Common Book of Prayer. With its use beginning in 1549, church
services were to be held in English instead of Latin. The
celebration of the Lord's Supper was a communion among the
parishioners and minister all sharing the wine and bread. It
replaced the mass, in which the priests were thought to perform a
miraculous change of the substance of bread and wine into the body
and blood of Christ, which the priest then offered as a sacrifice
for remission of pain or guilt. This reflected the blood sacrifice
of Christ dying on the cross. In the mass, only the priests drank
the wine. The mass, miracles, the worship of saints, prayers for
souls in purgatory, 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. Many maps of
manors and lands were made at this time. 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. But there were still many poor,
sick, blind, aged, and impotent people in the streets since the
closure of the monasteries. In 1552, there were 2,100 people in
need of relief, including 300 orphans, 600 sick or aged, 350 poor
men overburdened with their children, 650 decayed householders,
and 200 idle vagabonds. The poor often begged at parishes, where
they spread disease. London then set up a poor relief scheme.
The Bridewell was established to set to work the idle, vagabonds,
and prostitutes making feather bed ticks and wool-cards, drawing
of wire, carding, knitting, and winding of silk. Parishes were
required to give money for the poor in 1563. Other towns followed
London's lead in levying a poor rate.
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. In 1545, henry issued a proclamation ordering all
vagabonds, ruffians, masterless men, and evil-disposed persons to
serve him in his navy.
The former land of the monasteries, about 30% of the country's
land, was sold and resold, usually to great landowners, or leased.
Title deeds became important as attorneys sought the security that
title could give. Some land 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.
Many landowners now could live in towns exclusively off the rents
of their rural land. Rents were increased so much that tenants
could not pay and were evicted. They usually became beggars or
thieves. Much of their former land was converted from crop raising
to pasture for large herds of sheep. Arable farming required many
workers, whereas sheep farming required only one shepherd and
herdsman. There were exceptional profits made from the export of
wool cloth. But much raw wool was still exported. Its price went
up from 6s.8d. per tod [about 28 pounds] in 1340 to 20s.8d. in
1546.
Villeinage was now virtually extinct. A lord could usually claim a
small money-rent from the freeholder, sometimes a relief when his
land was sold or passed at death, and occasionally a heriot from
his heir.
There was steady inflation. Landlords made their leases short term
so that they could raise rents as prices rose. Copyholders
gradually acquired a valuable right in their holdings; their rent
became light - less that a shilling an acre.
At least 85% of the population still lived in the country. Rich
traders built town or country houses in which the emphasis was on
comfort and privacy. There was more furniture, bigger windows
filled with glass, thick wallpaper, and formal gardens. Use of
thick, insulating wallpaper rose with the rise of paper mills. It
was stenciled, hand-painted, or printed. Some floors were tiled
instead of stone or wood. They were still strewn with straw. The
owners ate in a private dining room and slept in their own rooms
with down quilts. Their soap was white. They had clothing of white
linen and white wool, leather slippers, and felt hats. Men wore
long tunics open at the neck and filled in with pleated linen and
enormous puffed sleeves.
Henry made proclamations reminding people of the apparel laws, but
they were difficult to enforce. Henry also made a proclamation
limiting the consumption of certain meat according to status.
