‘A Little World without the World’: Ecclesiastical Foundation Myths in English Reformation Thought

As the English Church began to develop in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the question of its origins became highly significant. From the outset the Henrician Reformation had to demonstrate that its claims to national ecclesiastical sovereignty had not been invented by hard-pressed statesmen to extricate the king from an inconvenient deference to the papacy. Thus began an industry that sent scholars delving into the archives in order to recover a historical precedent for independence. Joseph of Arimathea emerged as an early favourite candidate, and King Lucius, Simon Zealot and Aristobulus followed. Then there were the Samotheans, biblical giants that allowed English Reformers to trace their ancestry to Noah. This paper draws on a wide range of contemporary sources in order to explore how the English Reformation struggled with and ultimately failed to provide its Church with a legitimate ancient birth story.