ABSTRACT
The rejection of medieval chronicles and hagiography as 'lying histories fayning false miracles' did not exclude the saints and their lives from the controversies of the Reformation. The process by which the heroes of the national past were recast as traitors, deceivers and conjurors both inspired and reflected the changes that had taken place in attitudes to sanctity, the supernatural and the sacred past. As true and false doctrine clashed in evangelical interpretations of the history of the church, so the defining characteristics of sainthood, including miracles, chastity and the defence of the church were subject to the same iconoclastic impulse that saw images of the saints removed from the churches. The reinterpretation and reconstruction of the lives of the saints in Reformation polemic is highly revealing of the changing priorities of evangelical writers and the national church. The pope outlined his case against Henry VIII.
