Chapter 1-The State of the Church in 1529

Question 0

What opportunity did the church provide for wealthy people?

Answer 0

1. To impress other members of the community with their wealth and piety.
2. To lesson their time in purgatory by displaying their devotion and good deeds.

Question 1

What did people do to reduce their time in purgatory?

Answer 1

Have masses chanted for their souls, light candles around saints

Question 2

What did the people of Louth do?

Answer 2

They joined together and paid £305 for a new church spire.

Question 3

How had the monasteries gained their wealth over the years?

Answer 3

1. Gifts of land, silver, gold, etc. given by those who hoped to obtain spiritual support in return.
2. Members of nobility and gentry might have gifts as an act to demonstrate their beliefs or pay for masses to be said for their soul.
3. Property had been acquired as people joined religious institutions.

Question 4

What did some monasteries also produce that added to their wealth?

Answer 4

Wool, food, iron, all these made the more productive monasteries important to the rural economy

Question 5

What support did the monasteries provide for communities?

Answer 5

Religious guidance, at the forefront of fighting disease, provided some elementary health care, monks provided education to the sons of nobility and gentry, helped the poor and needy in towns- even in rural monasteries food was distributed to the poor who gathered at the gate to be fed.

Question 6

What was the feeling about the smaller monasteries that was felt by some 16th century bishops across Europe?

Answer 6

That the smaller monasteries were a drain on the community and that their wealth might be better used for financing schools or priests for the wider community.

Question 7

What did Cardinal Wolsey do to fund the formation of a grammar school in Ipswich and a college at the University if Oxford?

Answer 7

He dissolved 29 small religious houses in the 1520s. However these dissolutions were on a small scale and the continuation of monasteries as important institutions within England seemed secure.

Question 8

What was Peter’s Pence?

Answer 8

An annual tax of 1p paid by every house in England to Rome on midsummer’s day.

Question 9

What did people do to spend less time in purgatory?

Answer 9

By doing good works, people still alive praying and saying mass for them. Also priests were important in reducing time in purgatory- they would hear people’s confessions and would sometimes give them penance

Question 10

What were the seven sacraments?

Answer 10

Baptism, confirmation, marriage, ordination, last rites, penance, the mass.

Question 11

In what way was the monarchy dependent on the Catholic Church?

Answer 11

1. Key to the Monarch’s legitimacy was the coronation which took place at Westminster Abbey.
2. Monarchs eager to make gifts of silver and gold to church, they defined themselves by their religious beliefs.
3. Abbots and bishops sat in the House of Lords alongside the nobility and decided on legislation and they also advised the king

Question 12

How many religious institutions were there when Henry became King in 1509?

Answer 12

More than 850

Question 13

Who was the monk that was is charge of the abbey?

Answer 13

The Abbot- most likely would have entered a monastic order as a novice in their youth and would have undertaken a number of responsible roles before becoming an abbot. They had financial and social skills. Would have so socialised with nobility who stayed in the guest houses on their travels.

Question 14

Who was likely to become a monk?

Answer 14

Younger sons (also daughters-nuns) when their was insufficient money to be established in society. They took a full part in the services of the monastery.

Question 15

What jobs could monks have in the monastery?

Answer 15

Working in the infirmary or library, producing illuminated manuscripts, being responsible for the silver and sacred possessions which had been given to the monastery.

Question 16

What are the anti-clerical criticisms of the state of the church and monasteries?

Answer 16

Indulgences and the sale of holy relics 
Tithes 
Mortuary fees 
Simony
Pluralism 
Behaviour of the clergy 
Benefit of the clergy

Question 17

Who was Richard Hunne?

Answer 17

He refused the give the parish priest his son’s christening dress as a mortuary fee. He was then involved with a property dispute with a parish priest who took him to the archbishop’s court, Hunne was then arrested and as a search of his house found a Lollard bible. Hunne was then found dead in his cell having apparently killed himself however the coroners court said he was murdered. The church said he was a heretic as he questioned the church’s authority and denied transubstantiation.

Question 18

What was the effect of the Richard Hunne case on the Church?

Answer 18

It was widely believed that the Church had killed a critic to protect clergy privileges. Hunne was regarded as a martyr and the church’s reputation suffered. The case was a subject of debate in the reformation parliament in 1529.