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Richard Hooker
1554 ? - 1600 |
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| Richard Hooker was an eminent theologian and is reputed to be "the founding father of Anglican theology". He was born near Exeter - in 1554, it is thought - and was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he became an M.A. and Fellow in 1579 and deputy Hebrew professor in 1579. His close associate at Oxford was Sir Edwyn
Sandys, who took part in translating the Bible of 1573 and later became Archbishop of York.
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From Oxford, Richard Hooker moved to his first incumbency at
St. Mary the Virgin, Drayton Beauchamp, a position he held during 1584 aand 1585. A popular anecdote tells of Hooker being unhappy in his role due partly to a discontented wife and crying baby and a requirement for him to tend the sheep in the fields around the church. However, more accurate historical records show that Hooker did not marry until the year 1588 - the story possibly arose from his biography written by Izaak Walton as late as 1666, which was frequently re-edited.
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 Drayton Beauchamp Church at the time of Hooker's Incumbency |
In 1585, Hooker moved from Drayton Beauchamp to become Master of the Temple church in London. His appointment followed the death of the second Master of the Temple, Richard
Alvey. The story goes that the deputy - the Reader, Richard Travers,
expected to be promoted, but because of his extreme Puritan views, this did not happen and Richard Hooker became the new Master.
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On Hooker's arrival at the Temple, a unique situation arose. Each Sunday morning he would preach his sermon; each Sunday afternoon Travers, the assistant, would contradict Hooker in his! People came to call it
'The Battle of the Pulpit', saying mischievously that Canterbury (Anglicanism) was preached in the morning and Geneva (Puritanism) in the afternoon.
There was a lasting result of all this. Richard Hooker published his teaching, four books in 1594 and a fifth book in 1597 of
"The Laws of Eccleiasticall Polite". Other books were published after his death, the sixth and eighth in 1648 and the seventh in 1662. In the course of these writings, Hooker sets forth the Anglican view of the Church, and the Anglican approach to the discovery of religious truth (the so-called Via Media or middle road) and explains how this differs from the position of the Puritans on the one hand, and the adherents of the Pope, on the other.
The books are very heavy reading today. The early volumes were attacked by the Puritans in "A Christian Letter to certaine English Protestants" (1599). Others defended the works, including King James I and Charles I, and praised Hooker for their style.
Richard Hooker also served the church in
Boscombe, Wiltshire and as Rector of Bishopbourne, Kent between 1595 and 1600.
He died on 3rd November 1600 - and
in November 2000 a special service led by the Bishop of Oxford, was
held at St. Mary's to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his death.
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 The
Pulpit at the Temple Church |
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