Jonathan Willis. The Reformation of the Decalogue

From the late thirteenth century, Archbishop John Peckham of Canterbury established a comprehensive catalogue of essential tenets for the clergy to use to teach the laity; it included the seven sacraments, the creed, the seven vices and virtues, and also the Ten Commandments. Peckham’s catalogue remained the standard for sermons and catecheses in both provinces of the English Church for nearly 250 years, until the English Reformation lifted the Decalogue (i.e., the Ten Commandments) out of its medieval matrix and raised it higher than all other teachings except for the Bible itself. In a brief essay published thirty years ago, the late John Bossy was the first to draw attention to this startling shift, whose full significance has deserved further analysis. Now Jonathan Willis takes up the challenge of exploring the far-reaching implications of the primacy of the Ten Commandments in his impressive monograph The Reformation of the Decalogue: Religious Identity and the Ten Commandments in England, c.1485–1625. His book is an audacious study that clarifies some vexing problems in the field of early modern England. Willis establishes that the Ten Commandments both shaped the Reformation at the same time that they were reshaped in an unprecedented manner to fit a new Protestant agenda.

Aesthetics · Archbishop · Creed · Identity (music) · Protestantism · Ten Commandments · Theology · Classics · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Medieval Literature and History · Philosophy · Reformation and Early Modern Christianity · Religious studies