need help with europ history 1450-1750 plz heeelppp?

Question

HOW and WHY did life in europ change in that period?
How were the political,economic,social,religious,culture and technological factors interconnected in this period?
THANK YOU

Answer 1

This a rather long period in history and encompasses many major events and changes.

Here goes.

1. 1450 sees the end of the Medieval era (1330) and the emergence of the Renaissance.

You'll need to address the following factors;

(a) Humanism
Renaissance humanism was a broad movement that affected the social, cultural, literary and political landscapes of Europe. Beginning in Florence in the last decades of the 14th century, renaissance humanism revived the study of the Latin and Greek languages; and caused the resultant revival of the studies of science, philosophy, art and poetry of classical antiquity.

The "revival", or "re-birth", was based upon interpretations of Roman and Greek texts, whose emphasis upon art and the senses marked a great change from the contemplation upon the Biblical values of humility, introspection, and meekness. Beauty was held to represent a deep inner virtue and value, and "an essential element in the path towards God".

The crisis of Renaissance humanism came with the trial of Galileo, which forced the choice between basing the authority of one's beliefs on one's observations, or upon religious teaching. The trial made the contradictions between humanism and traditional religion visibly apparent to all, and humanism was branded a "dangerous doctrine".

Renaissance humanists believed that the liberal arts (music, art, grammar, rhetoric, oratory, history, poetry, using classical texts, and the studies of all of the above) should be practiced by all levels of wealth. They also approved of self, human worth and individual dignity.

Noteworthy humanists scholars from this period include the Dutch theologist Erasmus and the English author Thomas More and French philosopher Francois Rabelais.

Italy in the Mid-Fourteenth Century: The Rise of Humanism (mid 14th century)
Summary
The cities of Italy prospered during the late Middle Ages, serving as trading posts connecting Europe to the Byzantine Empire and the Moslem world via the Mediterranean Sea. Commerce enriched and empowered regions in which the feudal system had not taken a strong hold, especially in northern Italy. The most prosperous of these cities--Florence, Venice, and Milan--became powerful city-states, ruling the regions surrounding them. Further south, the Papal States, centered in Rome, gradually grew to rival the wealth of the northern cities, and as the seat of the papacy, exerted a tremendous influence over Italian life and politics. Along with a few other minor centers of wealth and power, including Urbino, Mantua, and Ferrara, these four regions became the cradle of the Renaissance, beginning in the fourteenth century to undergo political, economic, and artistic changes.
The beginning of the Renaissance in the mid-fourteenth century was marked by a turn from medieval life and values dominated by the Church toward the philosophical principles of humanism. The Italian people, especially the educated middle class, became interested in individual achievement and emphasized life in this world, as opposed to preparation for life in the next world, which was stressed by religion. They believed strongly in the potential for individual accomplishment in the arts, literature, politics, and personal life. Individuals began to be encouraged to excel in a wide range of fields and showcase their talents. Renaissance thinkers decried medieval life as primitive and backwards, and looked further back in history, to the time of the ancient Greeks and Romans, for inspiration.
One of the earliest and most prominent humanist writers was Francesco Petrarch, often known as the founder of humanism. Many historians cite April 6, 1341, the date on which Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate upon the Capitol in Rome, as the true beginning of the Renaissance. Petrarch believed that true eloquence and ethical wisdom had been lost during the Middle Ages, and could only be found by looking to the writings of the ancients, especially Virgil and Cicero. Petrarch wrote extensively, producing poetry, biographies of historical figures, and wrote scores of letters, many of which were eventually published and widely read. One of his most popular letters, "The Ascent of Mount Vertoux," describes his journey to the summit of a mountain, but more importantly, it is an allegory comparing the hardships of the climb to the struggle to attain true Christian virtue.
Commentary
Geography, more than anything else, gave Italy an advantage over northern Europe in regard to potential for amassing wealth and breaking free from the feudal system. Jutting into the Mediterranean Sea, and strategically located between the majority of Europe and the Byzantine Empire, Italian cities had almost no choice but to participate in international trade and the market economy, and to integrate the activities of commerce into daily life. In this way, Italy became exposed to the large-scale flow of both goods and ideas much earlier than most other regions in Europe. Thus, during the later years of the Middle Ages, northern Italy flourished economically and intellectually. Further, because Italy's maintained its market economy while the rest of Europe developed a self- contained barter economy of feudal territories spawned by agrarian life, feudalism did not take hold in northern Italy as it did elsewhere in Europe. In both society and mind, it can be argued, northern Italy was more sophisticated and freer than the rest of Europe.
The history and ideas of the ancient Greeks and Romans, cast into shadow throughout Europe in medieval times, had perhaps remained closer to the surface of contemporary thought in Italy than elsewhere, due to the geographical location of the Italian city-states, which had been built basically on top of the ruins of the Roman Empire. However, this geographical proximity should not be overstated. Even in the city of Rome, the buildings of the empire had fallen into ruin, and many were covered by centuries of waste and overgrowth. It seems unlikely, but even the citizens of Rome who lived in the shadow of the Coliseum and the Pantheon had little sense and less reverence for the history around them during the Middle Ages. The Greek influence on the cities of northern Italy was maintained by the trade with the Byzantine Empire, which had as its byproduct the flow of ideas and history. The Greek influence grew throughout the late fourteenth century and into the fifteenth, as the Ottoman Turks increasingly threatened Constantinople, the center of the Byzantine Empire, which finally fell in 1453. This constant pressure forced many Greeks into refuge in northern Italy, which benefited greatly from the treasures and knowledge of ancient Greece that these refugee/immigrants they brought with them. Many Italian and Greek contemporaries commented that it seemed Constantinople had not fallen at all, but simply been transplanted to Florence.
The influence of the revival of interest in Greek and Roman history is undeniable, and contributed greatly to the spirit of the times. Petrarch's writings demonstrate that while the intellectual focus of the time was evolving and changing to reflect this influence, the primary aspect of medieval life, the Church, remained powerful, and religion continued to exert an extraordinary power over the thoughts and actions of individuals. Petrarch and many other Renaissance intellectuals thus often described feelings of being torn between two sides of their personalities. Petrarch, like many Renaissance intellectuals, was comfortable in the seclusion of pious monastery life, but he also loved to travel. He believed in the Christian ideal of self-denial, but also enjoyed the pleasures of the world. He advocated study and learning, but feared that the accumulation of worldly knowledge might prevent him from achieving salvation. This was a common dilemma for Renaissance thinkers, as the principles of humanism rose up to rival the doctrines of the Church.

