Stephan Gardiner

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Canon Stephan Gardiner, Liechtenstein Gallery, Vaduz

Stephan Gardiner (also Wintoniensis, Stephen Gardiner ; * around 1497  ? In Bury St Edmunds ; † November 12, 1555 in Whitehall Palace , London ) was Bishop of Winchester , statesman, canon and counted among the humanists and the Graecists . He is considered to be one of the leading figures of the conservatives in the first generation of the English Reformation. He was involved both in the establishment of the Anglican State Church and in the attempted re-Catholicization of England under Mary I.

Life

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Born as the youngest son of the tailor and cloth merchant John Gardiner († 1507) or possibly the illegitimate son of the Bishop of Salisbury Dr. Lionel Woodville, he went on an educational trip to Paris in 1507 , where he is said to have met Erasmus of Rotterdam . From 1511 he studied in Cambridge at Trinity Hall , where he received his doctorate in civil law in 1520 and in canon law the following year . Despite his love of law and his work as a legal scholar and diplomat, his love for music and acting is mentioned again and again. The connection to Cambridge and the university there remained throughout his life. Throughout his troubled and busy public life, with the exception of the period between 1549 and 1553 (the years of his imprisonment), he was Rector of Trinity Hall.

Promotion to royal advisor and bishop

In the fall of 1524 he entered the service of Thomas Wolsey . As Archbishop of York , Lord Chancellor and papal legate, Wolsey was the most powerful man in the state alongside Henry VIII , and Gardiner became his secretary in 1525. Through his efforts in negotiations with Pope Clement VII to obtain a divorce for Henry from Catherine of Aragón , he received the diocese of Winchester from the king in 1531. The marriage itself was not annulled until 1533 by a divorce court of the English Church. Together with Thomas More , he negotiated with France in 1527 about the entry of England to the League of Cognac .

Together with other bishops, he agreed to the law of 1534, in which Henry declared himself head of the Church in England, and defended the royal supremacy over the Church, among other things, in the treatise De Vera Obedientia (1535; The true obedience). Gardiner was only reform-oriented on the question of non-recognition of the papal primacy; in questions of doctrine and liturgy he continued to advocate the continuation of Catholic practice; "The king's supremacy does not mean the demarcation from the Catholic Church." The Six Articles of 1539, in which Catholic principles were laid down, came largely from him.

Fall and return to power

After the fall of Cromwell , Gardiner became Chancellor of Cambridge University in 1540 . He also gained more influence in the monarch's secret council, the Privy Council . Gardiner was an opponent of extreme Protestantism and tried with all his means to push back the Protestant circles at court. He allowed himself to be drawn into intrigues against the last wife of King Henry VIII, Catherine Parr , which cost him a lot of sympathy and the hostility of no fewer Protestants and church reformers. The growing influence of the reform-friendly circles at court and in the Privy Council shortly before Henry's death led to the fact that Gardiner was not accepted into the Regency Council at the end of 1547, which was placed alongside the underage heir to the throne Edward.

After Gardiner in 1547 shortly after the accession of King Edward VI. , refused to implement the religious innovations of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer , he was imprisoned as the most prominent representative of Catholic conservatism. He was briefly released, but was arrested again at the instigation of ardent Protestants in 1549 and held in the Tower of London for four years . Gardiner was revoked as early as 1547 from the office of university chancellor, from 1549 from the rector's office of Trinity Hall and from 1551 also from his diocese. With the accession of Queen Mary I to power, Gardiner was released and received his bishopric and his other offices back. For political reasons he had to plead against the annulment of the marriage of Henry VIII and the mother of Mary I, to declare it valid again and to confirm Mary I as the rightful heir to the throne.

Gardiner became Lord Chancellor in 1553 and, as a champion of the Catholic reaction under Mary I, participated in the internal renewal of the Catholic Church in England and in the reintroduction of the laws against heresy and thus also in the judicial prosecution of Protestant clergy. However, he was against their execution and even tried to save the life of his opponent Thomas Cranmers, but without success. While the Queen had Protestants cremated, there were no death sentences in his Winchester diocese .

As a nationally conservative Catholic, Gardiner also tried to prevent the marriage of Mary I with the Spanish King Philip II in order to preserve England's political freedom. He tried in vain to achieve peace between France and the German Kaiser. Gardiner's troubles and concerns were ignored by the Queen and Gardiner's influence at court waned more and more. This fact bothered his health. In 1555 his condition worsened. He attended the Opening of Parliament on November 8, but was too weak to return to his residence (Winchester House) in Southwark, so he was taken to the Palace of Whitehall, where he was born on the night of November 12. November 1555 died. Gardiner found his final resting place in his Episcopal Church in Winchester.

He was friends with the humanists Thomas More and John Fisher . But Gardiner is the author of the treatise Si Sedes illa Romana . This justified the execution of John Fisher. Gardiner also adored the head of the humanists, Erasmus of Rotterdam , who was deeply shocked by the execution of John Fisher and Thomas More. Gardiner was in close contact with Erasmus during his stay in England. His idea of ​​a church reforming itself through the influence of humanism collapsed.

Works

  1. De vera obediencia. (London 1535) a fundamental work in support of Henry VIII's royal supremacy over the Church;
  2. De impudenti ejusdam pseudologia conquestio. (London 1546). This treatise was directed against the reformer Martin Bucer, who was then working in England.
  3. A Declaration of such true articles as George Joye hath gone about to confute as false. (London 1546);
  4. A Detection of the Devils Sophistrie. (London 1546);
  5. An Explication of the true Catholique Faythe. (Rouen 1551); The text Exetasis testemoniorum (Leuven 1554) is a kind of spiritual testament by Gardiner.

Gardiner's extensive correspondence is collected in The Letters of Stephen Gardiner , ed. by JA Muller, Cambridge 1933, Westport 21970; A comprehensive collection of Gardiner's works does not yet exist. The Vera Obedientia, the Conquestio and a third work are published in P. Janelle (Ed.): Obedience in Church and State - Three Political Tracts by Stephen Gardiner , New York 21968.

Unpublished doctoral theses: DL Potter: Diplomacy in the mid-sixteenth Century: England and France, 1536-1550 , University of Cambridge 1973; S. Thompson: The Pastoral Work of the English and Welsh Bishops, c. 1500-1550 , University of California, Los Angeles 1975.

literature

Remarks

  1. The BBKL names 1482 or 1483 as possible years of birth.
predecessor Office successor
Thomas Wolsey
John Ponet
Bishop of Winchester
1531 - 1551
1553 - 1555
John Ponet
John White