Reasons for the Reformation in England

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Before the reformation the only church that existed was the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Catholic Church was extremely powerful at the start of the 16th Century. It had many followers covering a large proportion of the world, the area being called Christendom, which was classed as the Catholic community. The Church was the largest employer with large numbers of farm workers, servants and builders. The church ran most of the few schools and hospitals. Some of the pupils from the schools grew up to become monks or priests. The churches taught people how to behave in almost everything they did. Some of their power came from, the amount of money gained from selling indulgences that were claimed to reduce the time in purgatory. Conversely the church was very demanding. They said that if people did not carry out good deeds they would go straight to hell e.g. if they didn’t pay the church. Heretics would get burnt alive then there soul would go to hell Inside the church on the walls were lots of pictures of hell. The Church said that if you are a heretic when you go to hell your soul would live on and be tortured and punished, such as being burned and stabbed. This was intended to scare people and make them perform good deeds which would make them follow the church. The Churches ‘abuses’ led to Martin Luther strongly objecting to their way of making profits and the way it treated its followers with excessive demands. This made him nail 95 theses to the door of the castle in Wittenberg, Germany; in 1517. The Reformation in Europe was created by Martin Luther. He loved the Roman Catholic Church but wanted it to change for the better. Things that were identified as being wrong with the Catholic Church included: The priests were... ... middle of paper ... ...he consequences if they were not. Some prayers and the Bible were translated into English with a copy of the Bible being put into every church in the country. By the late 1530’s Henry was running short of money. This was due to wars in Europe and the expense in his personal life. To solve this issue Henry took over all of the monasteries. He took all of their gold and silver ornaments and all of their land. He sold this land which brought him a lot of money. The ministries he took over were eventually turned into private houses or just left alone to become a ruin. Henry said that all monks were immoral and lazy. He used this as an excuse to close all of the monasteries. Although Henry had broken away from the Catholic Church, many things did not change. Priests were not allowed to marry. Most services were in Latin and the 6 articles in 1539 were mostly Catholic.

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