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Assess the value of the source for revealing the extent of religious change in the years 1533-37 and the strength of opposition to religious change.£7.16
A grade, A-Level essay on "Assess the value of the source for revealing the extent of religious change in the years 1533-37 and the strength of opposition to religious change."
Assess the value of the source for revealing the extent of religious change
in the years 1533-37 and the strength of opposition to religious change.
Explain your answer, using the source, the information given about its
origin and your own knowledge about the historical context
Religious change in the period 1533-37 was notably large in comparison to
that of other decades, being the period in which a large part of the
reformation from catholicism to protestantism occurred, as well as the
abolishment of many of the lesser monasteries. The source to a large
extent certainly is valuable, with clear remarks alluding to the 1536 Act of
Ten Articles and the 1534 Act of Supremacy which confirmed Henry VIII’s
place as Head of the English church. This source therefore refers to many
of the major religious developments that occured across the period and as
a result is valuable to revealing the extent of religious changes. On the
otherhand, the source is less valuable to revealing the strength of the
opposition to religious change with only sliught references towards the
northern rebellions such as the Pilgrimage of Grace and instead focusing
on individuals to reduce the idea that there was a large summary of
opposition to the monarch.
When examining the value that the source adds to revealing to the extent
of religious change in the years 1533-37, we can examine that this source
does help to display the extent of religious change by referring to the
1534 Act of Supremacy in “the king was the supreme head of the church”
allowing us to understand that from this point on, a large proportion of the
english population now saw Henry as the head of the church as opposed
to the Pope. This is a large change to before as it resulted in large
doctrinal changes that saw members of the clergy under Henry’s
command compared to that of the popes, not to mention the new
economic implications that this brough with the church currently holding
over ⅓ of all land in England. Due to the fact that the Act of Supremacy
was approved by parliament, we can assume that the details surrounding
the act are accurate as Hall was a member of parliament and most likely
knew about the act in great enough detail to comment on it, and so Hall
being an MP both adds more value to the source. The provenance also
tells us that the book was published in 1948, this allows us to understand
that the book is coming in the format of a retrospective and so the writer
had the ability to understand and analyse the long term impact of the
doctrinal changes made to the church, thus adding credibility to his
argument and making the source more valuable for this enquiry.
, Another reason that this source may be helpful for an inquiry into the
extent of religious changes is that it explicity refers to the dissolution of
the smaller monasteries in 1535 in the sentence “the King was granted all
religious houses under the value of 300 marks.” This is important as not
only does this align with our own historical knowledge and as a result we
can confirm that this source is credible but it also allows us to understand
that the extent of religious change was great as the king was now under
control of a huge portion of land and controlled many of the smaller
monasteries. These monasteries were crucial to the societal structure of
many villages and towns in this period as they acted as forms of support,
community bonds and education throughout the period and so the idea
that this has now been handed over to Henry truly demonstrates the huge
scale of religious reforms occuring during this period. The dissolution of
the monasteries was carried out by first the valor ecclesiasticus surveying
all land and property of the smaller monasteries, assessing their wealth
before being followed my commissioners approved by Cromwell who were
in charge of “finding corurption” and using this as a stepping stone to
closing down or taking control of the monasteries. From 1536 onwards,
lead was removed from all the roofs, stained windows were smashed and
all that remained were the walls.
The source also makes a reference to the 1536 Act of Ten Articles in
“published a book of ten articles”. This was a series of articles and
sacraments that made slight changes to the doctrine of the church, it
remained mostly in line with catholic beliefs to prevent radical shocks
from inciting rebellions, particularly in more catholic areas such as the
North. This does potentially suggest to us that the religious reforms seen
throughout the period are to some extent smaller than originally believed,
as to prevent a uniform revolt from occuring many of the changes had to
be made gradually and potentially outside of the period 1533-37, however
this source is still valuable to aiding our understanding of the extent of
religious reform throughout the period. The source may also not be as
valuable as we first believed it to be due to the fact that the events
described only go up to 1536 and not 1537, this may mean that key
details that occurred later are missing and so cannot be entirely relied
upon to evaluate the extent of religious changes throughout the period,
this is however most likely due to the fact that the reformation parliament
ended in 1536. The source also does however mention details such as the
1536 Injunctions to the English Clergy, which attacked traditional
practices such as pilgrimages and emphasised relics, images and worship.
This can be seen in “the number of holy days was reduced”, which was a
key part of the injunctions. Overall, I believe that the source does give you
a valuable insight into the extent of religious change occuring up until
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