Andrew Borde and the Politics of Identity in Reformation England. Issue 1 (15th July 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shrank, Cathy
• Is Part Of: Reformation. Volume 5:Issue 1(2000)
• Page Start: 1
• Page End: 26
• Publication Date: 2014-07-15
• Subjects: Reformation -- Great Britain -- Periodicals; Reformation -- Periodicals; Church history -- 16th century -- Periodicals; Europe -- Civilization -- 16th century -- Periodicals; Europe -- History -- 1492-1648 -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 940.23
• DOI: 10.1179/ref_2000_5_1_002
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1357-4175

Abstract

Abstract : The impact of the English Reformations on pre-Elizabethan texts has been largely ignored. This article examines how the Henrician Reformation shaped the works of Dr Andrew Borde, active as an author in the 1540s. As a Carthusian monk of the Charterhouse in 1534, at the time of the Sucession Act, Borde was closer than most to the political fallout from Henry VIII's break with Rome. He consequently used both his private letters and, later, his published works to shape a sufficiently loyal and unsubversive image with which to negotiate his way through the un-Romish England of the 1530s and 1540s. Through his travel writings and medical handbooks, he attempted to distance himself from his monastic past, celebrating in particular the joys of alcohol and red meat restricted by the austere Carthusian order. Nevertheless, despite his noisy refutation of his previous cloistered lifestyle and occasional diatribes against Rome, Borde still adhered to the tenets of the Roman Church. The final section of the essay explores the pressure this conflict placed on Borde's texts, his continued association with Catholic circles through the dedicatees of his books, and his posthumous vilification as an unreformed 'papist'.