
00:23:58.460 --> 00:24:01.779
not restricting your research exclusively to
00:24:01.779 --> 00:24:04.819
Wikipedia. The claim that Cranmer added love
00:24:04.819 --> 00:24:07.380
and cherish to the wedding vows is at best an
00:24:07.380 --> 00:24:11.619
oversimplification, and at worst, False, concealing
00:24:11.619 --> 00:24:15.259
the truth behind those changes. Finally, we have
00:24:15.259 --> 00:24:17.599
the comments on the happy marriage of Cranmer
00:24:17.599 --> 00:24:20.220
and how this influenced his approach to the revised
00:24:20.220 --> 00:24:23.819
service in his prayer book. The historian Tilby
00:24:23.819 --> 00:24:27.880
cites Mr McCulloch did not pass judgment on the
00:24:27.880 --> 00:24:30.640
happiness of Cranmer's marriages. Cramner had
00:24:30.640 --> 00:24:33.480
two wives, perhaps making him uniquely qualified
00:24:33.480 --> 00:24:36.059
as a bishop of his epoch for the revising of
00:24:36.059 --> 00:24:38.640
wedding services. His marriage experience might
00:24:38.640 --> 00:24:41.720
best though be described as chequered. Dates
00:24:41.720 --> 00:24:43.480
and details are sketchy, but it seems likely
00:24:43.480 --> 00:24:46.019
his first wife died in childbirth within three
00:24:46.019 --> 00:24:48.380
years of the two of them having met. There is
00:24:48.380 --> 00:24:50.900
no evidence of Cramner ever having commented
00:24:50.900 --> 00:24:53.039
or written about this experience, which was no
00:24:53.039 --> 00:24:56.380
doubt painful for him. Although this takes nothing
00:24:56.380 --> 00:24:58.980
away from the esteem Cramner may or may not have
00:24:58.980 --> 00:25:02.099
held, for this marriage. His second marriage
00:25:02.099 --> 00:25:05.299
was quite different and took place almost entirely
00:25:05.299 --> 00:25:08.819
in secret, not just the wedding, the whole marriage,
00:25:09.059 --> 00:25:12.220
and featured long periods of separation. This
00:25:12.220 --> 00:25:14.880
was the result of him having ignored his vows
00:25:14.880 --> 00:25:18.299
of clerical celibacy, so perhaps not the ideal
00:25:18.299 --> 00:25:22.079
arbiter of vows. Then he was promoted to Archbishop,
00:25:22.079 --> 00:25:24.779
which forced him to return to England from continental
00:25:24.779 --> 00:25:28.099
Europe. Keeping his wife and daughter secret
00:25:28.099 --> 00:25:30.960
was, in the words of McCulloch, astonishing.
00:25:32.039 --> 00:25:34.539
Cramner clearly valued marriage. It was certainly
00:25:34.539 --> 00:25:38.460
difficult to keep him from doing it. But there
00:25:38.460 --> 00:25:41.339
is no record of him ever having commented on
00:25:41.339 --> 00:25:43.700
the happiness or otherwise of these marriages.
00:25:44.819 --> 00:25:48.519
It seems likely that his second marriage did
00:25:48.519 --> 00:25:50.960
inform how he approached his tweaks to the wedding
00:25:50.960 --> 00:25:54.099
ceremony when preparing a new English manual
00:25:54.099 --> 00:25:58.519
for all churches in England. So in summary, following
00:25:58.519 --> 00:26:01.099
our fact check to ensure we'd not been too harsh
00:26:01.099 --> 00:26:03.799
on Tilby, we instead found that she'd made many
00:26:03.799 --> 00:26:06.720
more errors than we'd originally found. She'd
00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:08.859
used a straw man argument to produce an invented
00:26:08.859 --> 00:26:11.160
contrast between the theology of marriages before
00:26:11.160 --> 00:26:13.720
and after the Middle Ages. She intimated that
00:26:13.720 --> 00:26:16.099
pre -prayer book marriage was less holy, which
00:26:16.099 --> 00:26:19.140
is a direct inversion of the truth. She suggested
00:26:19.140 --> 00:26:21.559
that pre -Cranmer marriage was merely contractual
00:26:21.559 --> 00:26:23.779
lust control. when, as we pointed out in our
00:26:23.779 --> 00:26:26.299
original broadcast on this, the Sarumrite marriage
00:26:26.299 --> 00:26:29.980
had long been regarded as a divine act. What
00:26:29.980 --> 00:26:31.980
we hadn't realised at the time was that marriage
00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:35.220
before Cranmer had been a holy sacrament. Thomas
00:26:35.220 --> 00:26:38.940
effectively demoted its holiness. Tilby then
00:26:38.940 --> 00:26:41.579
falsely claimed that the third reason for God
00:26:41.579 --> 00:26:44.000
-ordination of marriage in the service sermon
00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:47.099
was completely new, when it had in fact been
00:26:47.099 --> 00:26:49.680
in the service for hundreds of years. And she
00:26:49.680 --> 00:26:52.240
finished off. by misrepresenting both a historian
00:26:52.240 --> 00:26:55.720
and the history of love and cherish in marriage
00:26:55.720 --> 00:27:00.059
vows. Here's how we concluded the original review
00:27:00.059 --> 00:27:04.640
of Tilby's broadcast. What a wasted opportunity
00:27:04.640 --> 00:27:07.819
and a pointless effort. And that's before we
00:27:07.819 --> 00:27:13.160
consider the barbs. Just rubbish. Rubbish indeed.
00:27:13.599 --> 00:27:18.279
Tilby is deceitful. She manipulates her sources.
00:27:20.240 --> 00:27:25.039
Dozens of false claims. This truly is an appalling
00:27:25.039 --> 00:27:28.519
broadcast. And the more we look at it, the worse
00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:33.039
it becomes. Thank you for listening. If you'd
00:27:33.039 --> 00:27:35.460
like to learn more about what we do and why,
00:27:35.640 --> 00:27:38.220
or to read show notes, find transcripts, or listen
00:27:38.220 --> 00:27:40.180
to any of the other podcasts that we've not yet
00:27:40.180 --> 00:27:41.140
put out on the main feed,