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A Sad Reminder of the Art Lost in the Years After the Reformation
The Catholic Herald (UK) ^ | 10/8/13 | Leanda de Lisle

Posted on 10/08/2013 5:24:17 PM PDT by marshmallow

A new exhibition at Tate Britain highlights the scale of destruction to artworks in the Tudor period – a staggering amount of books and music were also destroyed

The slashed and broken medieval images displayed in the new Art Under Attack exhibition at the Tate are a reminder of what we lost in the hundred and fifty years after the Reformation. Even now there is denial about the scale of the erasing of our medieval past. The Tate estimates we lost 90% of our religious art. It was probably even more than that. The destruction was on a scale that far outstrips the modern efforts of Islamist extremists. And it was not only art we lost, but also books and music.

We think of Henry VIII and the destruction of the monasteries, but that was not the end of the destruction, it marked the beginning. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, hailed the reign of his son, the boy king Edward VI, as that of a new Josiah, destroyer of idols. After his coronation an orgy of iconoclasm was launched. In churches rood screens, tombs with their prayers for the dead, and stain glass windows, were smashed. The Elizabethan antiquarian John Stow complained, some of this Christian Taliban “judged every image to be an idol”, so that not only religious art, but even the secular thirteenth century carvings of kings in Ludgate were broken.

Books too were burned on a vast scale. Earlier this year Melvyn Bragg was on TV telling us about William Tyndale during the reign of Henry VIII, and the forces of Catholic conservatism blocking publication of his English bible with its attached Lutheran commentaries. But conservatives were not alone in wishing to suppress books that contained ideas they did not agree with. When the monasteries were suppressed.....

(Excerpt) Read more at catholicherald.co.uk ...


TOPICS: Catholic; History; Mainline Protestant
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To: donmeaker

“What she was is a pillar and bulwark of the connected church officials who were able to live fat lives off the collected taxes/tithes from the people and the various fees that they were able to collect.”

Except that’s more your fantasy than any fact. Yes, there were bad men, but there always will be. Then, however, you have excellent men like Bishop John Fisher - who Henry VIII put to death for refusing to agree to his seizure of the Church in England.

“The government and the church were competing parasites that had a cozy deal to share the life’s blood of their host.”

Okiedokie, so once again you are contradicting your earlier claim. If they were competing, then they were not one in the same nor did the Church control the state. Again, do you realize you keep undermining your own claims?


101 posted on 10/08/2013 6:58:36 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: MrChips

You can also pick the one against the Cathars, aka the Albigensian Crusade.

“Kill them all, let G-d sort them out” came from that one.

A proud moment for the bulwark of truth.


102 posted on 10/08/2013 6:59:13 PM PDT by donmeaker (The lessons of Weimar are soon to be relearned.)
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

“Yea. Not so much vlad.”

No, actually very much. The Catholic Church had a reformation. Protestants simply revolted and established their own sects.


103 posted on 10/08/2013 6:59:47 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998

“The Catholic Church had a reformation. Protestants simply revolted and established their own sects.”

pfft.


104 posted on 10/08/2013 7:01:49 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion (I grew up in America. I now live in the United States..)
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To: MrChips

His lust and greed were by no means unique, being shared by many of the Popes.


105 posted on 10/08/2013 7:02:54 PM PDT by donmeaker (The lessons of Weimar are soon to be relearned.)
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To: Truth2012

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Nature is beautiful. Catholic art is oftentimes repulsive and causes a negative reaction, such as violence toward the repulsive object.”

No. People with their own issues and problems find Catholic art “repulsive”. And if they find it repulsive, they could simply leave.

“It is what it is. Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind and all of that.”

Nope.

