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J R H Moorman in Who' Who
John Richard Humpidge Moorman   A History of the Church in England   Review by Rae West. — The C of E in old age   (added 22 Sept 2023)

J R H Moorman (1905-1989) was a lifelong 'Divine' in northern England.   His Who's Who entry for 1948 (when he was in his early 40s, and of course a few years after the nominal end of the Second World War) gives some idea of his career. Musing over a copy of his A History of the Church of England may perhaps lead others to wonder over this organisation.

[1] His father was Professor F W Moorman (1872-1919), who, says Wikipedia, was an expert on Yorkshire dialect. He wrote and edited poems; Since reading Miles Mathis on Ewan MacColl (Jew with a fake name who wrote fake folk songs) I've been suspicious of folk, unless more-or-less guaranteed genuine, and indeed Songs of the Ridings includes The New Englishman with a mention of Marx. Among other such items.
      He had obscure origins, including Germany. And secured an appointment in the English department of what was then known as the Yorkshire College, in Leeds. Leeds was and is somewhat of a Jewish area. This became the University of Leeds. His books included a 1910 private-print The Place-Names of the West Riding of Yorkshire, taken apparently from local source material, very possibly from Yorkshire College's shelves. He died relatively young, and was succeeded, not immediately, by J R R Tolkien. I found little on his wife, surnamed Humpidge.

[2] Moorman's Who's Who entry says little on his early life, as of course is usual in such condensed summaries. It does reveal that, aged about 25, he married the daughter of G M Trevelyan, a British historian who became very popular with his social history lite history books. Moorman had in my view a similar approach to history to Trevelyan's: it can be compared to family histories of the innocent type, where 100 years is a very long time, and the extended family members lead acceptable lives of the time, but varied by chance—A joined the army and was killed, B worked at the great house of Lord X, and C was the brains of the family, becoming a doctor in days when microscopy was new. I was impressed, but not favourably, by Moorman, who produces one story after another—William the Conqueror encouraging theological debate, an Archbishop refusing to accept some decision, the Church at the time of Cromwell, an over-confident description of the disagreeable character of a man dead for 1,000 years—entirely local and English, omitting greater events in the outside world. In particular, he says nothing about Jewish ideas or Jewish finance; his implicit view is that they don't exist—though possibly he may have suppressed them. Freemasons are not mentioned at all, though bishops were members—Martin Short's The Brotherhood gives some information.
      In this way, the motive impulses and complicated origins are omitted, giving, to me at least, an impression of an organic subject truncated, like cut flowers, with its evidence of old growths deleted.

[3] Digression on A & C Black, originally of Edinburgh. I thought, wrongly, that these publishers specialised in ecclesiastical works of respectability but not of popularity. My copy has fairly bright blue covers, stamped in gold. First printed 1953; then, after some amended reprints, a 1967 second edition. At these times, there were vast changes in the world, but not in Moorman's world; one can almost smell the cloisters and his copies of the Daily Telegraph.
      1807 seems to be the founding date, splendidly 19th century. I suspect their policy was to cut costs; they obtained rights to some of Walter Scott's novels, and the Encyclopædia Britannica at least in the UK, and Who's Who.
      They moved to Soho Square in London; there are accounts online. And a Dean Street address.
      In 1913 there was a cryptic shake-up in the world of money: Jewish bankers got together and arranged the Federal Reserve in the USA, which has had a little-recognised but important interest, permitting wars and propaganda to grow to a so-far unlimited extent.
      In 2000 they seem to have been taken over by Bloomsbury, after Harry Potter had started its printing runs. Maybe Black and Black could handle huge print runs. It's fair to say Who's Who is a full part of Jewish publishing: probably it always was.

[4] At last—my review of Moorman!

Since we are where we are now, let's look backwards in time and summarise the Church. But note of course that much of its activities have been as secret as the Federal Reserve. Moorman is a naïve believer; even if the evidence were there, his book shows he has little interest in such hard work.

