Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth — John Shaqi
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Cromwell developed a technique for the management of the House of
Commons which lasted for generations. He promulgated books in
defense of royal spiritual authority, which argued that canon
law was not divine but merely human and that clerical authority
had no foundation in the Bible. A reformed English Bible was put
in all parish churches. Reformers were licensed to preach.
Cromwell ordered sermons to be said which proclaimed the
supremacy of the King. He instituted registers to record
baptisms, marriages, and burials in every county, for the
purpose of reducing disputes over descent and inheritance. He
dissolved all the lesser monasteries.
When Cromwell procured a foreign wife for Henry whom Henry found
unattractive, he was attainted and executed.
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote the first English
Common Book of Prayer. With its use beginning in 1549, Church
services were to be held in English instead of Latin. The mass,
thought to be a miracle performed by priests, was to be replaced
by communion shared by all. The mass, prayers for souls in
purgatory, miracles, the worship of saints, and pilgrimages to
shrines such as that of Thomas Becket, were all to be
discontinued. Imprisonment or exile rather than death was made
the penalty for heresy and blasphemy, and also for adultery.
After the King dissolved the greater monasteries, he took and
sold their ornaments, silver plate and jewelry, lead from roofs
of their buildings, and finally much of the land itself. Three
monasteries were converted into the first three treating
hospitals in London, one for the diseased, one for the poor, and
one, Bethlehem (or "Bedlam" for short), for the mentally ill.
Henry used the proceeds from the sale of the monasteries for
building many new palaces and wood ships for his navy. In war,
these navy ships had heavy guns which could sink other ships. In
peace time, these ships were hired out to traders. Large ships
were constructed in docks, made partly by digging and partly by
building walls.
The former land of the monasteries, about 30% of the country's
land, was sold and resold or leased. Some went to
entrepreneurial cloth manufacturers, who converted the buildings
for the manufacture of cloth. They bought the raw wool and hired
craftsmen for every step of the manufacturing process to be done
in one continuous process. This was faster than buying and
selling the wool material between craftsmen who lived in
different areas. Also, it was more efficient because the amount
of raw wool bought could be adjusted to the demand for cloth.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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