Abstract
Richard Hooker was the most influential theologian of the late Elizabethan age. He was a student of theology from 1569 in Oxford, and his tutor was the influential Puritan and theologian, John Rainolds. From 1579 Hooker taught Hebrew and was later appointed Master of the Temple in London in 1585, where his sermons emerged as a vision of a religion that was far removed from any radicalism and inspired by the belief in a merciful God. While he was Master of the Temple, he had a long dispute with the Puritan Walter Travers, who accused him of excessive moderation. The most important works of Hooker were the eight books Of the Lawes of Ecclesiastical Politie, where the theologian defended the still young Anglican via media of the pressures of the Presbyterian Puritans and the counter-reformed Catholics. The Lawes reflect the theological disputes that Hooker had while at the Temple with Travers on soteriology and ecclesiology. In the eight books, Hooker decisively shaped the doctrinal, political, and official profile of Anglicanism: the theologian reaffirmed the principle of the sola scriptura, the legitimacy of the episcopate, and of the Anglican liturgical forms adopted in the Church of England. Above all, Richard Hooker argued vigorously in favor of the full legitimacy of the laws which were divided into revelation, reason, and tradition, and they also accounted for the insurmountable limit that the royal power could not exceed. His legacy was changing: from the traditional view of the theoretics of Anglicanism, Hooker’s thoughts were interpreted in various ways, through virtue of the multiplicity of the ideas and theories that pervaded his work so that no category could confirm and contain, once and for all, his thinking which was his major work.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Primary Literature
Hooker, Richard. 1612a. A learned and comfortable sermon of the certaintie and perpetuitie of faith in the elect especially of the prophet Habakkuks faith. Oxford: Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold by John Barnes.
Hooker, Richard. 1612b. A learned discourse of justification, workes, and how the foundation of faith is overthrowne. Oxford: Joseph Barnes, and are to be sold by John Barnes.
Hooker, Richard. 1993–1998. The Folger Library Edition of the Works of Richard Hooker, ed. W. Speed Hill, New York: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies. 7 vols. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Hooker, Richard. 2013. A critical edition with modern spelling. In Of the laws of ecclesiastical polity, ed. Arthur S. McGrade. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Secondary Literature
Atkinson, Nigel. 1997. Richard Hooker and the authority of Scripture, tradition and reason: Reformed theologian of the Church of England? Carlisle: Paternoster Press.
Avis, Paul. 2002. Anglicanism and the Christian Church: Theological resources in historical perspective. London: T&T Clark.
Beiser, Frederick C. 1996. The sovereignty of reason: The defense of rationality in the early English enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Brydon, Michael. 2007. The evolving reputation of Richard Hooker: An examination of responses, 1600–1714. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collinson, Peter. 1997. Hooker and the Elizabethan Establishment. In Richard Hooker and the Construction of Christian Community, ed. Andrews S. McGrade, 149–181. Tempe: Medieval & Renaissance TExt & Studies.
Eppley, Daniel. 2008. Royal Supremacy. In A Companion to Richard Hooker, ed. W.J. Torrance Kirby, 503–534. Leiden: Brill.
Lake, Peter. 1988. Anglicans and puritans? Presbyterianism and English conformist thought from Whitgift to Hooker. London: Unwin Hayman.
Lynch, Jack. 2004. Johnson and Hooker on ecclesiastical and civil polity. Review of English Studies 55: 45–59.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. 2008. Reputation and reception. In A Companion to Richard Hooker, ed. W.J. Torrance Kirby, 563–612. Leiden: Brill.
McGrade, Andrew S. 2004. “Hooker, Richard (1554–1600)”. In Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/13696. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13696, accessed 18 Oct 2016.
Secor, Philip B. 1999. Richard Hooker, prophet of Anglicanism. London: Burns&Oates.
Shagan, Ethan H., and Deborah Shuger, eds. 2016. Religion in Tudor England. An anthology of primary sources. Waco: Baylor University Press.
Torrance Kirby, W.J. 1990. Richard Hooker’s doctrine of the royal supremacy. Brill: Leiden.
Torrance Kirby, W.J., ed. 2008. A companion to Richard Hooker. Brill: Leiden.
Vickers, Brian. 1997. Public and private rhetoric in Hooker’s Lawes. In Richard Hooker and the construction of Christian community, ed. Arthur S. McGrade, 95–145. Tempe: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies.
Voak, Nigel. 2003. Richard Hooker and reformed theology. A study of reason, will and grace. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Colavecchia, S. (2022). Hooker, Richard. In: Sgarbi, M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_508
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14169-5_508
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-14168-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-14169-5
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Humanities