Seven dishes were allowed to bishops, dukes, marquises, and earls;
six to other temporal lords; five to justices, the King's council,
sheriffs, and persons with an income of at least 200 pounds yearly
or goods worth 2000 pounds; four to persons with an income of at
least 100 pounds or goods worth 1000 pounds; and three dishes to
persons with an income of at least 100 pounds or goods worth 500
pounds. There were limits on types of meat served, such as a
maximum of one dish of great fowl such as crane, swan, and
peacock; eight quail per dish; and twelve larks in a dish. People
used tin or pewter dishes, platters, goblets, saucers, spoons,
saltcellars, pots, and basins. They used soap to wash themselves,
their clothes, and their dishes. A solid, waxy soap was from
evaporating a mixture of goat fat, water, and ash high in
potassium carbonate. They had bedcovers on their beds. Cloth bore
the mark of its weaver and came in many colors. Cloth could be
held together with pins that had a shank with a hook by which they
were closed. People went to barbers to cut their hair and to
extract teeth. They went to people experienced with herbs, roots,
and waters for treatment of skin conditions such as sores, cuts,
burns, swellings, irritated eyes or scaly faces. For more
complicated ailments, they went to physicians, who prescribed
potions and medicines. They bought potions and medicines from
apothecaries and pharmacists. They burned wood logs in the
fireplaces in their houses. So much wood was used that young trees
were required by statute to be given enough lateral space to
spread their limbs and were not cut down until mature.
The King, earls, who ruled counties, and barons, who had land and
a place in the House of Lords, still lived in the most comfort.
The King's house had courtyards, gardens, orchards, wood-yards,
tennis courts, and bowling alleys.
The walls of the towns were manned by the citizens themselves,
with police and watchmen at their disposal. In inns, travelers
slept ten to a bed and there were many fleas and an occasional rat
or mouse running through the rushes strewn on the floor. The inn
provided a bed and ale, but travelers brought their own food. Each
slept with his purse under his pillow.
In markets, sellers set up booths for their wares. They sold grain
for making oatmeal or for sowing one's own ground. Wine, butter,
cheese, fish, chicken, and candles could also be bought. Butchers
bought killed sheep, lambs, calves, and pigs to cut up for
selling. Tanned leather was sold to girdlemakers and shoemakers.
Goods bought in markets were presumed not to be stolen, so that a
purchaser could not be dispossessed of goods bought unless he had
knowledge that they were stolen.
The ruling group of the towns came to be composed mostly of
merchants, manufacturers, attorneys, and physicians. Some
townswomen were independent traders. The governed class contained
small master craftsmen and journeyman artisans, small traders, and
dependent servants. The major streets of London were paved with
stone, with a channel in the middle. More water conduits from
hills, heaths, and springs were built to provide the citizens of
London with more water. The sewers carried only surface water
away. Households were forbidden to use the sewers. Privies emptied
into cesspools.
The Merchant Adventurers' Fellowship brought virtually all
adventurers under its control and organized and regulated the
national cloth trade. It had a General Court of the Adventurers
sitting in the London Mercers' Hall. Various companies were
granted monopolies for trade in certain areas of the world such as
Turkey, Spain, France, Venice, the Baltic, and Africa. These were
regulated companies. That is they obtained complete control of a
particular foreign market, but any merchant who cared to join the
company, pay its dues, and obey its regulations, might share in
the benefits of its monopoly. The companies generally confined
trade to men who were primarily merchants and not shopkeepers. In
1553 explorer Sebastian Cabot formed the Muscovy Company, which
was granted a monopoly in its charter for trade with north Russia.
It was oriented primarily to export English woolen cloth. It was the
first company trading on a joint stock, which was arranged as a
matter of convenience and safety. The risks were too great for any
few individuals. It hired ships and assigned space to each member
to ship his goods at his own risk. The dividend was return to the
subscribers of the capital put in plus an appropriate share of any
profits made on the voyage. I.e. the money was divided up. The
members began leaving their money with the company for the next
voyage. A general stock grew up. In 1568 were the first industrial
companies: Mines Royal, and Mineral and Battery Works. The cloth,
mining, iron, and woodcraft industries employed full-time workers
on wages. In the ironworks and foundries, the furnace blowing
engines were worked by water wheels or by a gear attached to
donkeys or horses. The forge hammers were worked at first by
levers and later by water wheels. The day and night hammering
filled the neighborhood with their noise.
Land held in common was partitioned. There were leases of mansion
houses, smaller dwelling houses, houses with a wharf having a
crane, houses with a timber yard, houses with a garden, houses
with a shed, shops, warehouses, cellars, and stables. Lands with a
dye-house or a brew-house were devised by will along with their
dying or brewing implements. There were dairies making butter and
cheese.
