History of English-speaking countries

The Protestant Reform in England.

Domestic and foreign causes and effects.

Prof. Rosana Manca

Sources of religious discontent.

• Decline of papal prestige owing to the connection of the church with economic matters. a) Popes lived as kings neglecting their spiritual mission. b) Some popes became patrons of art, spending money on painters, sculptors and architects they employed to beautify Rome.

• The religious orders were relaxed and worldly, housing many who lacked true vocation.

• Simony, the selling and buying of church offices was strongly critisized.

• There was evidence of broken monastic vows.

Decline of the prestige of the Roman Church. Causes of the Reformation

• The Great Schism provoked a widespread concern over the corruption of the Catholic Church.

•The Church was seen more like a tax-collecting machine than a spiritual instituion for the salvation of souls.

• It possessed much wealth and owned alarming proportions of land.

• The ideals of the Renaissance were contrary to the old ideas of faith and submission to the authority of church teachings.

The Reformers

He was a German monk, a theologian and a university professor. He defied the Pope openly and severely criticized some church practices. He condemned the sale of indulgences in his Ninety Five Theses, which he nailed to the church door at the University of Wittenberg. This action was the starting point of the Reformation.

MARTIN LUTHER

JOHN CALVIN

A French Theologian, he fled to Geneva to spread his teachings. In his Institutes of Christianity, he stated his Protestant theology, highly influential in the Western world. John Knox spread his teachings in Scotland and from there to the north of England

Born in Switzerland, he was influenced by Erasmus and Luther. He attacked the corruption of the clergy, criticized the use of images in worship places and was in favour of clerical marriage.

ULRICH ZWINGLI

The sale of indulgences

Luther opposed the sale of indulgences as he believed there was great danger that men would not realize that sin must be atoned for by inward penitence. This practice stressed the value of charitable and pious actions and gifts.

Luther nailing his Ninety-nine Theses

The Great Schism

The Reformation in England

•The wave of anticlericalism had reached the Island in the 14th century. The Llolards of John Wycliffe had rejected the authority of the Pope.

•Driven by political motives rather than by dogmatic issues, the Reform in England developed a more conservative character.

• The “middle way” character of the movement was due to the fact that the Church of England alternated between sympathies for the Catholic traditions and for reformed principles.

• The conflict that ended up in the break with Rome emerged out of the political necessity of King Henry VIII who demanded an annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon. This would allow him to marry Anne Boleyn, hoping to obtain a male heir to secure the succession.

He had had no quarrel with the papacy up to that point and he even condemned Luther’s attack upon the Church. Nevertheless, he needed to get rid of papal authority in England to get what he wanted.

King Henry VIII

Catherine of AragonAnne Boleyn

Climax in the Break with Rome

Parliament was used as an instrument to obtain the “divorce”. The Reformation Parliament passed the legislation needed.

• ACT OF ANNATES: it stopped the payment to Rome of the first year’s income of newly appointed bishops and abbots.• ACT OF APPEALS: it forbade appeals to Rome.• DISPENSATIONS ACT: it halted all payments to Rome, including Peter’s Pence. • ACT OF SUPREMACY (1534): it established the Church of England and declared the King as the Supreme Head of the Church of England. The Oath of Supremacy was required from every Englishman. • ACT OF SUCCESSION: it secured the Crown to Elizabeth or to any children of Anne at the expense of Mary, who was declared illegitimate.

Dissolution of the monasteries

• Measure engineered by Thomas Cromwell and taken in two stages:

1st stage: smaller monasteries with an annual income of less than 200 a year were dissolved on the grounds that “manifest sin, vicious, carnal and abominable living is daily used and commited amongst them”. (1536)

2nd stage: the Second Act of Dissolution abolished the larger monasteries.

Effects of the English ReformationEffects of the English Reformation

International consequences

• England was to become one of the greatest Protestant powers of the time and engage in military conflicts of religious or political characteristics.

• Colonialism posed an excellent opportunity to export the Anglican beliefs as a weapon to coerce the native populations of the colonized regions

National consequences

• Most of the population felt overwhelmed by the new religious points discussed by the reformers. They could not escape the political measures taken by the Crown to achieve its own end.

• The abolition of the monasteries had the following effects:

a) Social

b) Economic

c) Political

a) Social consequences: the social position of the gentry was strenghened as they were able to buy monastic land at a cheap price. Prosperous townsmen also took the opportunity of rising in the social scale by becoming landowners. Officers of the royal household and officials involved in the transfer were also favoured.

Monks and nuns were displaced from their cloisters. They faced a bleak future. The poor tenants suffered the loss of the social services the monasteries had provided as hospitals and centres of charity.

b) Economic consequences: King Henry VIII became the richest sovereign in European history.

Unemployment was caused as a result of the innovations introduced by the new landowners, sheep-farming and enclosures.

C) Political consequences: abbots lost their dignities including their seats in The House of Lords. This left the chamber with a lay majority.