Ratramnus of Corbie, Heinrich Bullinger, and the English Reformation

The work of Carolingian theologian Ratramnus of Corbie, De corpore et sanguine Domini, was rediscovered and published in Cologne in 1531. This article examines how the work was used as an argument for a purely symbolic understanding of the Eucharist, particularly by Swiss evangelical Heinrich Bullinger. It argues that, for Bullinger and for English writers and thinkers in the 1530s and 1540s, Ratramnus came to embody the early patristic tradition, allowing evangelicals to argue against the Catholic position of transubstantiation while still maintaining their connection to Augustine and other Fathers. Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley adopted Ratramnus as a symbol of the patristic tradition, but they did not accept Bullinger‘s reading of Ratramnus, which, they may have recognized, was occasionally forced. Precisely because Ratramnus was actually an advocate of real presence in the Eucharist, he became particularly influential for Cranmer and Ridley in 1549.