Henry VII

• Parish churches


  • 8,000
• Erastian relationship


  Henry had to be careful with the Pope because he needed that dispensation in order to marry Elizabeth of York
• Church


  • Maintained social order
  • Gave employment opportunities
• Church structure


  • 2 provincies (canterbury and york) ran by archbishops
  • 17 diocese overlooked by bishops
  • Diocese like Winchester thrived
• Senior clergymen


  • Worked for the church and for the state
  • Elected off of their legal training
• Abbots


  Head of the wealthy religious households
• Church


  • Provided the outward structure for society's life
• Transubstantiation


  The laymen refused to eat the bread
• Church values


  • Baptism, confirmation, marriage, penance, anointing the sick
• Mass


  Had two reasons: sacrifice and sacred ritual
• Corpus Christi
• Holy communion
• Church role


  • Men funded the lavish building of churches
  • Benefactors (left their money to the parish when they died in order to give people a better religious experience. Foundation for chantries)
  • Confraternities (men who paid for others funerals, make charitable donation and make church fabric)
  • Guilds could be wealthy and a source of patronage
  • Events like ale-house festivals increased the revenue going to the church
  • Pilgrimages
• Thomas Becket Cantenbury
• Virgin Mary
• 'Beating the bounds' of the Parish
• Religious experience was emphasised by the writing of mystics
• Religious orders


  • Benedictines
  • Carthusians
  • Dominicans
  • Franciscans
  • Augstians
• Monasteries


  • Were in more remote, rural areas
• Friars


  Worked alongside lay people
• Lollards were founded by Wycliffe
• Lollards


  Favoured english translation of the bible and it was sceptical about transubstantiation
• Lollard uprising in 1414
• Lollards were geographically limited
• Lollards were known as Heretics
• Anticlericlaism was widespread but there was rarely a burst of outburst
• Structure of society


  • Had several layers
  • There was a growth in professional bourgeoisie
  • Due to the black death, social mobility had increased which led to the upper classes created sumptuary laws out of fear
• Nobility


  • Consisted of peerage of around 50/60 men that were controlled through bonds and recognizances
  • Could buy the Kings favour
  • Henry did not add more to the peerage
• Bastard Feudalism


  1. 1486 peers and MPs were required to take an oath against illegal retaining

  2. 1487 Act reinforced by 1504 Act under which licences for retaining could be sought
• Gentry


  • Owned 15-20% of land
  • In 1490 there were 275 knights
  • Identity can be established through knighthood, incomenand coat of arms
  • Esquires were numerous and could be defined by the 'eldest sons of knights'
• Lower clergy


  Helped the ordinary folk
• Bishops


  Were elected off of their legal training but he did not want clergy to be from aristocratic backgrounds
• The church was a great landowner
• Pope Martin V said that the King is should govern the church of the england, rather than the pope
• Commoners


  • Middling Sort (professionals like merchants and lawyers)
  • Lower class (shopkeepers and tradesmen)
  • Yeoman farmers who farmed substantial properties for an increasingly sophisticated market economy
  • Husbandmen who kept smaller farms
• Peasants


  • Their position was very insecure
• Regional Difference


  • Variations in agricultural production
  • South East believed in mixed farming whereas the other side was the other side was Pastoral
  • Hertfordshire was grain farming
  • Magnate influence often was cut across county boundaries
  • Pilgrimages which was enforced by Saint Cults which placed importance on centres such as Durham
• England had a population of 2.2million
• 10% of the population were urban dwellers, therefore 90% lived in the countryside
• London had a population of 50k, followed by Norwich with 15k