To what extent was the Church in England in need of reform in 1529?

There  was  indeed  a  Reformation  in  England  in  1529,  which  accepted  a  number  of  distinct  changes  in  religious  organisation,  practice  and  belief:  a  diminution  of  clerical  authority,  a  suppression  of  monasteries  and  chantries,  elimination  of  papal  primacy,  and  a  supplant  of  the  mass  by  Protestant  rituals.  The  redefinition  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church’s  divinity  suggest  that  the  Church  seemed  in  desperate  need  of  reform  in  order  for  the  above  practices  and  beliefs  to  have  occurred,  but    was   the  Reformation  a  result  of  entrenched  popular  demand  for  religious  change  or    because  it  was  actually  in  need  of  reform?

The  term  ‘reform’  can  be  described  as  a  means  of  adopting  a  more  acceptable  way  of  practice,  although  this  does  not  necessarily  imply  the  destruction  of  the  Church,  its  various  forms  of  worship  or  its  structure.  Haigh,  who  seeks  to  improve  the  Foxe-Dickens  approach  by  countering  the  long-term  religious  discontents  concerning  the  Catholic  Church  and  the  significance  of  Protestantism,  asserts  that  “‘The  Reformation’  is  a  colligatory  concept,  a  historians’  label  which  relates  several  lesser  changes  into  an  overall  movement.’  It  is  difficult  to  define  when  England  became  a  Protestant  nation,  as  it  is  all  a  matter  of  personal  beliefs  and  also  dependent  on  the  regional  studies  under  consideration.  Moreover,  the  English  Reformation  was  not  a  particular  event  that  only  occurred  in  1529; it  was  an  extensive and  intricate  occasion.

Dickens’  version  of  the  Reformation  although  has  been  established  for  its  ‘English  historical  consciousness,’  he  only  appears  to uncover  the  fruits  of  the  Protestant  Reformation  as  opposed  to  the  English  Reformation,  by  accepting  that  the  widespread  indications  of  Lollardy  and  anticlericalism  as  evidence  of  alienation  from  Catholicism .  With  similar  ideas  to  Foxe,  he  demonstrates  that  the  influence  of  religious  upheaval  upon  ordinary  people  provides  substantial  evidence  that  the  Church  was  disposed  for  reform.  He  proclaimed  that  the  Roman  Catholic  Church  was  a  seemingly  corrupt  and  inefficient  institution  where  the  leaders  of  the  Church  were  constantly  perceived  as  fraudulent  and  immoral. The  abuses  of  pluralism  and  absenteeism  opened  the  floodgates  for  criticism  against  the  Church,  and  according  to  Dickens,  a  driving  force  behind  the  growing  power  of  Protestantism; ‘ any  version  of  the  English  Reformation  which  ignores  the  dynamic  impact  of  early  Protestantism  remains  incomplete  and  unconvincing.’

It  is  worth  noting  that  since  the  Reformation  occurred,  it  is  enticing  to  presume  that  it  was  an  imperative  and   valid  remonstration  against  the  ineptness  of  the Church.  Such  views  argued   by  Dickens  however,  can  be  exaggerated. Dickens  is  characteristically  Whig- Protestant.  He  centres  his  argument  on  the  rise  of  reforming  Protestantism  as  the  catalyst  of  the  Reformation,  overlooking  the  political  upsurge  that  had  certainly  contributed  to  the  English  Reformation.  He  stresses  that  the  seedbed  of  Protestantism  was  created  by  the  expanding  popular  reaction  to  Lollardy  and  anticlericalism.  Yet  his  emphasis  on  the  impact  of  Protestant  ideology  upon  the  people  can  be  seen  as  Protestant  propaganda.  He  uncovers  the  growth  of  Protestantism  by  crediting  the  deficiencies  of  Catholicism  using  the  trials  of  heretics,  particularly  in  the  Lollard  and  puritan  areas  in Yorkshire,  as  evidence  for  the  spread  of  Protestant  conviction,  despite  the  fact  that  the  prevalence  of  heresy  oscillated  according  to  the  force  of  official  scrutiny.  His  attacks  against  the  authorities  of  the  Church  are  applicable  in  some  areas;  Wolsey  was  a  prime  example  of  a  pluralist  and  absentee,  who  was  deemed  as  a  lordly  prelate.  Indeed  there  were  local  tensions  but  there  was  also  an  attempt  in  many  dioceses (  of  Lincoln,  Norwich, and Winchester) to  improve  pastoral  discipline  and  clerical  standards.

The  diocese  of  Chichester,  1500-1558  is  an  ideal  example  of  the  attempts  made  by  Bishop  Sherburne  of  ensuring  the  discipline  of  religious  duties  of  the  authorities  of  the  Church. The  consistory  court  of  the  bishop  was  the  most  significant  of  the  diocesan  courts.  It  administered  a  range  of  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  from  the  archdeaconry  of  Chichester.   The  archdeacons  however,  were  powerless  when  it  came  to  controlling  priests  of  their  benefices,  or  deciding  marital  and  heresy  cases.  The  English  people  may  have  upbraided  the  bishops  as  being  unworthy  and  ultimately  ineffective  in  resolving  conflicts,  hence  much  of  the  criticisms  against  the  Church  comes  from the  limitations  placed  on  the  archdeacons  by  the  variety  of  jurisdictions. Had  Sherburne  not  eliminate  the  various  episcopal  jurisdictions  in  this  diocese,  the  spiritual  welfare  may  have  indeed  collapsed.  

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 This  may  not  have  been  an  overall  accurate  representation  of  the  efforts  made  to  revitalise  the  conditions  of  the  church  courts.  These  courts  are  identified  as  having  been  unaffected  by  the  Reformation.  Stephen  Lander  debates  that  their  jurisdiction  was  fortified  by  the  legislation  of  the  time  of  Henry VIII,  and  that  they  were  experiencing  reform  only  in  the  last  decades  ahead  of  the  break  with  Rome.  Haigh  maintains  that  the  Reformation  was  a  recipe  for  anarchy  because  ‘  the  Reformation  attack upon  ecclesiastical  jurisdiction  weakened  the  authority  of  the  courts,  and  prevented  a  continuation  of  the  programme  of  improvement:  Reformation ...

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