10th Century onward

Question 1

Dunstan

Answer 1

• He was successively Abbot of Glastonbury Abbey, Bishop of Worcester, Bishop of London and Archbishop of Canterbury, later canonised as a saint. His work restored monastic life in England and reformed the English Church.
• The Pope who was well-aware of Dunstan’s extensive influence at the court of England. The Pope confirmed his election, and he made him Legate in England. Dunstan’s favourite project was to replace the secular clergy by the regular. To replace priest (Secular) by monks (Regular) on account of the growing lust, avarice and other vices that had developed among the secular clergy.
  + support of King Edgar

Question 2

Edward

Answer 2

Dunstan’s son, became King with the support of people, at only 14. => Dunstan took all the powers into his own hands > he exerted every possible means to maintain monasticism, yet he was faced with much opposition from the Secular party.
Edward is stabbed 3 years later. “Saint Edward the Martyr” replaced by Elthered.

Question 3

After Dunstan & Edward

Answer 3

Danish invasion, 1016, the Danish King Canute makes himself master of England.
Canute death was followed by a period of trouble, then the son of Ethelred (Edward) was crowned king in 1043. He came to be known as Edward the confessor. He spoke no English. His sympathies were Norman, he despised the English. He kept in close touch with Rome.

Question 4

1066

Answer 4

William the Conqueror, for the next 500 years the Church was brought under the influence and control of Rome.

None of his ministers/barons could be punished by the Church whatever offences they were guilty of until he had given his consent. He also refused to do homage to the Pope, but he agreed to pay him what was known as “Peter’s Pence” (a tax on every house on the country). William replaced all English men in the Church by Normans except Wulfstan.

Question 5

Rufus

Answer 5

Rufus the red king, son of William, William II of England
After the death of the see of Canterbury, Lanfranc, William left the see of Canterbury vacant for 4 years keeping its revenues for himself. Then he appointed Anselm to the vacant archbishop see of Canterbury.

Question 6

Anselm

Answer 6

Anselm found it very difficult to stand the King’s oppressive attitude towards the people, he constantly denounced the corruption of court until 1097, when he was forced to retire from the Royal persecution and found refuge in Rome.
He is remembered as a great Church man who managed to preserve for the Church some kind of independence from Royal control.

Question 7

Henry

Answer 7

Brother of William II, he became the King of England after his death. Anselm returned to England and rendered the King many services, like celebrating his marriage.

Question 8

Celibacy of Clergy

Answer 8

was being reenforced for uou, but now priest had to separate their wife upon pain of excommunication.

Question 9

Canonise

Answer 9

officially declare a dead person to be a saint

Question 10

Henry the 2nd

Answer 10

• his reign was a turning point in the History of England. Henry’s administrative reforms brought him into conflict with Thomas Beckett. Henry the 2nd was a wise strong ruler who was determined to restore Law and Honour. He realised that the country needed one legal system justly administered: there should not be one law for the rich and powerful and another for the poor. The Law should be equal and universally implied. Between the King and the achievement of this ideal, there were various obstacles among which one privilege of the Church known as Benefit of Clergy.
• Henry the 2nd was the 1st Plantagenet. He found himself in a bitter conflict on the point of benefit of clergy with his archbishop

Question 11

Benefit of Clergy

Answer 11

meant that any person related to the Church (priests, layman) had a certain privilege escaping civil law. Indeed not long after the conquest, the Clergy had displayed Great moral depravity: murders, rapes, robberies were frequently committed by them. According to the Laws passed by the conqueror, offenders could only be brought to justice by men of their own social order. In the first 7 years of Henry’s reign (from 1154 to 1161), not less than a hundred murders besides countless lesser offences had been committed by so-called Clarks.
There were cases of men bribing their tonsure to claim benefits from the church.

Question 12

Church vs. State

Answer 12

The quarrel between Church and State that took place in the reign of Henry the 2nd was to be protracted long and to flare up again under Henry the 8th with a vengeance.

Question 13

Plantagenet

Answer 13

The House of Plantagenet was a royal house which originated from the lands of Anjou in France

Question 14

Thomas Becket

Answer 14

Chancellor of England, later archbishop of Canterbury
For 8 years, King Henry II and chancellor saw much of each other, and a warm friendship was established, appointed him archbishop.
Thomas experienced a sort of personal illumination and conversion. He was to fight for God and his church. Henry was baffled. In a night, his greatest friend had become his bitterest enemy. The conflict between the 2 men was fuelled by the problem of benefit of clergy. Beckett regarded the king reform as a gross infringement of the liberties of the church ==> Constitutions of Clarendon

Question 15

constitutions of Clarendon

Answer 15

The Constitutions of Clarendon were a set of legislative procedures passed by Henry II of England in 1164. The Constitutions were composed of 16 articles and represent an attempt to restrict ecclesiastical privileges and curb the power of the Church courts and the extent of papal authority in England.

