No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
The Tractarian Moment: The Incidental Origins of the Oxford Movement
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 July 2014
Extract
Just what were John Henry Newman, Hurrell Froude, and John Keble up to in those hectic months of the summer and autumn of 1833 when the Oxford Movement began? It might seem unnecessary to ask such a question. The standard account portrays the three friends, agreed on common principles, working with substantial continuity (with the addition of E. B. Pusey and the loss of Froude) from 1833 at least to 1841. But the conventional literature has lost sight of the confusion and indecision of the initial moment of 1833.
The basis of the standard account, and the reason why it should be distrusted, is that it is based on Newman's own account in the Apologia pro vita sua, the work of a man obsessed by his own major continuities and discontinuities, at once truthful and misleading.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1994
References
1 An honorable exception is O'Connell, Marvin R., The Oxford Conspirators: A History of the Oxford Movement 1833–45 (New York, 1969)Google Scholar, whose straight-forward account follows strictly chronological order. I have used O'Connell to check my time-line. A different sort of exception is Griffin, John R., The Oxford Movement 1833–1983: A Revision (Edinburgh, 1984)Google Scholar, and “The Radical Phase of the Oxford Movement,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 27 (1976): 47–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar, who recognizes the radicalism of the early phase (which he carries through 1834) but over-emphasizes anti-erastianism as the key element.
2 Newman, John Henry, Apologia pro vita sua [Modern Library edition] (New York, 1950), Part IV, pp. 75–80Google Scholar. Based on the original 1864 edition.
3 Aside from the Apologia, these are Perceval, A. P., A Collection of Papers Connected with the Theological Movement of 1833 (London, 1842)Google Scholar, much of its documents contemporary with 1833, and Palmer, William, A Narrative of Events Connected with the Publication of the Tracts for the Times (2nd ed.; London, 1883; orig. 1843)Google Scholar.
4 The Letters and Diaries of John Henry Newman, ed. Ker, Ian and Gornall, Thomas (Oxford, 1979), 3: 123Google Scholar.
5 Ibid., 3: 96–97.
6 Ibid., 3: 93.
7 Ibid., 3: 249.
8 Remains of the Late Reverend Richard Hurrell Froude, M.A., Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford, 4 vols. (London, 1838–1839), 1: 302Google Scholar.
9 Ibid., 1: 308. There is a Punch caricature satirizing the young Disraeli: “I've made arrangements—aw—to smash—aw—everybody.” (Reproduced in the article “Caricature and Cartoo” in the 14th edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, 1968 printing.Google Scholar) Froude was fond of smashing everybody.
10 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 3: 278Google Scholar.
11 Ibid., 3: 293.
12 Ibid., 3: 300.
13 Ibid., 3: 264.
14 The letter was received on March 16; ibid., 3: 257. It mostly concerned Thomas Arnold's plan of church reform, which amused rather than disturbed Newman.
15 “I am most curious to know who are the persons that opposed the Oxford petition against the Spoliation Bill.” Froude, , Remains, 1: 308Google Scholar.
16 Ibid., 1: 317.
17 Ibid., 2: 192, 193. Magazines were usually published on the first of the month. The second part of the article was delayed until November, Froude argued that the conditions on which the Church had assented to parliamentary interference in matters spiritual had been cancelled.
18 ibid., 1: 320.
19 Keble, John, “National Apostasy,” in The Oxford Movement, ed. Fairweather, Eugene R. (New York, 1964), pp. 39, 42, 43, 44, 45Google Scholar.
20 Newman, , Letters and Diaries (1980), 4: 10Google Scholar (“Fragmentary Diary,” dated December 6, 1833; Newman's reconstruction of events had begun even then).
21 Keble, , “National Apostasy,” pp. 48, 49Google Scholar.
22 Perceval, , Collection, p. 25Google Scholar.
23 Ibid., p. 8.
24 Rose later wrote to Keble that, if nothing else, “we talked a great deal of good High Church talk.” Cited in O'Connell, , Oxford Conspirators, p. 136Google Scholar.
25 Froude, , Remains, 1: 377Google Scholar; Perceval, , Collection, p. 25Google Scholar.
26 There is a debate among historians about the religious character of Whiggery, whether, “liberal Anglicanis” or eighteenth-century Latitudinarianism. I merely note that the intentions of the ministry cannot be assumed to be clear.