Looking back, Moorman divides the Church's time into epochs, each of which is regarded as more-or-less inevitable, intervals to be accepted by the Church, provided at least that the income flows. I may as well quote his chapter titles, with some supporting detail:–

PART I: ROMAN AND ANGLO-SAXON
I. THE CHURCH IN BRITAIN BEFORE 597
II. THE CONVERSION OF ENGLAND (597-664)
III. CONSOLIDATION AND ADVANCE (664-793)
IV. CHAOS AND RECONSTRUCTION (793-988)
V. THE EVE OF THE CONQUEST (988-1066)
PART II: THE MIDDLE AGES
VI. ENGLAND UNDER THE NORMANS (1066-1109)
VII. THE STRUGGLE FOR POWER (1109-1216)
VIII. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY (1216-1307)
IX. THE AGE OF WYCLIF (1307-1400)
X. THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES (1400-1509)
PART III: THE REFORMATION AND AFTER
XI. HENRY VIII (1509-1547)
XII. ACTION AND REACTION (1547-1558)
XIII. QUEEN ELIZABETH I (1558-1603)
XIV. THE EARLY STUARTS (1603-1649)
XV. COMMONWEALTH, RESTORATION AND REVOLUTION (1649-1702)
XVI. THE EARLY EIGHTEENTH CENTURY (1702-1738)
PART IV: THE INDUSTRIAL AGE
XVII. THE AGE OF WESLEY (1738-1791)
XVIII. FROM WESLEY TO KEBLE (1791-1833)
XIX. THE OXFORD MOVEMENT AND AFTER (1833-1854)
XX. THE MID-VICTORIANS (1854-1882)
XXI. THE TURN OF THE CENTURY (1882-1914)
XXII. THE MODERN CHURCH (1914-1966)

This format has slowly taken shape, and must have seemed unavoidable to Moorman. Each chapter has five sections, or six in a few cases, or three or four in remote times. Moorman gives endnotes on books after each chapter. An ideal exam style, in fact. One of the sad absurdities of his book is the fact that many of the things he highlights were not part of the Church at all, such as Methodism.

He says or implies:
(1) Nothing much occurred before 0 AD, the supposed birth of Christ; thousands of years are ignored. And lands outside England are ignored, which on a narrow view is defensible.
(2) The increase of knowledge, which so far seems fairly constant apart from a few steps back, is assumed in the background but uncommented.
(3) By far the most important omission is the influence of so-called Jews, throughout the entire period. (They affected Rome; they affected the Conquest; they affected the Reformation; and they affected the modern period, notably after 1913).
(4) Moorman omits everything outside England, including all the influences which made England important. Since 1492, Jews wanted influence over the vast New World, and England and Scotland and their huge rivers and ports, and wood for ships, were obvious starting-points. And Moorman had no idea of the outcomes of Jewish-organised conquests and the rewards—probably temporary—to their collaborators. Thus the 13th century following the 11th century 'Conquest' was a temporary time for religious growth and the flowerings of oddities, many of them 'underpaid'. And the 18th century, following the invention of the 'Bank of England' in the 17th, allowed a mushroom growth of quasi-aristocratic family houses; many of these must have had makeshift pretences at non-Jewish families.
      This was the era of England's Trust and Other Poems, published in 1841, by Lord John Manners: containing the lines (into which 'Aristocracy' couldn't be fitted; possibly it was the Jewish word?):

Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,
But leave us still our old Nobility!

However, Moorman has some percipience of such things, mostly in recent centuries where the mechanisms are clearer. Thus, his 13th century chapter is full of oddities, Abbeys, foundations, types of monasteries, financial arrangements of various types, but without much insight into what was happening.
      But at the start of his section on THE INDUSTRIAL AGE (Moorman has little technical grasp. He has no idea that sailing ships moved immense masses of goods and people. He assumes there have to be back-to-back houses and grimy coal-burning chimneys; he couldn't anticipate the possibilities of electricity. And he thinks the start of the period may become labelled as the end of the Middle Ages by future writers) we find this sort of thing:–
      'But the Church in England was in no way prepared to meet these changes [Industrial Revolution, 'French' Revolution, European Empires]. ... For the most part they [bishops] were busy trying to build up family fortunes by the most flagrant place-hunting and nepotism ... The death, or even expected death, of a prelate sent a sheaf of letters to the Prime Minister from men hoping for preferment. ... every ambitious clergyman of his [Dr Thomas Newton's] generation thought the most natural thing in the world. Preferment meant wealth and position and the entry into smart society ...' And one feels that only Moorman's relatively low grade allowed him to comment. Moorman, writing after the Second World War, shows not the slightest awareness of worldwide Jewry and its röle in the world.