(b) Guttenberg's printing press
The impact of printing is comparable to the development of writing and the invention of the alphabet, as far as its effects on the society. Print did not achieve a position of total dominance, and handwritten manuscripts continued to be produced, and the continuing influences of the printed word and oral communication on each other meant that no one form of communication could dominate.

Printing also was a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries, which had previously been communicted by personal letters, helping to bring on the scientific revolution. Also, although early texts were printed in Latin, books were soon produced in common European vernaculars, leading over several centuries to the decline of the Latin language as the medium of scholarly communication.

Because of the printing press, authorship became more meaningful and profitable. It was suddenly important who had said or written what, and what the precise formulation and time of composition was. This allowed the exact citing of references, producing the rule, "One Author, one work (title), one piece of information" (Giesecke, 1989; 325). Before, the author was less important, since a copy of Aristotle made in Paris would not be exactly identical to one made in Bologna. For many works prior to the printing press, the name of the author was entirely lost.

Because the printing process ensured that the same information fell on the same pages, page numbering, tables of contents, and indices became common, though they previously has not been unknown. The process of reading was also changed, gradually changing over several centuries from oral readings to silent, private reading. And obviously, the availability of printed materials led to a continuing rise in the literacy level, revolutionizing education.

It can also be argued that printing changed the way Europeans thought. With the older illuminated manuscripts, the immediate visual emphasis was on the images and the beauty of the page. Early printed works emphasized principally the text and the line of argument. In the sciences, the introduction of the printing press marked a move from the medieval language of metaphors to the adoption of the scientific method.[citation needed]

In general, knowledge came closer to the hands of the people, since printed books could be sold for a fraction of the cost of illuminated manuscripts. There were also more copies of each book available, so that more people could discuss them. Within 50-60 years, the entire library of "classical" knowledge had been printed on the new presses (Eisenstein, 1969; 52). The spread of works also led to the creation of copies by other parties than the original author, leading to the formulation of copyright laws. Furthermore, as the books spread into the hands of the people, Latin was gradually replaced by the national languages. This development was one of the keys to the creation of modern nations.