Question 16

Becket’s trial

Answer 16

In October 1164, he had a public quarrel with the king. The king orchestrated his trial. Becket fled overseas and lived the rigorous life of a Cistercian monk for 6 years.
He came back and then was killed in his own church

Question 17

Result of the Norman conquest

Answer 17

the growth of learning in England : Lanfranc and Anselm had been scholars, Venerable Bede is known as the father of Historiography. The History of English affairs by William of Newburgh.

Question 18

the system of provisions

Answer 18

13th century
Centralisation means increasing the number of officials who must be paid. The way to do so, is to present them to Ecclesiastical benefices which were a considerable source of income. The problem arose with the provision of foreigners to English benefices in Country livings (local churches outside the big towns) They never went to these churches and saw them as a source of revenue. This system led to blatant abuses. Priests who never set foot out of Italy piled up a plurality of English benefices.
==> English resentment against Rome

Question 19

What happened following the resentment against Rome because of the system of provisions?

Answer 19

Popular resentment was so high that in 1231, a secret society led by Robert Tweng organised some writings and burned down some property of Italians.

Question 20

Mendicant Orders

Answer 20

The best known and most important of the Mendicant Orders that came into being in this period are the Friars Minor and the Friars Preachers, known as Franciscans and Dominicans.
Mendicant orders are, primarily, certain Catholic Christian religious orders that have adopted a lifestyle of poverty, traveling, and living in urban areas for purposes of preaching, evangelization, and ministry, especially to the poor.

Question 21

The first mendicant order to reach England

Answer 21

Dominicans, then 2years later Franciscans
From these beginnings, both orders spread rapidly with the assistance of the king, and of the bishops and people. They provided them with lodgings and money to build.

Question 22

Robert Grossetête

Answer 22

Chancellor of the university of Oxford. He was the greatest scholar of his generation. He was persuaded by the friars to become their lecturer (13th Century)

Question 23

dispute in universities and parishes

Answer 23

• The friars however were trained preachers. Quickly attracting large audiences. They and their sermons soon became popular, and their influence led to a renewed interest for spiritual speculations. The secular clergy soon became jealous of their success.
• At Oxford and Cambridge, the Friars’ schools of theology were too powerful and too good to be turned out. In the parishes, the dispute turned upon 3 issues: the friars’ right to preach, to hear confessions, and to bury the dead. The problem with that was financial because preaching sermons, the advice given in confessions and the burying of the dead was often used by the traditional secular clergy as a means of raising money.

> problem settled in 1300 which introduced licences without which friars might not preach or hear confessions. The friars’ aura and reputation may have diminished after that but their reputation for a way of life that was simple, austere, and learned has been carried on.

Question 24

John Wycliffe, 14th century

Answer 24

• weak government, the plague (black death), insurrection, heavy taxation, and a general feeling of insecurity.
• the suppression of one of the military religious order (the knights of Solomon’s Templars).
• In 2nd half of the 14th century, a series of Act were passed in order to diminish the power of the Papacy in England. Indeed, the Papacy had been heavily taxing the people to support their political and military schemes

Question 25

The Templars order

Answer 25

To a certain extent, their order has survived to this day, not as a military order but in the secret fraternity that has continued within the freemasonry.

Question 26

Church Dominion

Answer 26

= each man was responsible to his immediate superior from whom he derived authority

Wickliff claimed that all Dominion in Religious matters was derived directly from God. Arguing in his book Di Dominio Divino in which he argues that each man is responsible to God alone, no need for hierarchy and no distinction between priests and layman. He also denounced the corruption of the Church that was rich and powerful.

Question 27

Wickliff impact on the Church

Answer 27

• Having the whole Bible translated in English and circulated in the whole country.
• He gathered a body of disciples called Lollards, who preached the Gospel to the people, ready to face danger in the cause that they thought was right.

Question 28

Sir John Old Castle

Answer 28

Lollard, a soldier, scholar and friend of the king. He was accused of Heresy and burnt to death.
The Lollards were very troublesome to the authorities.

