Summary Of Voices Of Morebath

In just fifty years, England, one of the most Catholic nations during this time, changed into a predominantly Protestant nation. This book primarily focuses on the effect this religious transformation had in the rural countryside of Exmoor. In Voices of Morebath, Eamon Duffy shows how Morebath, a countryside, sheep-farming village of thirty-three families, is affected by the Protestant Reformation. Duffy uses only one source to convey his argument, and that is with Sir Christopher Trychay’s parish accounts during his fifty four years as priest, from 1520 to 1574. Using this one source, the reader gets the chance to see what Pre-Reformation piety is like in sixteenth century English village life. Although this book has a lot of information from
Sir Christopher’s commentary, presents an exclusive light into the lives of the rural individuals in the sheep-farming village of Exmoor. The community of Morebath is surrounded by statues and figures, showing that they are protected by God, and the Saints are on their side. It was not until 1538, that the Reformation begins to affect the parish. Under the rule of Edward VI the parishioners were no longer allowed to invoke Saints and the images in the church. Duffy explains, “By contrast, from mid-September 1538 Morebath seems obediently and completely to have abandoned the active promotion of the cult of the saints which had hitherto been the most striking feature of its devotional life, and in the year that followed the parish dutifully equipped itself with all the books and other items required by the Injunctions.” This outraged the parishioners, they devoted their whole lives to images and then they were banned. With the Invocation of 1538, Edward VI, created drastic Protastanizing, with the stripping of images, whitewashing of paintings, and cultural revolution, causing rapid religious change. “With the extinguishing of the lights and the abandonment of the patronage of the saints over the two remaining stores, a dimension of warmth and humanity evident in the accounts up to that point, fades a little.” The Invocation of 1538, also affected the economic stance of the whole community, stores were eventually no longer in function, most parishioners lost their job, and the only way of making money was the church ale house. Morebath started to come close to bankruptcy. The Protestant Reformation tampered with the parish’s economy and that was only the