Some theorists, such as McLuhan, Eisenstein, Kittler, and Giesecke, see an "alphabetic monopoly" as having developed from printing, removing the role of the image from society. Other authors stress that printed works themselves are a visual medium. Certainly, modern developments in printing have revitalized the role of illustrations.

(c) Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation, also referred to as the Protestant Revolution, Protestant Revolt,or the"Lutheran Reformation", was a movement in the 16th century to reform the Catholic Church in Western Europe. The Reformation was started by Martin Luther with his 95 Theses on the practice of indulgences. On October 31, 1517 he is said to have posted these theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg (Germany), commonly used to post notices to the University community. In November he sent them to various religious authorities of the day. The reformation ended in division and the establishment of new institutions. The four most important traditions to emerge directly from the reformation were the Lutheran tradition, the Reformed/Calvinist/Presbyterian tradition, the Anabaptist tradition, and the Anglican tradition. Subsequent protestant traditions generally trace their roots back to these initial four schools of the reformation. It also led to the Catholic or Counter Reformation within the Roman Catholic Church through a variety of new spiritual movements, reforms of religious communities, the founding of seminaries, the clarification of Catholic theology as well as structural changes in the institution of the Church. More thorough historians place the beginning of the Protestant Reformation further back in time and see Wycliffe as the beginning, Jan Hus as the middle and Luther as the end of the Reformation. The Reformation in Bohemia a hundred years earlier had a strong influence on neighboring states and on Luther himself who called himself a hussite.

Humanism to Protestantism
The frustrated reformism of the humanists, ushered in by the Renaissance, contributed to a growing impatience among reformers. Erasmus and later figures like Luther and Zwingli would emerge from this debate and eventually contribute to the second major schism of Christendom. Unfortunately for the Church, the crisis of theology beginning with William of Ockham in the fourteenth century was occurring in conjunction with the new burgher discontent. Since the breakdown of the philosophical foundations of scholasticism, the new nominalism did not bode well for an institutional church legitimized as an intermediary between man and God. New thinking favored the notion that no religious doctrine can be supported by philosophical arguments, eroding the old alliance between reason and faith of the medieval period laid out by Thomas Aquinas.


ErasmusThe major individualistic reform movements that revolted against medieval scholasticism and the institutions that underpinned it were: humanism, devotionalism, (see for example, the Brothers of the Common Life and Jan Standonck) and the observatine tradition. In Germany, “the modern way” or devotionalism caught on in the universities, requiring a redefinition of God, who was no longer a rational governing principle but an arbitrary, unknowable will that cannot be limited. God was now an unknowable absolute ruler, and religion would be more fervent and emotional. Thus, the ensuing revival of Augustinian theology, stating that man cannot be saved by his own efforts but only by the grace of God, would erode the legitimacy of the rigid institutions of the church meant to provide a channel for man to do good works and get into heaven. Humanism, however, was more of an educational reform movement with origins in the Renaissance's revival of classical learning and thought. A revolt against Aristotelian logic, it placed great emphasis on reforming individuals through eloquence as opposed to reason. The European Renaissance laid the foundation for the Northern humanists in its reinforcement of the traditional use of Latin as the great unifying cultural language.

The polarization of the scholarly community in Germany over the Reuchlin (1455-1522) affair, attacked by the elite clergy for his study of Hebrew and Jewish texts, brought Luther fully in line with the humanist educational reforms who favored academic freedom. At the same time, the impact of the Renaissance would soon backfire against Southern Europe, also ushering in an age of reform and a repudiation of much of medieval Latin tradition. Led by Erasmus, the humanists condemned various forms of corruption within the Church, forms of corruption that might not have been any more prevalent than during the medieval zenith of the church. Erasmus held that true religion was a matter of inward devotion rather than an outward symbol of ceremony and ritual. Going back to ancient texts, scriptures, from this viewpoint the greatest culmination of the ancient tradition, are the guides to life. Favoring moral reforms and de-emphasizing didactic ritual, Erasmus laid the groundwork for Luther.