The knights had 70% of the land, the nobles 10%, the church 10%,
and king 5%.
Citizens paid taxes to the king amounting to one tenth of their
annual income from land or wages. Merchants paid "forced loans"
and benevolences. The national government was much centralized and
had full-time workers on wages. A national commission of sewers
continually surveyed walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers,
ponds, bridges, rivers, streams, mills, locks, trenches, fish-
breeding ponds, and flood gates. When low places were threatened
with flooding, it hired laborers, bought timber, and hired carts
with horses or oxen for necessary work. Mayors of cities repaired
water conduits and pipes under their cities' ground.
The organ and the harp, precursor to the piano, were played.
All people generally had enough food because of the
commercialization of agriculture. Even the standard meal of the
peasant was bread, bacon, cheese, and beer or cider, with beef
about twice a week. Also, roads were good enough for the transport
of foodstuffs thereon. Four-wheeled wagons for carrying people as
well as goods. Goods were also transported by the pulling of
barges on the rivers from paths along the river. A plough with
wheels was used as well as those without.
The matchlock musket came into use, but did not replace the bow
because its matchcord didn't remain lit in rainy weather. The
matchlock was an improvement over the former musket because both
hands could be used to hold and aim the matchlock musket because
the powder was ignited by a device that touched a slow-burning
cord to the powder when a trigger was pulled with one finger.
After the break with Rome, cooperation among villagers in church
activities largely ceased. The altars and images previously taken
care of by them disappeared and the paintings on the walls were
covered with white or erased, and scripture texts put in their
place. People now read the new Bible, the "Paraphrases" of
Erasmus, Foxe's "Book of Martyrs", and the works of Bishop Jewel.
The Book of Martyrs taught the duty and splendor of rising above
all physical danger or suffering. The canon law of the church was
abolished and its study prohibited. Professorships of the civil
law were founded at the two universities. The Inns of Court grew.
Attorneys had more work with the new laws passed to replace the
church canons of the church. They played an important role in town
government and many became wealthy. They acquired town houses in
addition to their rural estates.
Church reforms included abolishing church sanctuaries. Benefit of
clergy was restricted. Parsons were allowed to marry. Archbishops
were selected by the king without involvement by the pope.
Decisions by archbishops in testamentary, matrimonial, and
marriage annulment matters were appealable to the Court of
Chancery instead of to the pope. The clergy's canons were subject
to the King's approval. The control of the church added to the
powers of the Crown to summon and dissolve Parliament, coin money,
create peers [members of the House of Lords who received
individual writs of summons to Parliament], pardon criminals,
order the arrest of dangerous persons without customary process of
law in times of likely insurrection, tax and call men to arms
without the consent of Parliament if the country were threatened
with invasion.
About 1550 there began indictments and executions for
witchcraftery which lasted for about a century. One of the reasons
for suspecting a woman to be a witch was that she lived alone,
which was very unusual.
Henry ordered all alien Anabaptists, who denied the validity of
infant baptism, to leave the realm.
In Switzerland, Theophrastus Paracelsus, an astrologer and
alchemist who later became a physician, did not believe that humor
imbalance caused disease nor in treatment by bloodletting or
purging. He believed that there were external causes of disease,
e.g. toxic matter in food, contagion, defective physical or mental
constitution, cosmic influences differing with climate and
country, or affliction sent Providence. He urged that wounds be
kept clean rather than given poultices. In 1530, he pioneered the
application of chemistry to physiology, pathology, and the
treatment of disease by starting clinical diagnosis and treatment
of disease by highly specific medicines, instead of by cure-alls.