Moorman elides away many things discrediting to the Church (and religion generally). An interesting example is belief in witchcraft, which James I of England wrote on. Lecky, on morality in Europe wrote about James and others: It was natural, however, that amid the conflicts of the Reformation, some of the darker superstitions should arise; and we accordingly find Cranmer, in one of his articles of visitation, directing his clergy to seek for 'any that use charms, sorcery, enchantments, witchcraft, soothsaying, or any like craft invented by the Devil.' We find also a very few executions under Henry VIII. But in the following reign the law on the subject was repealed, and was not renewed till the accession of Elizabeth I. New laws were then made, which were executed with severity; and Jewell, when preaching before the queen, adverting to the increase of witches, expressed a hope that the penalties might be still more rigidly enforced. Miles Mathis is interesting on the Salem Witch Craze as a faked event.
      Moorman discusses slavery and Wilberforce, but as is usual omits the subsequent Act of Parliament that reimbursed slave-owners with a huge long-term loan to be repaid by the taxpayers. See Miles Mathis on the faked slavery abolition.
      But not everything went to the credit of the modern schools: Bertrand Russell thinks as a reflex that some churchmen were wrong to oppose smallpox vaccination.
      Another issue is the question of the monarchy, ever since one monarch was considered to be responsible for the entire country. This was itself probably the result of a political campaign, putting the spotlight, in principle, on king-makers. A little-known fact is the non-nativeness of the Royals; in other words, they weren't even British. Thus the various Anglo-Saxon monarchies (and occasional Danes) were headed by invaders. The Norman conquest was from France... The Plantagenets derived largely from Anjou. The Tudors were Welsh, James was Scottish, (but originating in France) and Germans predominated later—in the Houses of Brunswick and Hanover, for example. All this is outside Moorman's range
      Another question is preferments for old-established families. Aristocrats, nobles, and families aren't even indexed. Nor are the grades and hierarchies—Moorman doesn't even attempt to list them, and as they recede into the past it's ever more difficult to make sense of Canons, Vicars, Incumbents, Livings, and the rest of it. The effect is to suppress the sense of family interests, which of course were considerable. The whole schemata of status amongst Churchmen remains in the remote background of Moorman, though it must have been important. One thinks of the modern USA, with absurdly inadequate people in their fretwork churches.

Moorman's chapters on Henry VIII, Mary, Elizabeth I, and James I of England are standard accounts—necessarily, as there was simply too much happening which was suspicious in its origins. Cecil/ Lord Burghley seems to have been a Jew; subsequent history naturally overlooked this sinister feature of Elizabeth's reign. I suspect the 'Divine Right of Kings' was propaganda to make the kings feel rather absurdly confident; a similar trick was tried when the Papacy was supposedly 'infallible'. And absurdly spendthrift, though figures are hard to come by. The Restoration is presented by Moorman as something most people regarded as a sensible compromise. One must suspect the alternation between Protestants and Rome (not to mention Arminianism, Presbyterianism and the rest), and parish church treasures being seized and looted as official church services and books were changed, may have been designed, along with Henry VIII's introduction of interest. Even the deaths of Henry's children may have been Jewish apothecaries' little tricks. But Moorman is only interested in the Church as a viable money-maker. It's saddening.
      (P 178) 1545 ... [Henry VIII] had done so well out of the monasteries that he decided now to attack the chantries and hospitals. A bill was prepared and passed ... but no vesting date was agreed upon, and the matter was in fact left over to the next reign. There is also some evidence that Henry had plans for the dissolution of the two universities... Moorman doesn't look into questions of propaganda, Regius Professorships, and so on.

Just after this upload, I noticed Miles Mathis has updated his piece mileswmathis.com/luther.pdf on the Reformation. Luther was Jewish and very well-embedded in German Jewry, at a time when Roman Catholicism had a Jewish Pope. Well worth reading. Here's my security copy of Luther.pdf.