Humanism's intellectual anti-clericalism would profoundly influence Luther. The increasingly well-educated middle sectors of Northern Germany, namely the educated community and city dwellers would turn to Luther's rethinking of religion to conceptualize their discontent according to the cultural medium of the era. The great rise of the burghers, the desire to run their new businesses free of institutional barriers or outmoded cultural practices, contributed to the appeal of humanist individualism. To many, papal institutions were rigid, especially regarding their views on just price and usury. In the North burghers and monarchs were united in their frustration for not paying any taxes to the nation, but collecting taxes from subjects and sending the revenues disproportionately to the Pope in Italy.

These trends heightened demands for significant reform and revitalization along with anticlericalism. New thinkers began noticing the divide between the priests and the flock. The clergy, for instance, were not always well-educated. Parish priests often did not know Latin and rural parishes often did not have great opportunities for theological education for many at the time. Due to its large landholdings and institutional rigidity, a rigidity to which the excessively large ranks of the clergy contributed, many bishops studied law, not theology, being relegated to the role of property managers trained in administration. While priests emphasized works of religiosity, the respectability of the church began diminishing, especially among well educated urbanites, and especially considering the recent strings of political humiliation, such as the apprehension of Pope Boniface VIII by Philip IV of France, the “Babylonian Captivity,” the Great Schism, and the failure of Conciliar reformism. In a sense, the campaign by Pope Leo X to raise funds to rebuild the St. Peter's Basilica was too much of an excess by the secular Renaissance church, prompting the high-pressure sale of indulgences that rendered the clerical establishments even more disliked in the cities.

Luther, taking the revival of the Augustinian notion of salvation by faith alone to new levels, borrowed from the humanists the sense of individualism, that each man can be his own priest (an attitude likely to find popular support considering the rapid rise of an educated urban middle class in the North), and that the only true authority is the Bible, echoing the reformist zeal of the Conciliar movement and opening up the debate once again on limiting the authority of the Pope. While his ideas called for the sharp redefinition of the dividing lines between the laity and the clergy, his ideas were still, by this point, reformist in nature. Luther's contention that the human will was incapable of following good, however, resulted in his rift with Erasmus finally distinguishing Lutheran reformism from humanism.


[edit] Religious influences for the Reformation
While there were some parallels between certain movements within humanism and teachings later common among the Reformers, the Reformation's principal arguments were based on "direct" Biblical interpretation. The Roman Catholic Church had for several centuries been the main purveyor in Europe of non-secular humanism: the neo-Platonism of the scholastics and the neo-Aristotelianism of Thomas Aquinas and his followers had made humanism a part of Church dogma. This was of course due to the Catholic Church's use of historic, religious tradition (including the Canonization of Saints) in the forming of its liturgy. Thus, when Luther and the other reformers adopted the standard of sola scriptura, making the Bible the sole measure of theology, they made the Reformation a reaction against the humanism of that time. Previously, the Scriptures had been seen as the pinnacle of a hierarchy of sacred texts.

The Protestants emphasized such concepts as salvation by "faith alone" (not faith and good works or infused righteousness), "Scripture alone" (the Bible as the sole rule of faith, rather than the Bible plus Tradition), "the priesthood of all believers" (eschewing the special authority and power of the Roman Catholic sacramental priesthood), that all people are individually responsible for their status before God such that talk of mediation through any but Christ alone is unbiblical. Because they saw these teachings as stemming from the Bible, they encouraged publication of the Bible in the common language and universal education.

Part of the revolt was an iconoclasm, seen in John Calvin and Huldrych Zwingli, but particularly amongst the radical reformers. Iconoclastic riots took place in Zürich (in 1523), Copenhagen (1530), Münster (1534), Geneva (1535), Augsburg (1537) and Scotland (1559).

The Reformation did not happen in a vacuum, as there were movements for centuries calling for a return to Biblical teachings, the most famous being from Wycliffe and John Huss. It is no surprise that their teachings were later found in the Reformation, as they imbibed from the same source.

While it is true that there were calls for religious, doctrinal, and moral reformation within and without the institutional church for centuries, apparently it was the invention of the printing press which allowed quick broadcasting of ideas, the rise in nationalistic fervor, the increasing availability of the Bible to the public, and popular discontent at the moral corruption in the church to coalesce in support for a reformation as never before. But the spark that started the Reformation and keeps it going even today is the doctrinal issues brought up by the Holy Bible.

