jats:titleAbstract</jats:title>jats:pKennerley investigates the relationship between tradition and historical criticism in France during the earliest years of the Reformation. Its key sources are two polemics between Josse Clichtove (1472–1543) and Noël Beda (jats:italicc</jats:italic>. 1470–1537) over the cult of Mary Magdalene and the jats:italicExultet</jats:italic> hymn. A student of Jacques Lefèvre d'Étaples, Clichtove enunciated modern‐sounding criticisms of received traditions. His opponent Beda is instead famous for his scholastic defences of inherited doctrine against humanists like Clichtove and Erasmus. Drawing on an in‐depth reading of Clichtove and Beda's tracts, this essay will contextualize the clashes between these two scholars and analyse their respective methods and conclusions. While demonstrating the sophistication of Clichtove's historical thought and Beda's own surprising skill as a historian, this essay will contend that the central issue of these polemics was not history, but whether tradition was a legitimate subject for historical criticism. It will conclude by considering the implications of these polemics for the study of sacred history in the Reformation, as shown in the change of Clichtove's method after his conflict with Beda.</jats:p>