Robert Crowley (printer)

Robert Crowley also Robertus Croleus, Roberto Croleo, Robart Crowleye, and Robarte Crole (c. 1517–June 18 1588), was a stationer, poet, polemicist and Protestant clergyman who was among the Marian exiles at Frankfurt. Crowley appears to have been a Henrician evangelical who favoured a more reformed Protestantism than was sanctioned at that time by the king and the Church of England.

Related Topics:
1517 - June 18 - 1588 - Stationer - Poet - Polemicist - Protestant - Frankfurt - Evangelical - Protestantism - Church of England

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Under the more favourable conditions of the brief reign of Edward VI, Crowley took part in a well-organised London network of evangelical stationers to argue for the reforms he sought, particularly on behalf of ordinary people, for the spiritual and material health of the nation. In this regard he resembles his contemporaries Hugh Latimer, Thomas Lever, Thomas Becon, and others, who upheld a vision of a reformed Christian commonwealth while attacking perceived corruption and uncharitable self-interest among the clergy and the wealthy, land-holding elites who inhibited the progress of true reform. It was during this time that Crowley participated as writer, editor, and/or printer in the production of the first printed editions of Piers Plowman, the first translation of the gospels into Welsh, and the first complete metrical psalter in English, which was also the first English psalter with harmonised music.

Related Topics:
Edward VI - London - Hugh Latimer - Thomas Lever - Thomas Becon - Commonwealth - Piers Plowman - Welsh - Metrical psalter - English

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Toward the end of Edward's reign and later, Crowley criticised the Edwardian Reformation as being compromised by self-serving, supposedly reformed aristocrats, and came to regard the Dissolution of the Monasteries, not as a boon to the people as was originally hoped, but as the replacement of one form of corruption by another. Upon his return to England following the reign of Mary I, Crowley produced a revised and up-dated version of an historical chronicle in which he represented the Edwardian Reformation as a substantial failure because of the corruption of its supposed supporters such as Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. In Crowley's account of the Marian persecutions and martyrs he represents them as the tragic but potentially redemptive cost – mostly paid by commoners – for the failures of the Edwardian Reformation. This became the basic source for John Foxe's account of the Marian period in his famous Book of Martyrs.

Related Topics:
Dissolution of the Monasteries - Mary I - Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley - Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset - John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland - John Foxe - Book of Martyrs

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In the early to mid 1560s Crowley held several positions in the church, and focused his energies on effecting change from the pulpit and within the church hierarchy. In reaction to the so-called Elizabethan Religious Settlement he led the anti-vestiarian faction in the Elizabethan vestments controversy. This eventually cost him all his clerical offices. During this dispute he produced, in collaboration with other London clergy, what has been called by Patrick Collinson "the first Puritan manifesto". Late in life Crowley was restored to several positions within the church, and appears to have charted a moderate course, defending the established church from both Roman Catholicism and the more extreme nonconformist and Puritan factions which espoused a Presbyterian church polity.

Related Topics:
1560s - Elizabethan Religious Settlement - Vestments controversy - Puritan - Manifesto - Roman Catholicism - Nonconformist - Presbyterian

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