Freedom of Expression/Philosophical Origins/Tradition contributions/Reformation Christianity

Freedom of Expression

What have religious and philosophical traditions contributed to our understanding of this right?

Reformation Christianity

The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries sparked new discussions about mankind’s freedom of the conscience, belief, and to some extent, expression. Reformers from all over Europe produced writings on these freedoms, but they generally thought about these rights as they related to questions of theology. As a result, Reformation discourse focused more on a Christian’s freedom of conscience than on the citizen’s right to express their beliefs. The right to freedom of expression was explored, but much less broadly. English philosophers Thomas More and Thomas Wilson are two of the only Reformation-era thinkers to directly address the right, but their work influenced England’s political development regarding free speech over the next several centuries. Wilson’s support for the Reformation guided his views on the necessity of free expression, while More’s views were less religiously-motivated. More, who would eventually be martyred for his refusal to renounce Catholicism, made his most significant contribution to the English discourse on the right to free expression before the Anglican Reformation even began. In 1523, eleven years before English King Henry VIII announced a split from the Catholic Church, his newly-appointed Speaker of the House of Commons made a petition for freedom of speech within Parliament. The Speaker was none other than Sir Thomas More, who would later oppose Henry’s Anglican Reformation at the cost of his own life. He argued that Parliament could not be expected to form effective policy if its members were not allowed to speak honestly, saying that “it may therefore like your most abundant Grace, our most benign and godly King, to give to all your Commons here assembled your most gracious licence and pardon, freely, without doubt of your dreadful displeasure, every man to discharge his conscience, and boldly in everything incident among us to declare his advice, and whatsoever happen any man to say” (More, 1523). More’s insistence on the value of free speech within a legislative body is far removed from advancing the citizen’s right to freedom of expression, but it reveals that English Reformation-era thinkers were beginning to reconsider the permissibility of magisterial censorship as early as the 1520s. While More was ultimately executed for remaining loyal to the Catholic Church during the Anglican Reformation, his conviction that one ought to be able to speak their mind without fear of legal retribution endured. About twenty years after More’s speech, Thomas Wilson made a similar statement about freedom of expression in his 1553 work, The Arte of Rhetorique. Wilson was an English writer whose Protestant views led Catholic Queen Mary I of England to summon him out of his mid-sixteenth century exile in Italy to stand trial for heresy, and his Protestant tendencies seem to have guided his thoughts on freedom and liberty. In an introduction to The Arte of Rhetorique, George Herbert Mair asserts that “there is no mistaking [Wilson’s] zeal for the Reformation. It shines through everything he wrote, and the reader of the Logike and the [Rhetorique] will have no cause to wonder at the papal persecution of his works” (Mair, 1908). Perhaps this avid support for the Reformation movement influenced his thoughts on freedom, not only of the conscience but also of speech itself. A passage from The Arte states that “Freeness of speech is when we speak boldly and without fear, even to the proudest of them, whatsoever we please or have list to speak. Diogenes, herein did excell..this world wants such as he was” (Wilson, 1553). Like More, Wilson understood the value of free speech. Though he does not speak in this passage of a citizen’s right to freedom of expression, he was at least aware of the potential benefits that this liberty could have within political society. In fact, according to a 1981 article in The Sixteenth Century Journal, Wilson advanced the discourse on freedom of speech by “claiming that freedom of speech is a generally acknowledged duty to be exercised by anyone, not restricted to parliamentary debate” (Parkin-Speer, “Freedom of Speech in Sixteenth Century English Rhetorics”). Both More and Wilson made important contributions to the Reformation-era discourse on freedom of expression, but neither would live to see England’s official legislation of the right to freedom of speech within Parliamentary debate. This only occurred after the Glorious Revolution, in which William, Prince of Orange and newly crowned King of England, signed the English Bill of Rights in 1689. The Bill reflected England’s newfound stability within the European religious community by declaring the country a “Protestant Kingdom” and forbidding any Catholic from taking the throne or marrying into the royal family (English Bill of Rights). It also became the first early-modern document to legislate freedom of expression when its text guaranteed “that the freedom of speech and debates or proceedings in Parliament ought not to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament” (English Bill of Rights). The document went into effect near the end of the Anglican Reformation movement, over a century after Wilson’s death, so it is unclear to what extent he or More influenced its creation. While The Arte of Rhetorique w as known in academic circles, its call for freedom of speech was not fully answered by the Bill, which only guaranteed that right within Parliamentary debate. The Bill’s text more closely resembles More’s 1523 speech, which specifically refers to freedom of speech within Parliamentary debate. Scholarship has yet to establish a direct link between the Bill and either of the two documents, but it is nevertheless important to note the importance of both writers’ work in advancing English discourse on the right to freedom of expression. REFERENCES: Avalon Project - English Bill of Rights 1689, avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp. More, Thomas. “Thomas More Petition for Free Speech, 1523.” The Center for Thomas More Studies, www.thomasmorestudies.org/docs/Thomas%20More%20Petition%20for%20Free%20Sp eech.pdf. Parkin-Speer, Diane. “Freedom of Speech in Sixteenth Century English Rhetorics.” The Sixteenth Century Journal, vol. 12, no. 3, 1981, pp. 65–72. JSTOR. Wilson, Thomas. “The Arte of Rhetorique, with ‘Introduction.’” Edited by George Herbert Mair, The Art of Rhetoric, Renascence Editions, www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/arte/arte.htm.