Thomas Cranmer’s Register records turbulent change in England and Wales between 1533 and 1553. The crown abolished Roman jurisdiction, and the first steps towards the creation of a Protestant state were made. As archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer was a seminal figure in these developments, and his register is a key Reformation document.

The physical register at Lambeth Palace has been out of reach for many scholars. Paul Ayris’s extraordinary edition makes more of the text available to readers than ever before, with transcriptions and editorial introductions that illuminate the sometimes cryptic sixteenth-century text. Here, the appointment of Cranmer to Canterbury (at the hands of the papacy) in 1533 is recorded. Commissions and letters reveal how the crown assumed authority over the church and, through Thomas Cromwell as vicegerent in spirituals, supplanted the role of the archbishop as the principal minister of the king’s spiritual jurisdiction. The work suggests a new explanation for the inclusion/exclusion of the stipulation in the 1536 royal Injunctions concerning the Bible in English. Moreover, unpublished records for the diocese of Norwich in 1550 reveal that the order for removing altars in English churches emanated from Thomas Cranmer not, as is usually thought, from the bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley. This edition will be a touchstone reference for global scholars of the Tudor period.

Published in association with the Canterbury and York Society