The Cultural Revolution in 16th-Century England by = Murray N. Rothbard

Murray N.=20 Rothbard sent this memo on September 24, 1993, to several = friends,=20 including Catholic publisher Neil McCaffrey.

This is to alert you all to what the = Protestant=20 reviewer refers to several times as a "splendid" new = Catholic book.=20 It is Eamon Duffy, The=20 Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England,=20 c.1400=96c.1580 (Yale Univ. Press, 654 pp.). [See = New York=20 Review of Books, Sept. 23.] I was fascinated and greatly = moved=20 by the reviewer's account of the book, and you all know much = more=20 about the topic, and should like it all the more.

The = book is a=20 revisionist study of the purging of the Catholic religion by = the=20 Anglican Reformation. The orthodox view has been that the = Catholic=20 faith had been dying out among the public, e.g. because the=20 vernacular was not being used. Duffy shows that, on the = contrary,=20 the masses loved the old faith and what they lacked in = language was=20 made up for by the processions, pageants, images etc., as = well as=20 sculpture, and also that when the vernacular came in it = supplemented=20 the Latin. The first part of the Duffy book examines the old = religion and the public's devotion in detail. The second = part shows=20 how the old religion was systematically stamped out and = destroyed,=20 by the use of the State apparatus, with the assistance of = the=20 fanatical Anglican reformers; the State, and its = "Visitations" from=20 the bishops, led by fanatical reformers such as Cranmer, = Latimer, et=20 al., managed in fifty years to destroy even the memory of = the old=20 faith in the minds of the masses, and to replace it with = devotion to=20 Anglicanism. Brutally, images were destroyed, lights in = front of=20 images were outlawed, ceremonies as creeping to the cross = were=20 outlawed, wall paintings were whitewashed and altars = stripped. The=20 reformers were interested in purging the "idolatry" of = "image=20 worship." State injunctions issued the prohibitions: in = 1538, the=20 burning of lights in front of images was prohibited, = pilgrimages=20 were condemned and the Angelus bell silenced; in 1547, = churches were=20 ordered stripped of all images, relics, and paintings as = "monuments=20 of feigned miracles, idolatry and superstition," and parish=20 processions outlawed.

All = this=20 reminds me of the Cultural Revolution in the U.S., beginning = with=20 the New Deal and continuing now with Clinton's Health Great = Leap=20 Forward. The sad part of course is that, all too often, = Cultural=20 Revolutions do work and stamp out the memory of' the Old = Religion,=20 or the Old Republic. Fight!

Historically,=20 of course, the English Reformation was crucial in = engendering a=20 fanatical anti-Catholicism in England from that day on, and = in the=20 British colony of North America. In a sense, then, we still = haven't=20 recovered from the first Cultural Revolution, in = 16th-century=20 England.

Murray N.=20 Rothbard (1926=961995) was the author of Man,=20 Economy, and State, Conceived=20 in Liberty, What=20 Has Government Done to Our Money, For a = New=20 Liberty, The=20 Case Against the Fed, and many other books = and=20 articles. He was also = the editor=20 =96 with Lew Rockwell =96 of The=20 Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and academic vice president = of the=20 Ludwig von Mises Institute.

The Cultural = Revolution in=20 16th-Century England