Protestant Ralph Adams Cram: “From the outbreak of the Protestant revolution, the old kinship between beauty and religion was deprecated and often forgotten. Not only was there, amongst the reformers and their adherents, a definite hatred of beauty and a determination to destroy it when found; there was also a conscientious elimination of everything of the sort from the formularies, services, and structures that applied to their new religion. This unprecedented break between religion and beauty had a good deal to do with that waning interest in religion itself. Protestantism, with its derivative materialistic rationalism, divested religion of its essential elements of mystery and wonder, and worship of its equally essential elements of beauty. Under this powerful combination of destructive influences, it is not to be wondered at that, of the once faithful, many have fallen away. Man is, by instinct, not only a lover of beauty, he is also by nature a ‘ritualist,’ that is to say, he does, when left alone, desire form and ceremony, if significant. If this instinctive craving for ceremonial is denied to man in religion, where it preeminently belongs, he takes it on for himself in secular fields; elaborates ritual in secret societies, in the fashion of his dress, in the details of social custom. He also, in desperation, invents new religions and curious sects working up for them strange rituals . . . extravagant and vulgar devices that are now the sardonic delight of the ungodly. ... If once more beauty can be restored to the offices of religion, many who are now self-excommunicated from their Church will thankfully find their way back to the House they have abandoned. The whole Catholic Faith is shot through and through with this vital and essential quality of beauty. It is this beauty implicit in the Christian revelation and its operative system that was explicit in the material and visible Churches and their art. We must contend against the strongest imaginable combination of prejudices and superstitions. These are of two sorts. There is first, the heritage of ignorance and fear from the dark ages of the sixteenth century. I am speaking of non-Catholic Christianity. Ignorance of authentic history, instigated by protagonists of propaganda; fear of beauty, because all that we now have in Christian art was engendered and formulated by and through Catholicism; fear that the acceptance of beauty means that awful thing—’surrender to superstition.’ It is fear that lies at the root of the matter, as it does in so many other fields of mental activity.” (Radio Replies, vol. 2: 1052)


106 posted on 10/08/2013 7:03:23 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998

Are you kidding me???

Vlad, you need to get out of the house more! lol


107 posted on 10/08/2013 7:06:44 PM PDT by jodyel
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To: MrChips
Because of the government shutdown, families of veterans who were recently killed will not be flown to their funerals, but in the House, the gym remains open, with its tennis court and heated swimming pool. Now, there's an unbiased newscast for you!/i>

VERY, VERY, VERY SAD

108 posted on 10/08/2013 7:07:05 PM PDT by terycarl
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To: vladimir998

The crucifix is ghastly. And yes, sow the wind, reap the whirlwind. Do something grotesque pay the consequences. I didn’t write the Bible. Take it up with God.


109 posted on 10/08/2013 7:07:44 PM PDT by Truth2012
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To: marshmallow

Perhaps “things” in this world are not nearly so important as treasure stored up in heaven...where none of those “things” will ever be seen.

Catholicism puts way too much emphasis on the bling and treasure of this world instead of making disciples of men for the Lord.


110 posted on 10/08/2013 7:08:58 PM PDT by jodyel
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To: vladimir998

By Papal Bull dated 14 October 1504, Fisher was appointed the Bishop of Rochester at the personal insistence of Henry VII.

So the Church and the civil authority agree on Fisher when he was appointed....At the same time, like any English bishop of his day, Fisher had certain state duties. In particular, he maintained a passionate interest in the University of Cambridge. In 1504 he was elected the university’s chancellor. Re-elected annually for 10 years and Fisher ultimately recceived a lifetime appointment. At this date he is also said to have acted as tutor to Prince Henry, afterwards King Henry VIII. As a preacher his reputation was so great that in 1509, during which both King Henry VII and the Lady Margaret died, Fisher was appointed to preach the funeral oration on both occasions, the texts being still extant.

Showing further the cooperation between church and state.

They were different faces on the same coin then.

When Henry tried to divorce Queen Catherine of Aragon, Fisher became the Queen’s chief supporter and most trusted counsellor. As such, he appeared on the Queen’s behalf in the legates’ court, where he startled the audience by the directness of his language and by declaring that, like St John the Baptist, he was ready to die on behalf of the indissolubility of marriage. Henry VIII, upon hearing this, grew so enraged by it that he composed a long Latin address to the legates in answer to the bishop’s speech. Fisher’s copy of this still exists, with his manuscript annotations in the margin which show how little he feared the royal anger. The removal of the cause to Rome brought Fisher’s personal share therein to an end, but the king never forgave him for what he had done.

