This text surveys all aspects of the Church's structure, role and relationship with the laity in the period 1485 to 1529. The picture that emerges is far from the corruption and instability of conventional wisdom and the varied sources also provide a vivid insight into Tudor life.

This text surveys all aspects of the Church's structure, role and relationship with the laity in the period 1485 to 1529. The picture that emerges is far from the corruption and instability of conventional wisdom and the varied sources also provide a vivid insight into Tudor life.

From its origins in the ancient world as a rival to traditional paganism, Christianity has become one of the great world religions. How the Church took over spiritual control of Western Europe to become the foundation of medieval life, setting the moral agenda of society and dominating its intellectual world, is the guiding enquiry at the heart of this book. Covering the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Reformation, the account is structured in three chronological blocks, starting with the gradual development of unity within the Western Church up to the 11th century, followed by the period of centralization between the 11th and 13th centuries, and concluding with the break-up of this centralization in the later Middle Ages. Organizational developments and changes in spirituality and doctrine are examined, and the history of the papacy is situated in the wider context of both ecclesiastical and lay society. Intellectual developments and the rise of heresy, at both elite and popular levels, are the focus of an exploration of the mental world of medieval Christendom.

This volume explores a range of topics during a turbulent period in British history, with particular emphasis on political change and popular piety. On the eve of the Reformation, religious beliefs were shaped by a church which was falling under the growing control of the state, and by responses to England's one and only heretical movement, Lollardy. In political life, gradual disengagement from a cross-Channel political world was followed by civil war and the eventual rise of a strong Tudor monarchy. As this volume demonstrates in a number of ways, the impact of many of these macro changes was felt across the British Isles, not just in England. But the studies presented here frequently explore major change through the experience of the middling sort: the gentry active in local government, the English merchants and Scottish immigrants making important life choices in major cities, or the industrious clerics charged with the routine administration of the church. By looking at the case studies of these men in more detail, we begin to appreciate that even in this age of great change, there were profound continuities which carried through into the sixteenth century. Along the way, too, new light is thrown on the authorship, date and redaction of texts which continue to shape our understanding of late medieval British history.