Richard Whitford's Dyuers Holy Instrucyons and Teachynges Very Necessary for the Helth of Mannes Soule
Richard Whitford’s Dyuers Holy Instrucyons
and Teachynges Very Necessary for the
Helth of Mannes Soule is the last printed work written by a brother of the
Brigittine community at Syon Abbey. A vocal opponent of Lutheran reforms and
Henry VIII’s agenda to install himself as the head of the Church of England,
Richard Whitford was also Syon’s most prolific author. His writing provides
pastoral guidance on a range of issues as well as powerful articulations of the
value of religious life during the turbulent years preceding the king’s break
from the Catholic Church. Published in 1541, Dyuers Holy Instrucyons is also the only Syon text printed after the
dissolution of the monasteries. This text thus offers a rare perspective on the concerns of those faithful to the old
religion from a religious brother who actively participated in the abbey’s
campaign against Lutheran reformers. As with his previous work,
Whitford’s Dyuers Holy Instrucyons maintains an openly confrontational stance toward radical reformers
while offering instruction to readers on issues that would certainly have been
topical for faithful who lived after the 1534 Act of Supremacy—issues focussed
on patience, avoiding vice, impediments to spiritual perfection, and
detraction.