Meddling in government affairs.

In November 1529, the “Long Parliament” of Henry’s reign began encroaching on the Catholic Church’s prerogatives. Fisher, as a member of the upper house which is the House of Lords, at once warned Parliament that such acts could only end in the utter destruction of the Catholic Church in England.

Perhaps he should have taken his own advice.


111 posted on 10/08/2013 7:11:57 PM PDT by donmeaker (The lessons of Weimar are soon to be relearned.)
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To: donmeaker

Fisher also engaged in secret activities to overthrow Henry. As early as 1531 he began secretly communicating to foreign diplomats. In September 1533 communicating secretly through the imperial ambassador Eustace Chapuys he encouraged Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to invade England and depose Henry in combination with a domestic uprising.

And so the brilliant man turned to treason. And paid for it.


112 posted on 10/08/2013 7:12:52 PM PDT by donmeaker (The lessons of Weimar are soon to be relearned.)
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To: donmeaker

Oh, please. The Protestants destroyed these villages precisely because they were Catholic. They did the same thing in Spanish Florida, where they destroyed the Franciscan missions, killed Indians and priests, and sold took 11,000 Indians into slavery on the British sugar plantations in the British West Indies.

You’ve got to deal with the Protestant hatred of Catholics and the horrors inflicted by Protestants before you can move on.


113 posted on 10/08/2013 7:14:32 PM PDT by livius
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To: vladimir998

Grow up, vlad!!

What treasure will you have stored up for yourself in heaven worrying about treasure here?

Exactly why Catholicism is so foolish and dead itself...why worry about something that has absolutely no eternal consequences whatsoever?

Probably because this is all your dead religion teaches you is important.

May God help every single one of you see what is truly important in this life and the next.


114 posted on 10/08/2013 7:15:14 PM PDT by jodyel
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To: jodyel

“Are you kidding me???”

No.

“Vlad, you need to get out of the house more! lol”

No, I probably need to get out of work more often. I worked 260 hours in September. I earned 100 hours of comp time - which I’ll never be able to use by the end of this month! So far I have used 3 hours. Tomorrow I’ll have to work another 13 hour day. Good things still happens, however, although I don’t get enough time with my family and friends. Last night I got to talk to a young Protestant couple. They are coming into the Church this year. Good kids.


115 posted on 10/08/2013 7:16:57 PM PDT by vladimir998
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To: vladimir998

Once again, we see what is truly important to Catholics...their bling.

Give me a break!


116 posted on 10/08/2013 7:17:13 PM PDT by jodyel
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To: donmeaker
See, there’s your problem. You think the Church should have authority

where's the problem???...what you shall bind, shall be bound, who's sins you shall forgive they are forgiven, I will give you the keys to the kingdom of Heaven, The Eucharist, Baptism, Confirmation, Matrimony, Holy Orders, penance.....the Church has extraordinary authorith over mankind...she was granted that authority and the Protestants decided that they knew better....they didn't..

117 posted on 10/08/2013 7:20:00 PM PDT by terycarl
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To: aMorePerfectUnion

Your argument is simplistic. And it is circular. Those points have been addresses. The “Reformation” was not everywhere the same, and it was certainly not wanted by the people of England. It was imposed by Henry VIII with great brutality.


118 posted on 10/08/2013 7:20:27 PM PDT by MrChips (MrChips)
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To: donmeaker

A smaller moment than Henry VIII’s.


119 posted on 10/08/2013 7:21:27 PM PDT by MrChips (MrChips)
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To: donmeaker

true. But, being mere men, but they didn’t destroy what Henry destroyed.


120 posted on 10/08/2013 7:22:36 PM PDT by MrChips (MrChips)
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