The Social Impact of Religious Upheaval

• Major change took place in the English Church when Henry VIII broke with Rome and became head of a new English Church


  1530s
• Though a small minority of people undoubtedly welcomed the religious change this brought, there was no groundswell of popular support for the changes
• Monasteries


  An important feature of the appeal of the pre-Reformation Church
• Cromwell's dissolution of the monasteries

  1. Begun in 1536

  2. Royal injunctions of 1536

  3. Attacked many of the traditional practices of Catholicism, such as holy days, pilgrimages and the veneration of relics
• Some monasteries played a very considerable role in the communities in which they were situated
• Monasteries


  • Provided education
  • Offered employment and business opportunities