For instance, he used alkalis to treat disease, such as gout,
indicated by certain substances in the urine, which also started
urinalysis. He perceived that syphilis was caused by contagion
and used mercury to cure it. He found curative powers also in
opium, sulphur, iron, and arsenic. Opium was made by drying and
cooking the capsule of the poppy and was one of the few really
effective early drugs. Paracelsus urged alchemists to try to
prepare drugs from minerals for the relief of suffering. He
claimed to acquire knowledge of cures through spiritual contacts
to occult wisdom. He believed that a human being has an invisible
body as well as a visible one and that it is closely attuned to
imagination and the spiritual aspect of an individual. He noticed
that one's attitudes and emotions, such as anger, could affect
one's health. He sometimes used suggestion and signs to help a
patient form mental images, which translated into cures. He saw
insanity as illness instead of possession by evil spirits.
Understanding of the celestial world began to change. Contemporary
thought was that the nature of all things was to remain at rest,
so that movement and motion had to be explained by causes. The
earth was stationary and the heavens were spherical and revolved
around the earth every twenty-four hours. The universe was finite.
The firmament extended outward in a series of rotating,
crystalline, ethereal spheres to which were attached the various
points of celestial geography. First came the circle of the moon.
The sun orbited the earth. The fixed stars rotated on an outer
firmament. Finally, there was the abode of God and his heavenly
hosts. Different principles ruled the celestial world; it was
orderly, stable, ageless, and enduring. But the world of man
changed constantly due to its mixed four elements of air, earth,
fire, and water each trying to disentangle itself from the others
and seeking to find its natural location. The heavenly spheres
could affect the destinies of men, such as through fate, fortune,
intelligence, cherubim, seraphim, angels, and archangels.
Astrologers read the celestial signs and messages.
Then a seed of doubt was cast on this theory by Nicholaus
Copernicus, a timid monk in Poland, who found inconsistencies in
Ptolemy's work, but saw similarity in the movements of the earth
and other planets. He inferred from the "wandering" planetary
movements with loops that their motion could be explained simply
if they were revolving in circular paths around the sun, rather
than around the earth. In his book of 1543, he also expressed his
belief that the earth also revolved around the sun. This idea so
shocked the world that the word "revolution" became associated
with radical change. He thought it more likely that the earth
rotated than that the stars moved with great speed in their large
orbits. He proposed that the earth spins on its own axis about
once every twenty-four hours, with a spin axis at about a 23 1/2
degree tilt from the orbital axis, thus explaining a slow change
in the overall appearances of the fixed stars which had been
observed since the time of Ptolemy. He deduced from astronomical
measurements that the correct order of the planets from the Sun
was: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The church
considered his ideas heretical because contradictory to its dogma
that man and the earth were the center of the universe. A central
sun evoked images of pagan practices of sun worship.
- The Law -
A person having land in socage or fee simple may will and devise
his land by will or testament in writing.
A person holding land by knight's service may will and devise by
his last will and testament in writing part of his land to his
wife and other parts of his land to his children, as long as 1/3
of entailed land is left to the King.
Anyone serving the king in war may alienate his lands for the
performance of his will, and if he dies, his feoffees or executors
shall have the wardship of his heir and land.
A person who leases land for a term of years, even if by indenture
or without a writing, may have a court remedy as do tenants of
freehold for any expulsion by the lessor which is contrary to the
lease, covenant, or agreement. These termers, their executors and
assigns, shall hold and enjoy their terms against the lessors,
their heirs and assigns. The lessor shall have a remedy for rents
due or waste by a termer after recovering the land as well as if
he had not recovered the land.
A lord may distrain land within his fee for rents, customs, or
services due without naming the tenant, because of the existence
of secret feoffments and leases made by their tenants to unknown
persons.
Anyone seised of land to the use or trust of other persons by
reason of a will or conveyance shall be held to have lawful seisin
and possession of the land, because by common law, land is not
devisable by will or testament, yet land has been so conveyed,
which has deprived married men of their courtesy, women of their
dower, the king of the lands of persons attainted, the king of a
year's profits from felons' lands, and lords of their escheats.
(This was difficult to enforce.)
