LH Eng Ch, Henry VIII: Sources
This course examines the state of the church in England at one of the most critical points in its history. The early stages of the Reformation mark a turning point, but until recently historians have tended to focus on one side or other of the divide. In the past two decades a spate ‘revisionism’, which has sought explicitly to test whether the English church actually needed Reformation, and how far what happened was welcomed, opposed, or simply acquiesced in, has produced significant rethinking, although without any real resolution of the issues. The Henrician Reformation is unavoidably at the heart of the analysis, this is not just a Reformation course; rather it considers the church as a whole, during the whole of the reign.