ABSTRACT
The truth is that the Cranmers’ antecedents were obscure and their position humble enough. The elder Cranmer was not, however, long to direct his son’s training in outdoor sports or mental exercises. He died in the prime of life on 27 May, 1501, when his eldest son was fourteen, his second twelve, and his third ten years of age. Cranmer accordingly had no option but to pursue his theological course, but there was ample scope for reform in its methods, and he now began to turn from the mediaeval schoolmen to “Faber, Erasmus, and good Latin authors,” including probably the great Fathers of the Latin Church. Cranmer threw himself into the movement, and the publication of Erasmus’s New Testament in 1516 and of Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses, in 1517 marks the approximate date at which the future English reformer began a systematic examination of the Scriptures.
