Religion, Humanism, Arts and Learning

Question 1

What role did the Catholic Church play in English society? (3 things)

Answer 1

All English people belonged to the Catholic Church
- Means of maintaining social control
- Provided opportunities for employment and social advancements
- Played an important political role (in both domestic and international affairs)

Question 2

How many dioceses were there in England?

Answer 2

17

Question 3

How did the church affect ordinary people on a day-to-day basis?

Answer 3

The parish and its church was central to both personal religious experience and to community life. Lives were governed by religious festivals and the rituals of baptism, marriage and death.

Question 4

What is purgatory?

Answer 4

The limbo state when your soul has to be cleansed of sins before entering heaven

Question 5

What is transubstantiation?

Answer 5

The belief that when the priest consecrated the bread and wine they were literally transformed into the body and blood of christ

Question 6

How did ordinary support their local church? (5 things)

Answer 6

• Donate towards rebuilding parish church buildings or pay for church objects
• Leave money to the parish in their wills
• Leave money for the foundation of chantries (chapels where masses for the souls of the dead were said)
• Gather together in confraternity (lay brotherhood)
• Take part in the practise of ‘beating the bounds’ on rogation Sunday, walking around the parish boundaries and praying for the protection for the parish

Question 7

Who were monks?

Answer 7

• 1% of adult men living in approx 900 monasteries
• The benedictine order often had large houses; some operated cathedrals and there remembers often came from wealthier parts of society
• Cistercian and Carthusian monasteries were frequently situated in more remote rural areas

Question 8

Who were Friars?

Answer 8

• 3 main orders: Dominicans, Franciscans and Augustinians
• They worked among lay people and were largely supported by charitable donations
• Recruited from lower down the social scale then the larger monasteries
• Declining in importance by the late 15th century

Question 9

Who were nuns?

Answer 9

• Usually enjoyed less prestige than monasteries (often populated by women considered unsuitable for marriage
• Often relatively poor