How did Jan Laski and Nicholas Ridley influence Thomas Cranmer’s Protestant beliefs?

During the reign of Edward VI, Thomas Cranmer’s theological position shifted away from the vague Lutheranism he held in 1547 toward a more defined Protestantism. This transition was significantly influenced by the Polish reformer Jan Laski and the English bishop Nicholas Ridley.1

Both Laski and Ridley were characterized by a more determined and unquestioning temper than the archbishop, which helped guide Cranmer’s doctrinal development. Ridley, who had served as one of Cranmer’s chaplains, was a prominent academic who explicitly rejected the doctrine of transubstantiation—the belief that Christ’s body is physically present in the Eucharist—and campaigned for the use of a simple communion table rather than an altar. These influences were instrumental in shaping the outspokenly Protestant theology reflected in the second Book of Common Prayer (1552) and the Forty-two Articles (1553).12