Every year on November 3rd, I wake up ever so slightly excited. This is because in the Church of England’s calendar, Richard Hooker (1554-1600) is commemorated on this day. I get excited because it means I have the perfect excuse to talk to my friends, my colleagues, or indeed any unfortunate passerby about Richard Hooker. 

My excitement, however, does not usually last very long. It normally peters out at Morning Prayer, when an innocent soul proclaims Hooker to be the inventor of the via media (middle way) between “popery” and “puritanism” or between “Catholicism” and “Protestantism” that today we might call Anglicanism. (1) Hooker can indeed be seen as a prominent figure in the development of what we now broadly call Anglicanism; however, Hooker being considered the “inventor of Anglicanism” is not much more than a myth. (2) 

The complexity of Hooker’s legacy is precisely the reason why he is such an exciting and fascinating figure to study. He certainty comes with a lot of baggage. Likewise, an awful lot of weight has been put on him by several generations of thinkers, theologians, and everyday Anglicans over the past four hundred years. The myth and legend of Hooker has slightly eclipsed the sixteenth-century man. The issue is that it can, at times, be rather daunting to approach a figure who is subject to so much scholarly debate and tension. And one ought to admit, he is also quite a tricky figure to approach thanks to his often cryptic and dense style of writing. He also did write quite a lot!

My hope, therefore, is that by exploring the life of Hooker and his thoughts on two key subjects – the authority of scripture and ecclesiastical polity (a fancy way to say church governance) – you might find the confidence to delve deeper into the fascinating legacy of Richard Hooker. 

So, let’s go on a short journey to discover who the real Hooker was and what he believed.

Richard Hooker was born in the mid-sixteenth century, in a village not too far from the city of Exeter in the south-west of England. By the time he was born in 1554, the turmoil of the Reformation in England was well underway. Henry VIII had already separated the English Church from the pope; the first two versions of the Book of Common Prayer had been published during the reign of Edward VI; and, for the first four years of Hooker’s life, Catholicism had been briefly revived in England under the reign of Mary I. 

Hooker attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford where he later taught Hebrew, and was eventually ordained as a priest. In 1585, Hooker was appointed Master of the Temple Church in London. It was here that one of the most famous episodes of his life took place. Hooker came into conflict with the Reader of the Temple, Walter Travers. This was inevitable as Hooker supported the episcopacy (bishops) while Travers was presbyterian (doesn’t like bishops). However, some of their arguments were slightly technical, pedantic, and tedious. Travers, for example, argued that Hooker was wrong to preach that Catholics actively believing in the “superstitions of Rome” could be saved. For Travers any Catholics who attained salvation must have died ignorant of the truth rather than actively believing in erroneous Roman superstitions. The ensuing series of tit-for-tat disagreements from the same pulpit, led the archbishop of Canterbury, John Whitgift (c.1530-1604), to silence both men from preaching in 1586. (3)

Fueled by his disagreements with Travers, Hooker began to write his magnum opus. He even left the Temple and returned to parish ministry in Wiltshire to spend more time writing. Eventually, in 1593 he published the first four volumes of his most well-known book: Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie. The fifth volume was then published a few years later in 1597. However, the final three volumes of the Lawes were published after Hooker’s death. 

With that, the time has come to don our snorkels and delve deep into Hooker’s Lawes. But where in this eight-volume epic is the best place to start? Hooker himself might want us to begin with scripture, and that does feel the most appropriate place to begin! 

Hooker is often identified as the first proponent of the three-legged stool of scripture, reason, and tradition. Funnily enough, Hooker never used the phrase in his own works. It is also important to recognize that scriptural sufficiency was a central discussion running throughout Hooker’s Lawes. For Hooker there was a very clear hierarchy. In matters concerning salvation, scripture was paramount. (4) This conformed to Article 6 of the Articles of Religion which states: “Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation …” If the matter being discussed is not salvific, or if there is nothing in scripture concerning it, then other authorities can be explored. In the fifth volume, Hooker summarized this position, writing, “what scripture does plainly deliver, to that the first place of both credit and obedience is due; the next whereto is whatsoever any man can necessarily conclude by force of reason; after these the voice of the Church succeeds”. (5) 

Hooker’s approach to scripture, however, is not interpreted without contention. For some, primarily evangelical interpreters, Hooker was a clear supporter of scriptural supremacy. But others have suggested that Hooker’s position is much more nuanced. (6) Hooker warned against presenting the scriptures as plain and simple without the need for considered interpretation. He writes, “An earnest desire to draw all things to the determination of bare and naked scripture, has caused here much pains.” (7) 

Hooker did not intend to depart from the doctrine of sola scriptura with his support of natural law. Rather, he balanced the roles of law discoverable through reason with law revealed through scripture. (8) The issue is that it can be misleading if one presents Hooker’s association with what we now call the three-legged stool without expressing his first-and-foremost prioritization of scripture. Scripture however needs to be treated with delicate care and consideration and is only supreme in the maters which it concerns – principally salvation. 

