Tudors- Religion

• Henrician Reformation


  Catholicism without the Pope
• Break with Rome


  1. Henry VIII wished to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon

  2. Henry VIII wanted to marry Anne Boleyn

  3. Pope refused to dissolve Henry's marriage to Catherine

  4. Henry took over the pope's powers and arranged the divorce himself
• Act of Supremacy 1534


  • Parliament declares Henry Supreme Head of the Church of England
  • Pope no longer held religious authority in England
• Dissolution of the monasteries

  1. Crown seized the land that monasteries were stood on

  2. Goods and riches inside them were sold off

  3. Monasteries were disbanded

  4. Henry claimed their income

  5. Money used to fund wars abroad and pay off debts
• Comperta Monastica


  Book compiled by Cromwell's agents containing lists of transgressions and abuses admitted by monks and nuns
• Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535


  • Greatest survey of ecclesiastical wealth and property ever undertaken
  • Valued taxes paid to the Crown from ecclesiastical property and income that had been previously paid to the pope
• According to the Valor, the net annual income of the Church was put at between £320,000 and £360,000 when omissions are taken into account (today's value £103 million to £122 million)
• Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act 1536

  1. All small religious houses with an annual income of less than £200 were ordered to be closed

  2. Their gold, silver, and valuable materials were confiscated by the Crown

  3. Their lands sold off
• Dissolution of the Greater Monasteries Act 1539


  1. Remaining monasteries forced to close

  2. Not without bloodshed
• Around 800 religious institutions were closed in England, Wales, and Ireland, with many of their precious monastic libraries destroyed in the process
• Act of Ten Articles 1536


  • Central doctrine of the Catholic Church- the Seven Sacraments- was rejected, leaving only baptism, penance and the Eucharist
• Bishops' Book 1537


  • Gave advice and attacked abuses and Catholic superstitions
  • Restored the missing four sacraments
• An English Bible was published, with a frontispiece showing God giving Henry VIII His word and Henry VIII handing it to the English people
• Act of the Six Articles 1539


  • Referred to by Protestants as 'the bloody whip with six strings'
  • Step back towards conservative Catholicism
  • Reasserted traditional Catholic doctrine as the basis of faith for the English Church
• • Consubstantiation was rejected and transubstantiation reintroduced
  • Clerical celibacy was enforced
  • Private masses were allowed
  • Confession was reintroduced
• Edward VI


  • Only surviving son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour
  • First English monarch to be raised as a Protestant
• Bishops during Edward VI's reign

  • Nine bishops supported reform (the progressives)
  • Ten bishops opposed reform (the conservatives)
  • Eight bishops were undecided
• Religious reforms under Edward VI

  1. Royal commissioners compiled report on state of clergy and doctrines/practices

  2. Every parish ordered to obtain Cranmer's Book of Homilies and Paraphrases by Erasmus

  3. Bishops instructed to remove superstitious statues and images

  4. Chantries Act confiscated land and property of chantries

  5. Treason Act repealed Henrician treason, heresy, and censorship laws

  6. First Edwardian Act of Uniformity ordered Protestant practices in daily worship

  7. Bishops instructed to test parishioners' knowledge of Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments
• Many traditional Catholic rituals disappeared, but no change was made to the doctrine of the Eucharist
• Further reforms under Northumberland

  1. Altars removed and replaced by communion tables

  2. New form of ordination removed references to sacrifice, purgatory, and prayers for the dead

  3. Second Act of Uniformity made it an offence for clergy and laity not to attend Church of England services

  4. Cranmer's Book of Common Prayer became the official basis for church services, with all traces of Catholicism and the mass removed
• By 1553 the Edwardian Reformation had resulted in a Church of England that was thoroughly Protestant
• There is insufficient evidence to decide whether the people of England had wholeheartedly embraced the Protestant religion
• Only in London, and the counties encircling London and East Anglia, does there appear to have been any widespread enthusiasm for Protestantism
• Protestantism, if not widely opposed, received only lukewarm acceptance
• Consubstantiation


  The Eucharist was clearly defined in terms of consubstantiation
• Mary was determined to restore England to the authority of Rome as quickly as possible
• Mary's initial popularity sprang not from a desire for a return to the Roman Catholic Church, but from a dislike of Northumberland, and respect for legitimate succession
• Both Charles V and Pope Julius II warned Mary not to risk her throne by acting too rashly
• Gardiner, Mary's most trusted adviser, was unenthusiastic about restoring papal authority
• The major causes of Mary's widespread unpopularity, apart from the religious persecution, were the return to papal authority and the Spanish marriage
• There was no public outcry when Mary, using the royal prerogative, suspended the second Act of Uniformity, and restored the mass in 1553
• The first Statue of Repeal swept away all the religious legislation approved by Parliament during the reign of Edward VI, and the doctrine of the Church of England was returned to what it had been in 1547 under the Act of the Six Articles
• After failing to persuade Parliament to reintroduce heresy laws, Gardiner turned his attention to Protestant clergy
• The Bishops of Gloucester, Hereford, Lincoln and Rochester, and the Archbishop of York were deprived of their bishoprics, and were replaced by committed Catholics
• In March 1554 the bishops were instructed to enforce all the religious legislation of the last year of Henry VIII's reign
• The second Statue of Repeal ended the royal supremacy, and returned England to papal authority by repealing all religious legislation of the reign of Henry VIII back to the time of the break with Rome
• In 1555 the Westminster synod approved the passing of the Twelve Decrees that included the establishment of seminaries in every diocese for the training of priests, but shortage of money limited the programme to a single creation at York
• In December 1554 Parliament approved the restoration of the old heresy laws, marking the beginning of religious persecution
• There were 274 religious executions carried out during the last three years of Mary's reign
• Many local authorities either ignored, or tried to avoid enforcing, the unpopular legislation