Protestant Reformation

English Reformation

See articles at :Category:English Reformation

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Political Reformation

The course of the Reformation was different in England. There had long been a strong strain of anti-clericalism, and England had already given rise to the Lollard movement, which had inspired the Hussites in Bohemia. By the 1520s, however, the Lollards were not an active force, or, at least, certainly not a mass movement. The different character of the English Reformation came rather from the fact that it was driven initially by the political necessities of Henry VIII. Although Henry had once been a sincere Catholic, he found it expedient and profitable to break with the Papacy. In 1534 The Act of Supremacy put Henry at the head of the church in England (that is, not the Church of England). Between 1535 and 1540, under Thomas Cromwell, the policy known as the Dissolution of the Monasteries was put into effect. The veneration of Saints, pilgrimages and pilgrim shrines were also attacked. Huge amounts of church land and property passed into the hands of the crown and ultimately into those of the nobility and gentry. The vested interest thus created made for a powerful force in support of the dissolutions.

Related Topics:
Lollard - Hussite - Bohemia - Henry VIII - 1534 - Act of Supremacy - 1535 - 1540 - Thomas Cromwell - Dissolution of the Monasteries - Saint

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There were many notable opponents to the Henrician Reformation, such as Thomas More and Bishop John Fisher, who were executed for their opposition. But there was also a growing party of Protestants who were imbued with the Zwinglian and Calvinistic doctrines now current on the Continent. When Henry was destruction of images, and the closing of the chantries. Following a brief Roman Catholic reaction during the reign of Mary 1553-1558, a loose consensus developed during the reign of Elizabeth I, though this point is one of considerable debate among historians. Yet it is the so-called Elizabethan Settlement to which the origins of Anglicanism are traditionally ascribed. The compromise was uneasy and was capable of veering between extreme Calvinism on the one hand and Arminianism on the other, but compared to the bloody and chaotic state of affairs in contemporary France, it was relatively successful until the Puritan Revolution or English Civil War in the seventeenth century.

Related Topics:
Thomas More - John Fisher - Chantries - Mary - 1553 - 1558 - Elizabeth I - Anglicanism - Calvinism - Arminianism - English Civil War

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The success of the Counter-Reformation on the Continent and the growth of a Puritan party dedicated to further Protestant reform polarised the Elizabethan Age, although it was not until the 1640s that England underwent religious strife comparable to that which her neighbours had suffered some generations before.

Related Topics:
Counter-Reformation - Puritan - Elizabethan Age - 1640s

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Early Puritan Movement

The early Puritan Movement (late 16th century-17th century) was Reformed or Calvinist and was a movement for reform in the Church of England. Its origins lay in the discontent with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. The desire was for the Church of England to resemble more closely the Protestant churches of Europe, especially Geneva. The Puritans objected to ornaments and ritual in the churches as idolatrous (vestments, surplices, organs, genuflection), which they castigated as "popish pomp and rags." (See Vestments controversy.) They also objected to ecclesiastical courts. They refused to endorse completely all of the ritual directions and formulas of the Book of Common Prayer; the imposition of its liturgical order by legal force and inspection sharpened Puritanism into a definite opposition movement.

Related Topics:
Reformed - Calvinist - Church of England - Elizabethan Religious Settlement - Geneva - Idolatrous - Popish - Vestments controversy - Book of Common Prayer

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The later Puritan movement were often referred to as Dissenters and Nonconformists and eventually led to the formation of various reformed denominations.

Related Topics:
Dissenters - Nonconformist - Reformed - Denominations

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