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AQA A Level Tudor Essay: ‘Henry VIII might have made himself supreme head of the church of England, but he did little else to change the church’ assess the validity of this claim’ (25£3.49
AQA A Level Tudor Essay: ‘Henry VIII might have made himself supreme head of the church of England, but he did little else to change the church’ assess the validity of this claim’ (25
AQA A Level - Breadth Study: The Tudor Dynasty Essay titled: ‘Henry VIII might have made himself supreme head of the church of England, but he did little else to change the church’ assess the validity of this claim’ (25)
Topic links = Henry VIII & The Break With Rome and Changed to the Chu...
‘Henry VIII might have made himself supreme head of the church of England, but he did
little else to change the church’ assess the validity of this claim’
It can be argued that the pure motive behind Henry VIII’s decision to break from Rome and
the Catholic Church was mainly motivated by his want for a divorce and for power within his
country, it is therefore unsurprising that the King did very little else to change the church
other than make himself Supreme Head. Despite this there are many arguments to suggest
that there were multiple changes made to the church that had an impact on the country and
its people, other than that of a new leader.
In breaking from Rome and the People, Henry VIII took away a lot of the wealth from the
church which in turn made the religion and religious experience very different. The Church
owned about 1/3 of the land in England and a lot of its wealth, it is therefore unsurprising
that there was a lot of corruption within the Church, especially amongst its leaders. Because
the high ranking clergymen were so well paid, everyone wanted there job therefore it was
common for pluralism to occur. This wealth also made the Church greedy, the selling of
indulgences and holy relics which effectively scammed the local people into paying a lot of
money for their sins to be ‘forgiven’. However in breaking from Rome many statues were
passed that ensured these practices no longer occurred, for example Cromwell’s Injunctions
1538 ensured that religious images and the veneration of relics were to be banned. It can be
seen therefore that the Church became much less corrupt as its wealth declined, all of
which was down to the changes that Henry VIII made.
The King also impacted the Church by making changes that allowed the congregation to
become much closer to God and so much more in touch with their religion. The introduction
of the Great Bible was fundamental in doing this, as of 1547 most churches had vernacular
Bibles which meant that for the first time the congregation did not need to rely on their
priest to teach them about their religion because they could learn it for themselves directly
from the Bible. The local people could now read stories from the Bible about Jesus and were
able to interpret them in their own way, this made their relationship with God much more
personal and therefore meaningful. This change was intensified by the removal of the Rood
Screen in churches across England. The screen originally separated the priest from the
Congregation and seeing as the priest was the way for the congregation to reach God, also
separated them from their Lord. The removal of the rood screen exemplified that thr
congregation were able to and should be able to connect with God without the need of
going through the Priest (who was supposedly more pure) and therefore the people could
have a much more personal and closer relationship with their Lord.
Further changes were made that impacted the way the religious services were conduction,
the most prominent of these were the Ten Articles 1536 which rejected the ‘seven
sacraments’ of the Catholic Doctrine leaving the belief in only 3; the Eucharist, Mass and
Baptism. This was a fundamental move away from Catholicism towards Protestantism and
so clearly changed how the church was run and what the religion consisted of. Other
changes included the reduction in the number of Holy Days and the Clergy were made to
educated children in the basics of Christian faith and preach in favour of the Supremacy and
Ten Articles. This shows a complete rejection of the Pope as the central figure in the Church
and so reformed the principles of religion in England.
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