Protestantization

Paper Summary:

This paper offers an extensive discussion on the effects of the permeation of state authority into English village life. The paper focuses on the village of Morebath and explains the resistance to the shift from Catholicism to Protestantism. It claims that the process of Protestantization came, not because of a pure theological dispute that involved the common people, but because of a power struggle between King Henry VIII and the Pope over the king's right to gain an annulment from his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.

From the Paper:

"From the reign of Henry VIII to Elizabeth I, England experienced a gradual, but ultimately seismic shift in the way that the population was permitted to worship, could experience the divine in terms of their religious practices, expressed their religious views, and the ways they could relate to their institutions of belief. At first, "the Catholic world-view...was the religion of most English people on the eve of the Reformation." (Duffy 2) When "Martin Luther's attack on the Catholic Church and the authority of the Pope first began to spread outside Germany" England stood apart from the fray and Henry VIII was called the 'defender of the faith' by the reigning Pope. (Duffy 84) But Catholic England was reborn under the guiding hand of Elizabeth I into a moderate, officially Protestant land where the monarch was the head of the church, not the pope"

Sample of Sources Used:

• Duffy, Eamon. The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English
• Village. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984

More papers on Protestantization:

• Term Paper # 104629 : "The Level of Protestantism in England by 1603"
• Analytical Essay # 130768 : "Donne and Herbert on English Protestantism"
• Comparison Essay # 100539 : "English Protestantism Poets"

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