27 Palmer, , Narrative, p. 47Google Scholar.
28 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 20–21Google Scholar.
29 Ibid., 4: 28 (numbers omitted).
30 Quoted in SirColeridge, J. T., A Memoir of the Rev. John Keble, M.A. (Oxford, 1869), p. 220Google Scholar.
31 Perceval, , Collection, p. 12Google Scholar.
32 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 22, 23Google Scholar. License to a curacy or appointment to an office in the Church required taking the oath of Supremacy afresh. Keble did not feel bound to resign his existing curacy or his fellowship.
33 Ibid., 4: 19–20.
34 The Autobiography of Isaac Williams, ed. Prevost, George (London, 1892), p. 118Google Scholar, quoted in Griffin, John R., John Keble, Saint of Anglicanism (Macon, GA, 1987), p. 84Google Scholar.
35 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 34Google Scholar. The specific, “tyrannical thin” would be the appointment of Arnold to a bishopric.
36 Perceval, , Collection, p. 12Google Scholar.
37 Ibid.
38 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 29Google Scholar.
39 Ibid., 4: 37.
40 See ibid., 4: 10, 129–130.
41 Perceval, , Collection, p. 18Google Scholar.
42 Ibid.
43 John to Thomas Keble, August 16, 1833, cited in O'Connell, , Oxford Conspirators, p. 140Google Scholar.
44 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 22–23Google Scholar.
45 Ibid., 4: 38; Froude, , Remains, 2: 198, 207Google Scholar.
46 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 32Google Scholar.
47 Ibid., 4: 48.
48 The letters are reprinted in ibid., 4: 63–65, 76–78, 87–88, 94–96, 101–103. For the close of the affair, see Ibid., 4: 130–131, 136. The Record had just then (December 5) begun its attack (the first) on the Tracts.
49 The process is described in Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 60–61Google Scholar. Perceval's Churchman's Manual might have been included had it been ready: ibid., 4: 41.
50 Ibid., 4: 10, 35, 41. The Appendix (ibid., 4: 385–387) is the best list of the Tracts.
51 Newman, , Tract 1, in The Oxford Movement, ed. Fairweather, , pp. 55–59Google Scholar.
52 Tracts for the Times. By Members of the University of Oxford. Vol. I, New Edition (London, 1839), pp. 2, 3, 4. As in the 1834 edition, each Tract is reprinted with its original separate pagination.
53 Ibid., pp. 3, 8, 5.
54 Ibid., p. 5.
55 Newman's No. 1 was headed, “Ad Clerum.” Keble's No. 4 was headed “Ad Populum” but expressly spoke of “we ourselves, the Ministers of Go” (p. 1). Not much can be made of the headings “Ad Populum” or “Ad Schola” in later Tracts.
56 Palmer, , Narrative, p. 99Google Scholar.
57 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 52Google Scholar.
58 Palmer, , Narrative, p. 55Google Scholar.
59 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 21Google Scholar.
60 Ibid., 4: 109.
61 Ibid, 4: 117.
62 Ibid., 4: 62, 100.
63 The other was Tract No. 12 by Thomas Keble, the first of a series, “Richard Nelson,” purporting to be conversations with an ordinary layman who had convinced himself of apostolical principles—a sort of High Church “Shepherd of Salisbury Plain.”
64 Harrison's Tract No. 16, “Advent,” and No. 17, “The Ministerial Commission,” have a liturgical and pastoral quality which in some ways anticipate Pusey.
65 Tracts for the Times, pp. 5–6.
66 Newman's Tract No. 11, “The Visible Church,” consisted of two letters to an evangelical, showing that the doctrine of the visible Catholic Church was scriptural. No. 20, with the same title, gives this theme an explicitly anti-romanist turn.
67 Tracts for the Times, pp. 3, 11, 14, 26.
68 It is possible, though doubtful, that the Tract contributed the word “Puseyit” to the language. See Chadwick, Owen, The Spirit of the Oxford Movement: Tractarian Essays (Cambridge, 1990), p. 135Google Scholar. It brought Pusey to a position of leadership for which Keble was unsuited and which Newman had assumed by default.
69 Newman, , Apologia, pp. 86, 87, 73Google Scholar.
70 Newman, , Letters and Diaries, 4: 139nGoogle Scholar.
71 Palmer, , Narrative, pp. 59, 61Google Scholar.
72 Newman, , Apologia, p. 95Google Scholar.