SOURCE: Smyth, C. H. “Cranmer” and “Appendix: The Date of Cranmer's Liturgical Projects.” In Cranmer and the Reformation under Edward VI, pp. 28-77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1926.

In the following excerpt, Smyth considers charges that Cranmer was theologically inconsistent and attempts to determine the years during which the works collected in an edition entitled Cranmer's Liturgical Projects, edited by Dr. Wickham Legg, were written.

Cranmer

Few Reformers have been so contemptuously regarded as the first Protestant Archbishop of the Church of England. ‘Mehr klug als charaktervoll’¹, ‘ingenio quod habebat magis blandum quam acutum’², ‘a weak man’ who ‘trusted to his suppleness for security in opposition’³, a man of ‘compliant temper’⁴—these charges have been so frequently repeated that they have almost ceased to be challenged. Other authorities have presumed even further upon this treacherous foundation. ‘Saintly in his professions, unscrupulous in his dealings, zealous for nothing, bold in...