A woman may not have both a jointure [promise of husband to wife
of property or income for life after his death] and dower of her
husband's land. (Persons had purchased land to hold jointly with
their wives)
A sale of land must be in writing, sealed, and registered in its
county with the clerk of that county. If the land is worth less
than 40s. per year, the clerk is paid 12d. If the land exceeds
40s. yearly, the clerk is paid 2s.6d.
An adult may lease his lands or tenements only by a writing under
his seal for a term of years or a term of life, because many
people who had taken leases of lands and tenements for a term of
years or a term of lives had to spend a lot for repair and were
then evicted by heirs of their lessors.
A husband may not lease out his wife's land.
No woman-covert, child, idiot, or person of insane memory may
devise land by will or testament.
The land of tenants-in-common may be partitioned by them so that
each holds a certain part.
No bishop or other official having authority to take probate of
testaments may take a fee for probating a testament where the
goods of the testator are under 100s., except that the scribe
writing the probate of the testament may take 6d., and for the
commission of administration of the goods of any man dying
intestate, being up to 100s, may be charged 6d. Where the goods
are over 100s. but up to 800s. sterling, probate fees may be
3s.6d. at most, whereof the official may take 2s.6d. at most, with
12d. residue to the scribe for registering the testament. Where
the goods are over 800s. sterling, probate fees may be 5s. at
most, whereof the official may take 2s.6d. at most, with 2s.6d.
residue to the scribe, or the scribe may choose to take 1d. per 10
lines of writing of the testament. If the deceased had willed by
his testament any land to be sold, the money thereof coming nor
the profits of the land shall not be counted as the goods or
chattel of the deceased. Where probate fees have customarily been
less, they shall remain the same. The official shall approve and
seal the testament without delay and deliver it to the executors
named in such testaments for the said sum. If a person dies
intestate or executors refuse to prove the testament, then the
official shall grant the administration of the goods to the widow
of the deceased person, or to the next of kin, or to both, in the
discretion of the official, taking surety of them for the true
administration of the goods, chattels, and debts. Where kin of
unequal degree request the administration, it shall be given to
the wife and, at his discretion, other requestors. The executors
or administrators, along with at least two persons to whom the
deceased was indebted, or to whom legacies were made, or, upon
their refusal or absence, two honest kinsmen, shall make an
inventory of the deceased's goods, chattels, ware, merchandise, as
well moveable as not moveable, and take it upon their oaths to the
official.
No parish clergyman or other spiritual person shall take a
mortuary fee or money from a deceased person with movable goods
under the value of 133s., a deceased woman-covert, a child, a
person keeping no house, or a traveler. Only one mortuary fee may
be taken of each deceased and that in the place where he most
dwelled and lived. Where the deceased's moveable goods are to the
value of 133s. or more, above his debts paid, and under 600s., a
mortuary up to 3s. 4d. may be taken. Where such goods are 600s. or
more and under 800s., mortuary up to 6s.8d. may be taken. Where
such goods are 800s. or above, mortuary up to 10s. may be taken.
But where mortuaries have customarily been less, they shall remain
the same.
Executors of a will declaring land to be sold for the payment of
debts, performance of legacies to wife and children, and
charitable deeds for the health of souls, may sell the land
despite the refusal of other executors to agree to such sale.
A man may not marry his mother, stepmother, sister, niece, aunt,
or daughter.
Any clergy preaching contrary to the King's religious doctrine
shall recant for the first offense. He shall abjure and bear a
faggot (a badge resembling a faggot of wood which would have been
used for burning him as a heretic) for the second offense. If he
refuses to abjure or bear a faggot or offends a third time, he
shall be burned and lose all his goods. If a layperson teaches,
defends, or maintains a religious doctrine other than the King's,
he shall recant and be imprisoned for twenty days for the first
offense. He shall abjure and bear a faggot if he does not recant
or offends a second time. He shall forfeit his goods and suffer
perpetual imprisonment if he does not abjure or bear a faggot or
offends a third time.