On what might be called democratic interests, Moorman quotes from his reference book: Kett's rebellion was crushed, crowds lining the route to coronations threw their caps in the air for joy, the public mood was unenthusiastic, the ignorance of the masses etc. From 1913 and beyond, Moorman has no awareness of Jewish issues, or, if he has, he is completely silent and part of the Jewish invasion. It's painful to see his acceptance of Victorian timewasting as Jews assemble in secret. He says things like: The 'drift from the churches' which began earlier in the twentieth century and has continued almost up to the present day [1952] has made a great difference to parochial life. But what has been lost in quality has, to some extent, been made up in quality. (Sic). I suppose nobody could be bothered to proofread. This was after a war in which something like 60 million people died!

Now let me try to predict the likely trajectory of the Church, and see what can be said about its future. The increase in knowledge has removed all the defences of the Church, apart from sentimental ones. It's well-known that the arguments for the existence of God(s) have been disproved, the last being the Darwinian attack against the Argument from Design. Newtonian dynamics made the solar system largely predictable: tide-tables exist, eclipses are precisely tabled. Such things as 'harvest festival' or 'harvest home' must seem absurd: thanking God for crops, or for allowing mines to give up coal, or for victory in war, seem as outmoded as thanking God for preventing lightning or earthquakes.
      Sentiments, such as admiring cathedral buildings and country churches and the beauty of centuries-old translations into English, have some sway. Kevin MacDonald thinks the Catholic Church worked well enough in its day; but he's not much of a historian. Great oratory has been weakened by recording media: re-listening to speeches allows people to identify weak points and mistakes. Some people are moved by staged events, such as 'Trooping the Colours' or watching the coronation of Elizabeth, despite her obvious weaknesses. Births, marriages, and deaths still have some appeal to many, but are nothing like as important as they were.
      I can't see that the Church is likely to recover. Or that it deserves to. I can't think of any important recent-centuries issue in which it played a part. It looks like a 1,500 year parasitic irrelevance. A glance at the C of E website now shows they seem to be aiming for uneducated immigrants, who of course aren't English, though they may want to pretend to be.

Let me try to outline possible changes that might help the Church.
(1) Intellectual revival seems possible. At present, vicars and bishops are condemned to follow a set of Articles. It is just about possible that they could be selected by some form of exam or oratorical test, political or scientific or technical or artistic, or perhaps local history. If this happened, the Church of England might gain from people who resemble the interesting characters of times past. Perhaps European Churches might collaborate in some sort of mutual pact; in the same way that European short stories might be shared cheaply amongst Europeans, something analogous might happen in Europe.
(2) Because of the domination of crypto-Jews, some way might be devised to introduce serious criticisms of Jews into a Church. There is certainly immense scope for historical attacks spanning the whole traditional edifice of Church Christianity. Deep revisionism of this sort could turn the Church, and other Churches, into something more genuine than has ever been the case. The entire absurd mythology about Jesus would have to go, or be exposed. Secret organisations—Freemasons, Common Purpose, funded fake religions—need investigation. Collaborations of the sort during the Second World War, when the 'British' government requested the clergy to lie about the USSR and similar issues, ought to be faced.
(3) The land ownership patterns which financed the Church might be reconsidered. This would have to include the law and policing aspects. Such other things as buildings ought to be examined.
(4) The Church might discreetly take a leaf from Jewish parasitism. If it could succeed in easing assets out of the hands of Jews, it might recover some of the unearned wealth of the past.

Added 22 September 2023: The extraordinary longevity of senselessness
The scene is an ordinary small church in northern England, opened for visitors to an adjoining mausoleum, with a relatively new internal small structure in which tea, coffee, and biscuits are prepared, for scattered tables and chairs. It is populated by about ten elderly persons, whose dominant emotion may be smugness or self-satisfaction.
      I spy several cheaply-copied leaflets. The cover of a thin 12-page A5 document has the words Parish ‘Eucharist’ in a modern standard Gothic font. The meaning of 'Eucharist' must have mutated from the Greek components. But the general idea seems to be to use words, chants, and music to thank God for his 'only begotten Son', or to 'give thanks' or 'offer graciously'. Unlike the Mass, it seems to avoid the crucifixion scenes, and go straight the the 'last supper' and through to the 'Resurrection'.
      Included are oddments of considerable antiquity, though not ancient by scientific standards, and fragments from languages and objects and clothing and food and drink. With emotional appeals of undefined vague emptiness—honour, blessing, Peace, heaven, sin, slavery, archangels, praise—factual stuff having been excised, or never included.

 


RW   2021-May-09   and   2023-September-23