Richard Hooker

English theologian

• Born: March 1, 1554
• Birthplace: Heavitree, Exeter, Devon, England
• Died: November 2, 1600
• Place of death: Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury, Kent, England

In his massive prose work, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, Richard Hooker drew on the ideas of earlier philosophers, theologians, and legal scholars to produce a solid rational justification for the form and practice of the Anglican church.

Early Life

Richard Hooker’s father, Roger Hooker, served as a religious leader in Ireland for some years and, though he had not been ordained, was appointed dean of Leighlen. Richard attended grammar school in Exeter, where he exhibited such devotion to his studies, along with so modest a demeanor, that the schoolmaster urged Richard’s parents to keep him in school.

Hooker’s biographer, Izaak Walton (1593-1683), argued that it was Roger’s brother John Hooker, an eminent historian and a member of Parliament, who arranged for John Jewel, bishop of Salisbury, to meet young Richard. Jewel was so impressed with Richard that he helped him secure a place at Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, and helped him financially. In 1568, Richard arrived in Oxford. Assigned as his tutor was John Rainolds, a follower of the Protestant theologian John Calvin.

After Bishop Jewel died in 1571, Hooker supported himself by obtaining grants and by tutoring. In 1573, he became tutor to Edwin Sandys, whose father was bishop of London and later archbishop of York, and to George Cranmer, a great-nephew of the martyred Thomas Cranmer, Henry VIII’s archbishop of Canterbury. The two young men would become lifelong friends of Hooker.

In 1573, Hooker was awarded his bachelor of arts degree and was named a scholar of the college. In 1577, he received his master of arts degree, and in 1579 he became a fellow. Hooker was highly respected at Oxford. He was a diligent scholar who was gifted with a sense of humor, though he was always restrained in his utterances. He took his faith seriously but maintained his composure even as religious controversies swirled around him. This judicious self-control would be reflected in his work.

Life’s Work

By 1581, Richard Hooker had taken holy orders, for he had been asked to deliver a sermon at St. Paul’s Cross on the grounds of St. Paul’s Cathedral. In 1584, Hooker was appointed vicar of St. Mary’s at Drayton Beauchamp Church in Buckinghamshire, but he probably remained at Oxford. Three months later, he was appointed master of the Temple Church in London.

Hooker’s assistant, Walter Travers, a Puritan, began delivering afternoon sermons that denounced Hooker’s morning sermons. Though Hooker did not ask him to intervene, John Whitgift, the archbishop of Canterbury, put an end to the controversy by ordering Travers to cease preaching, so Travers moved on. It is worth noting, however, that neither in their sermons nor in the pamphlets they issued later did either of the two men express anything other than mutual respect.

When he preached at St. Paul’s Cross, Hooker may have spent a night or two at the nearby home of John Churchman, a well-to-do merchant, and he did take up residence there in 1584. In 1940, C. J. Sisson proved that what the early biographers, including Walton, had said about Hooker’s wife, Joan Churchman, was untrue. Joan, the daughter of John Churchman, was not a penniless, ugly girl, foisted off by her mother onto a naive young divine. Moreover, since the marriage did not take place until February 13, 1588, the account of Hooker’s miserable domestic life at Drayton-Beauchamp is patently untrue. In fact, Joan was neither ugly nor poor; her dowry was substantial, and the marriage, which produced two sons and four daughters, was evidently a happy one. Hooker’s relationship with the Churchmans continued to be a harmonious one, for he and his family remained there at least until 1591.

It is thought that Hooker began his great work while he was living at the Churchman home, probably about 1586. Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie (1594-1597, 1648, 1662) may have been inspired by the Travers conflict or perhaps by a 1577 publication by another Puritan, Thomas Cartwright, in an ongoing controversy with Whitgift. It seems likely that Whitgift intended to give Hooker more time for writing, for in 1591, he removed Hooker from the Temple and appointed him rector of Boscombe, near Salisbury. Thus, Hooker was assured of an income, but because his parish duties were assigned to someone else, he could spend most of his time in London, working on his treatise.