(d) The Peasant's war
The Peasants' War (in German, der Deutsche Bauernkrieg) was a popular revolt in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1524/1525. It consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and nobles. The movement possessed no common programme.

The conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central areas of modern Germany but also affected areas in neighbouring modern Switzerland and Austria, involved at its height in the spring and summer of 1525 an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000.

The war was in part an expression of the religious upheaval known as the Reformation, during which critics of the Roman Catholic Church challenged the prevailing religious and political order.

A number of historians have cited the 'Economic Anticlericalism' inherent in the beginnings of the German Peasant Wars of 1524-1525.

However, it also reflected deep-seated social discontents. To understand the causes of the peasant war one must examine the changing structure of social classes in Germany and their relationship to one another. These classes were the princes, the lesser nobles, the prelates, the patricians, the burghers, the plebeians and the peasants.

(e) 30 years war
The Thirty Years' War was fought between 1618 and 1648, principally on the territory of today's Germany, and involved most of the major European continental powers. Although it was from the outset a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics, the rivalry between the Habsburg dynasty and other powers was also a central motive, as shown by the fact that Catholic France even supported the Protestant side, increasing France-Habsburg rivalry.

The impact of the Thirty Years' War and related episodes of famine and disease was devastating. The war may have lasted for 30 years, but conflicts continued for 300 more years.

The war ended with the Treaty of Westphalia.



[edit] Origins of the War
The Peace of Augsburg (1555), hastily signed by Charles V, confirmed the result of the 1526 Diet of Speyer and ended the violence between the Lutherans and the Catholics in Germany.

It stated that:

German Princes (numbering 225) could choose the religion (Lutheranism or Catholicism) for their realms according to their conscience (the principle of cuius regio eius religio).
Lutherans living in an ecclesiastical state (under the control of a bishop) could remain Lutherans.
Lutherans could keep the territory that they had captured from the Catholic Church since the Peace of Passau (1552).
The ecclesiastical leaders of the Catholic Church (bishops) that converted to Lutheranism had to give up their territory (the principle called reservatum ecclesiasticum).
However, though granting peace at the moment, the settlement did not solve the question raised by the religious wars and differences. Both parties interpreted it at their convenience, the Lutherans in particular considering it only a momentary agreement. Further, Calvinism spread quickly throughout Germany, adding a third major religion to the region, but its position was not supported in any way by the Augsburg terms, since Catholicism and Lutheranism were the only permitted creeds.

Political and economic tensions grew among many of the powerful nations of Europe in the early 17th century.

Spain was interested in the German states because it held the territories of the Spanish Netherlands on the western border of the German states. The Netherlands revolted against the Spanish domination, gaining independence in a series of wars which was halted by a truce only in 1609.
France was interested in the German states because of their status as weak neighbors, compared to the Habsburgs realms which surrounded France on land.
Sweden and Denmark were interested in gaining control over northern German states bordering the Baltic Sea.
The Holy Roman Empire, encompassing Germany and most of the neighbouring lands, was a fragmented collection of independent states ranging from superpowers like the Austrian House of Habsburg (including also Bohemia and Hungary, with some 8 millions subjects); national states like Bavaria, electoral Saxony, Brandenburg, Palatinate, Hesse, the archbishopric of Trier and Württemberg (500,000 to one million inhabitants); to a wide series of minor independent duchies, free cities, abbeys, bishoprics, up to petty lords whose authority extended to no more than a single village. Apart from Austria and perhaps Bavaria, not one of those entities was capable of national-level politics; alliances between family-related states were common, due also to the practice of often splitting between the various sons the inheritage of lords.


Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia. He urged the Council of Trent to approve married clergy and Communion in Both kinds.Religious tensions were growing throughout the second half of the 16th century as well. The Peace of Augsburg was unraveling as some converted bishops had not given up their bishoprics, and as certain Catholic rulers in Spain and Eastern Europe sought to restore the power of Catholicism in the region. This was evident from the Cologne War (1582–83) onwards. This occurred when the prince-archbishop of that city converted to Calvinism. Being an imperial elector, this could have created a majority of votes for the Lutherans in the College that elected the Holy Roman Emperor. The Emperor had always been a Catholic until that time. Therefore the prince-archbishop was expelled by Spanish troops and replaced by Ernst of Bavaria. After this success, the Catholics regained pace, and the principle of cuius regio eius religio began to be exerted more strictly in Bavaria, Würzburg and other states. This forced the Lutherans to choose between conversion or exile. The Lutherans also saw the defection of the lords of Palatinate (1560), Nassau (1578), Hesse-Kassel (1603) and Brandenburg (1613), who had all adhered to Calvinism. Thus at the beginning of the 17th century the situation was the following: the Rhein lands and those south to the Danube were largely Catholic, while the Lutherans were the majority in the north, and Calvinists were predominant in some areas such as the Central part of Western Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands. However, minorities of each creed existed almost everywhere. In some lordships and cities the number of Calvinists, Catholics, and Lutherans were approximately equal.


Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia issued a charter of religious freedom to Bohemian Protestants in 1609.Much to the consternation of their Spanish ruling cousins,[citation needed] the Habsburg emperors who followed Charles V (especially Ferdinand I and Maximilian II, but also Rudolf II, and his successor Matthias) were supportive towards their subjects' religious choices. They were aware[citation needed] of the deadly evils and turmoil that England had suffered because of the official religious intolerance that had commenced in 1534 under King Henry VIII and his successors. Thus these rulers avoided religious wars within the empire by allowing the different religions to spread there. This upset those who wanted religious uniformity. Meanwhile, Sweden and Denmark, who were both Lutheran kingdoms, had sought to assist the Protestant cause in the Empire. They also wanted to gain political and economic influence there as well.


Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia. His intolerance of the Protestant cause was the proximate cause of the war.
Frederick V, Elector Palatine as King of Bohemia, painted by Gerrit von Honthorst in 1634, two years after the subject's death. Frederick is called the "Winter King" of Bohemia because he reigned for less than three months in 1620 after he was installed by a rebellious faction.Religious tensions broke into violence in the German free city of Donauwörth in 1606. The Lutheran majority barred the Catholic residents of the Swabian town from holding a procession which caused a riot to break out. This prompted foreign intervention by Duke Maximilian of Bavaria (1573–1651) on behalf of the Catholics. After the violence ceased, the Calvinists in Germany (who were still in their infancy and were a minority) felt the most threatened. They banded together and formed the League of Evangelical Union. The League was created in 1608 under the leadership of the Palatine elector Frederick IV (1583–1610), (whose son, Frederick V, married Elizabeth Stuart, the daughter of James I of England). Incidentally, the Prince-Elector had control of the Rhenish Palatinate, one of the very states along the Rhine River that Spain wanted to acquire. The creation of the League provoked the Catholics into banding together to form the Catholic League (created in 1609) under the leadership of the aforementioned Duke Maximilian.

Then Matthias Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Bohemia, died without descendants in 1619. His lands went to his nearest male relative, his cousin Ferdinand of Styria. He thus became King of Bohemia and Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. Ferdinand having been educated by the Jesuits was a staunch Catholic who wanted to restore Catholicism to his lands. This made him highly unpopular in primarily Hussite Bohemia. The rejection of Ferdinand is what launched the Thirty Years' War. The War can be divided into four major phases: the Bohemian Revolt, the Danish intervention, the Swedish intervention, and the French intervention.

(f) English Reformation
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, referred to by Roman Catholic writers as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the formal process during the English Reformation by which King Henry VIII confiscated the property of the monastic institutions in England between 1538 and 1541. He was given the authority to do this by the Act of Supremacy, passed by Parliament in 1534, which made him Supreme Head of the Church of England.





[edit] Context
The Dissolution of the Monasteries did not take place in an isolated political context. Other movements against the jurisdiction of the Church of Rome had been underway for some time–most of them related to the Protestant Reformation in Continental Europe–but the religious changes in England were of a different nature than those being seen in places like Germany. Henry VIII's dispute with Rome was political, not theological.

The resulting changes were essentially a form of "State Catholicism" instead of a complete religious shift away from the Roman Catholic traditions in England's churches. Henry VIII expressed the church's continued Catholicism with 1539's Six Articles, which remained in effect until after his death. Cardinal Wolsey had obtained from the Pope a Papal Bull authorizing some limited reforms in the English Church as early as 1518.

Henry VIII's Anglican Church retained strong Catholic influences until the reign of his son and heir Edward VI. Protestant rites introduced during that time were largely due to the influence of two men during the reigns of both kings: Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, who served as Lord Protector of the Realm and Governor of the King's Person in the regency organization for Edward VI. Cranmer secretly married the niece of a Lutheran theologian of Nuremberg.