For Hooker in matters where scripture did not offer a definitive answer and where reason might point towards multiple valid options, one had liberty to determine the best way forward. Hooker described these matters as “indifferent” or adiaphora. (9) The main subject of Hooker’s Lawes, ecclesiastical polity, was one such “matter indifferent”. Hooker defended the governance of the Church of England by the monarch and by bishops, but he did not believe this was the only legitimate way the Church could be governed. The status quo was simply the best way in his opinion.

Fundamentally, Hooker is best remembered not as the inventor of a unique form of Anglicanism but as an avid conformist. He was defending the norms of the Elizabethan Church against the challenging views of thinkers such as his former arch-rival, Travers. In particular he defended the episcopacy; the supremacy of the monarch and parliament in ecclesiastical affairs; and defended the Church of England’s “establishment” – that is its position as the official state church.

During his lifetime, however, he faced strong criticism and his publisher struggled to sell copies of the Lawes. (10) Yet, in the centuries after his death, something happened which transformed Richard Hooker’s reputation. 

He was resurrected and made into something more than a defender of the Elizabethan Settlement with Reformed credentials. He began to be given a greater role as some form of proto-Anglican divine. The chief architect of Hooker’s mythologization was his second biographer, Izaak Walton, who presented him as a saintly, virtuous, and prudent figure.  Several hundred years later, John Keble and John Henry Newman cemented Hooker’s association with the via media. It should be stressed that Hooker did not once use the phrases “via media”, “three-legged stool”, or “Anglicanism” in his entire corpus of writing. 

Throughout the centuries, it became fashionable for radically different groups to claim aspects of Hooker’s views. He was adopted by King Charles I and his divisive high-church archbishop William Laud; by the broad-minded Latitudinarians; the heterodox Great Tew Circle; the Anglo-Catholic Tractarians in Oxford; the crypto-papist politician John Good; and even some “puritans” along the way! The simplest explanation for his appropriation by a range of incompatible groups is that Hooker’s writing was idiosyncratic and at times difficult to follow. His arguments have consequently been continuously difficult to pin-point. (11)

The mission for modern scholars has been to rescue the real Hooker from the myth that has eclipsed him. Hooker is therefore presented not as the inventor of Anglicanism or the via media, rather, as a defender of the Elizabethan status quo and a Reformed theologian at heart. (12)

The absolute joy of studying Richard Hooker is that it would not be too difficult to find another author who might entirely disagree with this interpretation. Therefore, the best thing for you to do is delve in. Read a range of opinions, and begin to form your own. I’ll simply be content hunting down those who disagree with me and spending several hours in the pub discussing one of my favorite topics!

(1) For the worst offender see: Exciting Holiness (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 1997), 387.

(2) “Inventor of Anglicanism” from: Peter Lake, Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterians and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988), 230.

(3) Peter McCullough, “Avant-Garde Conformity in the 1590s,” in The Oxford History of Anglicanism, Volume I: Reformation and Identity, c. 1520-1662, ed. Anthony Milton (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 382.

(4) Richard Hooker, Of the Lawes of Ecclesiasticall Politie, I.8, 61. References to the Lawes are from Richard Hooker: of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, ed. Arthur S. McGrade, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

(5) Lawes, V.8, 25.

(6) See: Jonathan Clatworthy, “Richard Hooker’s view on the authority of scripture,” (2009) https://www.clatworthy.org/theology/bible/hooker-scripture/ 

(7) Lawes, II.7, 124.

(8) W. J. Torrance Kirby, “Richard Hooker’s Discourse on Natural Law in the Context of the Magisterial Reformation,” Animus 3, (1998): 30-49, 49.

(9) Lawes, II.4, 109-113.

(10) Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Richard Hooker’s Reputation,” in A Companion to Richard Hooker, ed. W. J. Torrance Kirby, (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 573.

(11) Michael A. Brydon, The Evolving Reputation of Richard Hooker: An Examination of Responses 1600-1714, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 203.

(12) See: Diarmaid MacCulloch, “Richard Hooker: Invention and Re-Invention,” Ecclesiastical Law Journal 21, no 2 (2019): 137-152.