Question 29

Thomas Cromwell

Answer 29

one of the most powerful proponents of the English Reformation, and the creator of true English governance. He helped to engineer an annulment of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon so that Henry VIII could lawfully marry Anne Boleyn.

Question 30

The Act of Uniformity, 1539

Answer 30

The 6 articles, maintaining the Roman Catholic doctrines, put an end to all diversity of religious opinions

Question 31

Edward VI

Answer 31

Henry’s VIII son, he gave birth to what is now the Church of England with “the Book of Prayer” = first king raised protestant

Question 32

Queen Mary

Answer 32

Sister of Edward VI, her policy : undo all that had be done and restore the Church in England to comunion with Rome.

Mary’s policy may have successfully carried the country back to what it had been in the time of her childhood, but on January 12th, 1554, she took a false step which proved to be her undoing: At Westminster, there was signed a Marriage treaty between Mary and Prince Phillip of Spain. This plunged the country in dismay, no one wanted England to be dragged into the Mediterranean Political Arena and thus become a tool in the hands of Spain. ==> the Act of Repeal, it annulled all church legislation since 1528

Question 33

Elizabeth

Answer 33

Mary’s death and Elizabeth ascending the throne was a deliverance.

The policy of Elizabeth divided into 3 groups:
- those who had supported Mary and were now in Power, the Pro-Roman party
- those who had been turned out but stayed alive in England formed the nucleus of the Protestant Party.
- A middle party wished to see servility neither to Rome nor to Calvin’s Geneva, with rather Catholicity restored to the Church in England but reformed from the abuses that had defiled it since the Middle Ages.

Elizabeth choice of Policy favoured this middle course, hence the term Via Media applying to her reign. Besides, she refused such blatant Roman Catholic practises like the elevation of the Host. With that, the Roman party as the well as the Calvinist party prepared for battle the moderate party of the New Church of England that was to be known as the Anglican Church.

Question 34

Elizabethan settlement

Answer 34

Act of Supremacy & Act of Uniformity 1559
an attempt by Elizabeth I to unite the country after the changes in religion under Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. It was designed to settle the divide between Catholics and Protestants and address the differences in services and beliefs.

Question 35

Mary Stuart

Answer 35

She was a Roman Catholic who fled Scotland. She did her best to rally the Romanists, especially in the North. Mary Stuart had a much better claim to the English Throne than Elizabeth because she was directly descended from Henry VII. Mary’s claim to the English throne was regarded as illegitimate by many Protestants, but supported by many Catholics.

• Executed in 1587 after all the tensions

Bloody Mary

Question 36

Pope Pius V

Answer 36

excommunicated Elizabeth after a rebellion, the Catholic people of England were then forced to choose between obedience to the state (=excommunicated) or to the pope (=becoming traitors).

Question 37

the final separation of England from Rome

Answer 37

1570

Question 38

Religion terrorism

Answer 38

> political sabotage and assassination of the queen planned by Rome and English priests in secret
- Many of those who took part of these missions were members of the society of Jesu, like Edmund Campion whose real intentions will be revealed, and he’ll be executed.
- 1581: Act declaring that anyone joining the Church of Rome should be regarded as a traitor.

Question 39

the Throckmorton plot

Answer 39

Francis Throckmorton had met Campion’s friend: Parson.
In 1580, he went to Rome to receive training. He returned to England in 83, to act as the confidential agent of the conspiracy aiming at the invasion of England by a French force for the purpose of restoring Papal authority, placing Mary Stuart on the Throne. English counter espionage worked well; Throckmorton was arrested in 83. Facing torture, a made a full confession. He was executed in 1584.
Further legislation was passed ordering all Jesuits to leave the country.

Question 40

why were the Puritans less dangerous than the Roman Catholic

Answer 40

the Puritans (many of whom were in touch with that other foreign power: Geneva) never commissioned from Geneva to interfere with political matters in England. Neither did they show any hostility to the Queen. Many of them had become disciples of John Calvin during their exile in Queen Mary’s reign. It was a fully Calvinist system that they wished to see in England. This Calvinist system would mean the abolition of Episcopacy, increase in the powers of the Laity in Church government, the removal of all ornaments and ceremonies/vestments that were connected to the Roman Church.
As years went by, criticism of the Church extended from these minor details to the doctrines, the concept of ministry.

Question 41

Thomas Cartwright

Answer 41

Leader of the Puritans

Question 42

John Jewel

Answer 42

a bishop, who wrote a large work entitled “Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae” condemnation of Rome and the denunciation of the catholicity of the Church of England.