Under Henry VIII, acts allegedly reforming certain abusive practices in the church were passed in November 1529. They set caps on fees for probating wills and mortuary expenses for burial on hallowed ground, tightened regulations covering rights of sanctuary for felons and murderers, and reduced to four the number of church offices to be held by one man. These were less forms of "religious reformation" than they were ways of establishing royal jurisdiction in a "State Catholic" framework.

Nevertheless, resistance among the pro-Roman ecclesiastics was stiff, and was spurred on by Reginald Pole. Henry VIII originally offered Pole the archbishopric of York or the diocese of Winchester if he would support his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Pole withheld his support and went into self-imposed exile in France and Italy in 1532, where he continued his studies in Padua and Paris. Pole was made cardinal under Pope Paul III in 1536 over Pole's own objections, so as to be a potential "Pope's man" in England in an anticipated more pro-Roman future. In 1542 he was appointed as one of the three legates to preside over the Council of Trent, and after the death of Pope Paul III in 1549, Pole missed being elected pope by only one vote.

It has been suggested by English historical scholars, like J. J. Scarisbrick the author of The Reformation and the English People, that getting the lands and treasuries of those religious houses was as much Henry's purpose in splitting with the Church of Rome as getting divorced from Catherine of Aragon; however, the evidence points away from this, since he spent five years pressuring the Pope for his annulment before finally giving up and breaking with Rome. Moreover, during the period, it was a politically dangerous activity for the king to do, because there was little popular enthusiasm in Britain for Protestantism. Rather, having gained control over the church, he was unable to resist the temptation to use its wealth to clear the country's debts–especially as the church had an income three times greater than that of the state.

Additionally, it may have been a form of politics: that once the break with Rome had occurred, the Dissolution could be seen as a form of removing the organizations that were the mainspring of Henry VIII's political opposition, as well. The truth is likely a mixture of all these.


[edit] Process
Henry had himself declared Supreme Head of the Church of England in February 1531. In April 1533 an Act in Restraint of Appeals eliminated the right of clergy to appeal to "foreign tribunals" (Rome) over the King's head in any spiritual or financial matter.

In 1534 Henry had Parliament authorize Thomas Cromwell, a layman in the King's service since 1530, to "visit" all the monasteries (which term includes abbeys, priories and convents), ostensibly to make sure their members were instructed in the new rules for their supervision by the King instead of the Pope, but actually to inventory their assets. A few months later, in January 1535 when the consternation at having a lay visitation instead of a bishop's had settled down, Cromwell's visitation authority was delegated to a commission of laymen. This phase is termed the "Visitation of the Monasteries."

The monks and nuns in the monasteries were sinful "hypocrites" and "sorcerers" who were living lives of luxury and engaging in every kind of sin;
Those monks and nuns were sponging off the working people and giving nothing back and, thus, were a serious drain on England's economy;
If the King received all the property of the monasteries, he would never again need taxes from the people.
Meanwhile, during the last half of 1535, the visiting commissioners were sending back to Cromwell written reports of all the scandalous doings they said they were discovering, sexual as well as financial. A law that Parliament enacted in early 1536, relying in large part on the reports of impropriety Cromwell had received, provided for the King to take all the monasteries with annual incomes of less than £200, and that was done: the smaller, less influential houses were emptied, their few inhabitants pensioned and their property confiscated. Monastic life had already been in decline. By 1536, the thirteen Cistercian houses in Wales had only 85 monks among them. Their reputation for misbehaviour was likely overstated, however.

These moves did not raise as much capital as had been expected, even after the king rechartered some of the confiscated monasteries and confiscated them again. In April 1539 a new Parliament passed a law giving the King the rest of the monasteries in England. Some of the abbots resisted, and that autumn the abbots of Colchester, Glastonbury, and Reading were executed for treason.

The other abbots signed their abbeys over to the King. Some of the confiscated church buildings were destroyed by having the valuable lead removed from roofs and stone reused for secular buildings. Some of the smaller Benedictine houses were taken over as parish churches, and were even bought for the purpose by wealthy parishes. The tradition that there was widespread destruction and iconoclasm, that altars and windows were smashed, partly confuses the damage done in the 1530s with the greater damage wrought by the Puritans in the next century. Relics were discarded and pilgrimages discouraged, however. (See, however, Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400–1580 (1992), for another view.) Places like Glastonbury, Walsingham, Bury St Edmunds, Shaftesbury and Canterbury, which had thrived on the pilgrim trade, suffered setbacks.


