(Also vestiarian crisis or edification crisis, the latter term arising from the debate over whether vestments, though a "thing indifferent"/adiaphora, should not be tolerated because they were not "edifying." The term and concept comes from 1 Corinthians 14.26, which reads in the 1535 Miles Coverdale version: "How is it then brethren? Whan ye come together, euery one hath a psalme, hath doctryne, hath a tunge, hath a reuelacion, hath an interpretacion. Let all be done to edifyenge.")
A controversy in the English Reformation ostensibly concerning clerical garb but more fundamentally concerned with English Protestant identity, doctrine, and church practices. First initiated by John Hooper's rejection of clerical vestments in the Church of England under Edward VI and revived by Robert Crowley under Elizabeth I, the controversy presaged and was the breeding ground of future division between conservative Anglicans and Puritans.
The Controversy During the Reign of Edward VI
A Henrician exile, on his return to England in 1549 from the churches in Zurich that had been reformed by Zwingli and Bullinger in a highly iconoclastic fashion, John Hooper became a leading Protestant reformer under the patronage of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and subsequently John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland (later the Earl of Warwick), Hooper's fortunes were unchanged, as Warwick favored his reformist agenda.) When Hooper was invited to give a series of Lenten sermons before the king in February 1550, he spoke against the 1549 ordinal whose oath mentioned "all saints" and required newly elected bishops and those attending the ordination ceremony to wear a cope and surplice. In Hooper's view, these requirements were vestiges of Judaism and Roman Catholicism that had no biblical warrant for Christians since they were not used in the early Christian church.
Summoned to answer to the Privy Council and Archbishop--who were primarily concerned with Hooper's willingness to accept the royal supremacy , which was also part of the oath for newly ordained clergy--Hooper evidently made sufficient reassurances as he was soon appointed to the bishopric of Gloucester. Hooper declined the office, however, because of the required vestments and oath by the saints. This act violated the 1549 Act of Uniformity which made declining the appointment without good cause a crime against the king and state, so Hooper was called to answer to the king. The king accepted Hooper's position, but the privy council did not. Called before them on May 15, 1550, a compromise was reached. Vestments were to be considered a matter of indifference, and Hooper could be ordained without them, but he must allow that others could wear them.
Hooper passed confirmation of the new office again before the king and council on July 20, 1550, when the issue was raised again, and Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was instructed that Hooper was not to be charged "with an oath burdensome to his conscience." Cranmer, however, assigned Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London to perform the consecration, and Ridley refused to do anything but follow the form of the ordinal as it had been prescribed by parliament. A reformist himself and not always a strict follower of the ordinal, it seems likely that Ridley had some particular objection to Hooper. It has been suggested that Henrician exiles like Hooper who experienced some of the more radically reformed churches on the continent were at odds with English clergy who had accepted and never left the established church. J. H. Primus also notes that on July 24, 1550, the day after receiving instructions for Hooper's unique consecration, the church of the Augustinian friars in London had been granted for use as a Stranger church with the freedom to employ their own rites and ceremonies. This development--a London church virtually outside Ridley's jurisdiction--was one that Hooper had had a hand in. In any event the Privy Council reiterated its position, and Ridley responded in person, agreeing that vestments are adiaphora but making a compelling argument that the monarch may require them without exception. The council became divided in opinion, and the issue dragged on for months without resolution until an acrimonious debate with Ridley went against Hooper's favor, centering on order and authority, not the vestments themselves. Bullinger, Pietro Martire Vermigli, and Martin Bucer ceased to support Hooper; only John a Lasco remained a constant ally. Hooper eventually submitted to consecration in vestments after being jailed in 1551 at Lambeth Palace and then in the Fleet.
The Hooper-Ridley Debate
The Controversy During the Reign of Elizabeth I