By 1593, Hooker had the first four books of his treatise ready for publication, but no printer was interested in them. In the end, Edwin Sandys paid to have them printed, and they appeared the following year; Sandys also arranged for the publication of the fifth book in 1597.

In 1595, Hooker had been appointed rector of Bishopsbourne, near Canterbury. Although he continued to work on his fifth book and on the final three, for the first time Hooker was able to fulfill all the duties of a parish priest. His parishioners admired him for his kindliness, his meekness, and his humility. This unworldly individual became an easy mark for three Puritans, however, who over a period of several months extorted money from him by threatening him with scandal. Finally, Hooker confided in Sandys and Cranmer. Infuriated, his friends forced the culprits to admit their guilt and apologize for their actions. According to Walton, Hooker promptly forgave them.

In 1600, during a trip by water from London to Gravesend, Hooker caught a cold. After months of illness, on November 2, 1600, he died. He was buried in his church at Bishopsbourne. Hooker left his masterpiece unfinished. Scholars agree, however, that only the sixth book was truly incomplete; the seventh and eighth books seem to lack only a final revision. The sixth and eighth books were published in 1648 and the seventh in 1662.

Significance

Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie provided a sound rational justification for the Anglican church that became known as a via media, a middle way between the extremes of Calvinistic Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. Hooker’s work differed from many of the other treatises of his time in its sound scholarship, its impressive use of logic, its breadth of vision, its restrained tone, and its willingness to entertain other opinions. For all these reasons, it has not perished with the passage of time but continues to be a major sourcebook for Anglicans.

The work is read not merely for its theology. Hooker was a magnificent stylist, a writer who could move from voice to voice as the subject demanded. He also was an expert manipulator of the long, periodic sentence, a master of metaphor, and a skillful practitioner of such devices as repetition, alliteration, and antithesis. He was also a brilliant synthesizer. Like Dante Alighieri, Edmund Spenser, and John Milton, he united disparate elements to form a single, lucid, and memorable whole. For all these reasons, Hooker’s Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie is considered one of the highest achievements of human reason and one of the literary masterpieces of all time.

Bibliography

Archer, Stanley. Richard Hooker. Boston: Twayne, 1983. A chapter on Hooker’s “Life and Times” is followed by a well-organized examination of the works. Includes a chronology.

Hooker, Richard. The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker. Vol. 6, Parts 1 and 2. Edited by W. Speed Hill. Binghamton, N.Y.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1993. The important final volume in a massive project. Includes essays by various scholars and extensive textual commentaries.

MacCulloch, Diarmaid. “Richard Hooker’s Reputation.” English Historical Review 117 (September, 2003): 773-813. Examines the attempts made over time by segments of the Anglican church to claim Hooker as a supporter of their various views.

McGrade, Arthur Stephen, ed. Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community. Tempe, Ariz.: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1997. Essays on Hooker’s life and his ideas.

Pollard, Arthur. Richard Hooker. London: Longmans, Green, 1966. A useful monograph, containing brief summaries of each book in The Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie. Also includes sections on the historical context and on literary relationships.

Secor, Philip B. Richard Hooker, Prophet of Anglicanism. Tunbridge Wells, England: Burns & Oates, 2001. The first full biography since that of Izaak Walton, a carefully researched, highly readable book. Includes maps and illustrations.

Sisson, Charles Jasper. The Judicious Marriage of Mr. Hooker and the Birth of The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity. 1940. Reprint. New York: Octagon Press, 1974. This crucial work corrects factual errors in Walton’s biography, including false statements about Hooker’s wife and her family.

Walton, Izaak. The Lives of John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Richard Hooker, George Herbert, and Robert Sanderson. 1670. Reprint. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973. Despite many errors, Walton’s biography remains valuable as a character study of Hooker.