Candle marking the former spot of the shrine of Thomas Becket, at Canterbury CathedralHenry needed more cash; so many of the abbeys now in his possession were resold to the new Tudor gentry, aligning them as a class more firmly to the new Protestant settlement.


[edit] Consequences
The abbeys of England, Wales and Ireland had been among the greatest landowners and the largest institutions in the kingdom. Particularly in areas far from London, the abbeys were among the principal centres of hospitality, learning, patronage of craftspeople and sources of charity and medical care. The removal of over eight hundred such institutions virtually overnight left many gaps.

It is unlikely that the monastic system could have been broken if there had not been a strong feeling of resentment against the church amongst at least part of the general population.

The related destruction of the monastic libraries was one of the greatest cultural losses caused by the English Reformation. Worcester Priory (now Worcester Cathedral) had 600 books at the time of the dissolution. Only six of them have survived intact to the present day. At the abbey of the Augustinian Friars at York, a library of 646 volumes was destroyed, leaving only three surviving books. Some books were destroyed for their precious bindings, others were sold off by the cartload, including irreplaceable early English works. It is believed that many of the earliest Anglo-Saxon manuscripts were lost at this time.

"A great nombre of them whych purchased those supertycyous mansyons, resrved of those lybrarye bokes, some to serve theyr jakes, some to scoure candelstyckes, and some to rubbe their bootes. Some they solde to the grossers and soapsellers…"–John Bale, 1549
Monastic hospitals were also lost, with serious consequences locally. Monasteries had also supplied charitable food and alms for the poor and destitute in hard times. The removal of this resource was one of the factors in the creation of the army of "sturdy beggars" that plagued late Tudor England, causing the social instability that led to the Edwardian and Elizabethan Poor Laws. In addition, monastic landlords were generally considered to be more lax and easy-going than the new aristocrats who replaced them, demanding higher rents and greater productivity from their tenants.

The destruction of the monastic institutions was unpopular in some areas. In the north of England, centring on Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, the suppression of the monasteries led to a popular rising, the Pilgrimage of Grace, that threatened the crown for some weeks. The demand for the restoration of some monasteries resurfaced later, in the West Country Prayer Book Rebellion of 1549.

Many of the dismantled monasteries and friaries were sold for nominal amounts (often to the local townspeople), and some of the lands the King gave to his supporters; there were also pensions to be paid to some of the dispossessed clerics. Many others continued to serve the parishes. Although the total value of the confiscated property has been calculated to have been £200,000 at the time, the actual amount of income King Henry received from it from 1536 through 1547 averaged only £37,000 per year, about one fifth of what the monks had derived from it.

In 1536 there were major popular risings in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire and, a further rising in Norfolk the following year. Rumours were spread that the King was going to strip the parish churches too, and even tax cattle and sheep. The rebels called for an end to the dissolution of the monasteries, for the removal of Cromwell, and for Henry's daughter, and eldest child, the Catholic Mary to be named as successor in place of his younger son Edward. Henry defused the movement with promises, and then summarily executed some of the leaders.

After 1650 you can move onto the Enlightenment period.

This should get you started.

Answer 2

There were two major issue at those time, Martin Luther was the founder of the rReformation - which among other things prompted people to learn to read and write (you can read more about Martin Luther and/or the Reformation) The second huge even was the 30 Year War 1618-1648, it was a war between the Catholics and Protestants on land and power. These events made a huge change both in the shift of power, economic change, people also learnt to read and write and this was one of the greatest changes in the history.

Answer 3

1455-80 5:conflict of Roses. 1485:Henry V11 defeats Richard 111 on the conflict of Bosworth and could grow to be king of england.1531-32:The Church of england breaks faraway from the Roman Catholic Church and recognises King Henry V11 because the whole of the church.1552:tsar Ivan the negative conquered 2 important Tatar khanates, Kazan and Astrakhan, the Yermaks voyage of 1580 led to the annexation of Siberia into Russia.1571:Protestant Reformation.........extra?