The English Reformation Essays -- History England Roman Catholic Essay

The English Reformation During the reign of King Richard II "England was experiencing her first serious outbreak of heresy for nearly a millennium." This widespread heresy, known as Lollardy, held the reformation of the Catholic Church as its main motivation, and was based upon the ideas of John Wyclif, an Oxford scholar. "All kinds of men, not only in London but in widely-separated regions of the country, seized the opportunity to voice criticisms both constructive and destructive of the present state of the Church." While commoners protested and pressed for reform, going so far as to present their manifesto, the "Twelve Conclusions," to Parliament, members of the royal household were protecting John Wyclif and his ideas, John of Gaunt, son of King Edward III, and Joan of Kent, the widowed Princess of Wales, "by whose influence he was protected from ultimate disgrace (such as excommunication)," were Wyclif's supporters and protectors. Like Wyclif's Lollard heresy, the English Protestant Reformation, over one hundred years later, would draw support from both the common people and the royal establishment. Among the many causes of the Reformation, one stands out as the most important because it alone brought about a specifically English reformation. The religious drive of the common people to create a more open system of worship was a grassroots movement of reform, similar to the reformations taking place across Europe. The political ambitions of those at the highest levels of government to consolidate power in the person of the monarch, however, is what made a reformation of the Church in England into a specifically English Reformation. John Wyclif and the people who followed him reflected how royal authority could be b... ... act for the dissolution of monasteries, 1539" Given-Wilson, Chris. "Late Medieval England, 1215-1485." In The Oxford Illustrated History of Medieval England, edited by Nigel Saul. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII vol. II, sec. i, pg. 259, no. 967. London, 1920. Quoted in John A. F. Thomson, The Early Tudor Church and Society, 1485-1529, (London: Longman Group UK Limited, 1993), pg. 37. Russell, Conrad. "The Reformation and the Creation of the Church of England, 1500- 1640." In The Oxford Illustrated History of Tudor & Stuart Britain, edited by John Morrill. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996. Sheils, W. J. The English Reformation. Harlow: Longman Group UK Limited, 1989. Thomson, John A. F. The Early Tudor Church and Society, 1485-1529. London: Longman Group UK Limited, 1993.