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TheOxford Movement was a theological movement ofhigh-church members of theChurch of England which began in the 1830s and eventually developed intoAnglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose original devotees were mostly associated with theUniversity of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of some older Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglicanliturgy andtheology. They thought ofAnglicanism as one ofthree branches of the "one, holy, catholic, and apostolic"Christian Church. Many key participants subsequently converted toRoman Catholicism.
Tractarianism, the movement's philosophy, was named after a series of publications, theTracts for the Times, written to promote the movement. Tractarians were often disparagingly referred to as "Newmanites" (before 1845) and "Puseyites", after two prominent Tractarians,John Henry Newman andEdward Bouverie Pusey. Other well-known Tractarians includedJohn Keble,Charles Marriott,Richard Froude,Robert Wilberforce,Isaac Williams andWilliam Palmer. All except Williams and Palmer were fellows ofOriel College, Oxford.
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In the early nineteenth century, many of theclergymen of theChurch of England, particularly those in high office, saw themselves aslatitudinarian (liberal). Conversely, many clergy in the parishes wereEvangelicals, as a result of the revival led byJohn Wesley. Alongside this, the universities became the breeding ground for a movement to restore liturgical and devotional customs whichborrowed deeply from traditions before theEnglish Reformation, as well as from contemporary Roman Catholic traditions.[1]
The immediate impetus for the Tractarian movement was a perceived attack by thereformingWhig administration onestablished churches of the United Kingdom. TheIrish Church Temporalities Bill (1833) provided for the merging of dioceses and provinces of theChurch of Ireland and the elimination ofvestry assessment (church rates or "parish cess", which allowed vestries, i.e. the local ecclesiastical government of a parish, to tax the entire population), a grievance in theTithe War. Some politicians and clergy (including a number ofWhigs) feared this as a preliminary to similar attacks on the Church of England, leading eventually todisestablishment and loss of its endowments.[2]John Keble criticised these proposals as "National Apostasy" in hisAssize Sermon in Oxford in 1833, in which he denied the authority of theBritish Parliament to abolishdioceses in Ireland.[3]
TheGorham Case, in whichsecular courts overruled an ecclesiastical court over a priest with unorthodox views on the efficacy ofinfant baptism, was also deeply unsettling. Keble,Edward Bouverie Pusey, Newman, and others began to publish a series known asTracts for the Times, which called the Church of England to return to the ways of the ancient and undivided church in matters of doctrine, liturgy and devotion.[3]
The so-called Tractarians believed that the Church of England needed to affirm that its authority did not come from the state, but from God. Even if the Anglican Church were completely separated from the state, it could still claim the loyalty of Englishmen because it rested on divine authority and the principle of apostolic succession.[4] With a wide distribution and a price in pennies, the Tracts succeeded in drawing attention to the views of the Oxford Movement on points of doctrine, but also to its overall approach.
The Tractarians postulated theBranch Theory, which states that Anglicanism, along withEastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, form three "branches" of the historic pre-schism Catholic Church. Tractarians argued for the inclusion of traditional aspects of liturgy from medieval religious practice, as they believed the church had become too "plain". In the final tract, "Tract 90", Newman argued that the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church, as defined by theCouncil of Trent, were compatible with theThirty-Nine Articles of the 16th-century Church of England. Newman's eventual reception into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845, followed byHenry Edward Manning in 1851, had a profound effect on the movement,[5] calling into question thevia media betweenLow Church Anglicanism and Roman Catholicism.
Apart from theTracts for the Times, the key Tractarians began to translate the works of theChurch Fathers, published asLibrary of the Fathers. The collection eventually comprised 48 volumes, the last published three years after Pusey's death. They were issued throughRivington's company with the imprint of the Holyrood Press, mainly edited byCharles Marriott. A number of volumes of original Greek and Latin texts were also published. Another main contribution was thehymnbook entitledHymns Ancient and Modern published in 1861.
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The Oxford Movement was criticised as being a mere "Romanising" tendency, but it began to influence the theory and practice of Anglicanism more broadly, spreading to cities such asBristol during the 1840s-50s.[6] The Oxford Movement was also criticised as both secretive and collusive.[7]
The Oxford Movement resulted in the establishment ofAnglican religious orders, both of men and of women. It incorporated ideas and practices related to the practice ofliturgy and ceremony to incorporate more powerful emotionalsymbolism in the church. In particular, it brought the insights of theLiturgical Movement into the life of the church. Its effects were so widespread that theEucharist gradually became more central toworship,vestments became common, and numerous Roman Catholic practices were re-introduced into worship. This led to controversies within churches that resulted in court cases, as in thedispute about ritualism.
Many of the Tractarian priests began working inslums. This was partly because bishops refused to give livings to Tractarian priests, and partly due to an ethos of concern for the poor. From their new ministries, they developed a critique ofBritish social policy, both local and national. One of the results was the establishment of theChristian Social Union, of which a number of bishops were members, where issues such as the just wage, the system of property renting,infant mortality and industrial conditions were debated. The more radical Catholic Crusade was a much smaller organisation than the Oxford Movement.Anglo-Catholicism – as this complex of ideas, styles and organisations became known – had a significant influence on global Anglicanism.
Gu Hongming, an early twentieth-century Chinese author, used the concept of the Oxford Movement to argue for a return to traditionalConfucianism inChina.[8]
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One of the principal writers and proponents of Tractarianism wasJohn Henry Newman, a popular Oxford priest who, after writing his final tract, "Tract 90", became convinced that theBranch Theory was inadequate. Concerns that Tractarianism was disguised Roman Catholicism were not unfounded; Newman believed that the Roman and Anglican churches were wholly compatible. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845 and was ordained a Catholic priest two years later.[9] He later became a cardinal (but not a bishop). Writing on the end of Tractarianism as a movement, Newman stated:
I saw indeed clearly that my place in the Movement was lost; public confidence was at an end; my occupation was gone. It was simply an impossibility that I could say any thing henceforth to good effect, when I had been posted up by the marshal on the buttery-hatch of every College of my University, after the manner of discommoned pastry-cooks, and when in every part of the country and every class of society, through every organ and opportunity of opinion, in newspapers, in periodicals, at meetings, in pulpits, at dinner-tables, in coffee-rooms, in railway carriages, I was denounced as a traitor who had laid his train and was detected in the very act of firing it against the time-honoured Establishment.[10]
Newman was one of a number of Anglican clergy who were received into the Roman Catholic Church during the 1840s who were either members of, or were influenced by, Tractarianism.
Other people influenced by Tractarianism who became Roman Catholics included:
