key leigislation regarding religous change in edwards reign

Main legislation in 1547

The chantries act, the sacrament act, the treason act, royal injunctions and book of homilies

Explain the impact of legislation for the religous changes in 1547

It had an immediate impact as it directly attacked traditional catholic practices and beliefs and it legally moved England to shift to a fully reformed, Protestant country. This included physical alteration to church’s e.g. injunctions removed stain glass and images, and aswell this legislation set the foundation for later more explicit reforms that would follow in the later years e.g. book of common prayer and act of uniformity. The public response however did appear to have some opposition and much of England was still largely catholic leading to rebellion, however particularly in London, there was enthusiasm for Protestant shown by the radical activity in 1548

Main legislation 1549

The act of uniformity (issued by archbishop Cranmer in January), book of common prayer (also by Cranmer), and aswell like in 1547 and 1548, there was legislation regarding image destruction and clerical marriage

Impact of act of uniformity 1549

This law made the new English book of common prayer the only authorised form of worship, clergy had to use it and there was fines for non attendance. This was only moderate (not as harsh as the one in 1552) however did still cause opposition due to going against some traditional catholic practices e.g. it stated clergy could marry and only 5 sacraments

Impact of book of common prayer

Introduced by Thomas Cranmer it provided a standardised book in English for services- it removed many catholic traditioned and aimed to establish more Protestant forms of worship in church’s. This along with the act of uniformity helped consolidate the reformation further however their was some direct opposition shown in the prayer book rebellion 1549 which disliked the new prayer book and religous changes

What was the impact of the reformed ordinal 1550?

The procedure for ordaining priest now aligned more with Protestant theology therefore again showing consolidation of Protestantism, however there did need to be some compromises e.g traditional vestments still aloud to be used, showing potentially some opposition and slowing down of religous change

Main legislation in 1552

The second book of common prayer, and the second act of uniformity

Explain the impact of the second book of common prayer?

Unlike the first book of common prayer which was under the influence of Somerset and was more moderate in mature, this second one was under Northumberland’s influence and contained much harsher reforms therefore accelerating religous change in these last few years of Edward’s reign. It included steps towards Calvinism (major Protestant tradition) and removing catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation

What was the impact of the second act of uniformity?

Again it made attendance for services under the new prayer book mandatory (penalties and fines for non attendance) and this aswell appeared to be more strict consolidating Protestantism and speeding up religious change

When where the forty-two articles and what were there significance?

They were drafted by Cranmer in 1553 however never passed into law due to Edward’s death, however they consisted of extremely radical statements regarding faith, scripture, supremecy etc that suggests England now aligned with Calvinism and was legally Protestant

Although there is evidence reforms were carries out in church’s, how can the legislation to remove images show opposition to religous change?

Suggest gov had difficulty imposing the change- in July 1547 royal injunctions ordered the removal of supersticous imagery (attacking catholic traditions Protestants viewed as idolising), by feb 1548 they clearly had not been effective so ordered all images to be removed and again in December 1548 ordered all remaining images needing to be destroyed

Overall by looking at the legislations across this 5 years, what conclusions can be made about religous change?

Initially, religous change was slow as despite the initial attack on Catholicism as shown by legislation in 1547, the majority of England was still mainly catholic and this legislation had provoked unrest, opposing views, and radical support, which hindered attempts at establishing a stable religous settlement ment e.g. needed a lot of legislation to remove images. However religous change due to legislation mainly appeared to have an impact during the last years of Edward’s reign but this could suggest there was difficulty reforming the church and there was little time for it to have an effect