Henry VIII and the Reform of the Church

Abstract

Two provinces of the western church Catholic happened to coincide with the frontiers of the medieval kingdom of England: Canterbury and York. There were clear contrasts between them. York was much smaller than Canterbury, with only three dioceses to Canterbury’s fourteen; it was remoter from the centre of national affairs, and it was a poorer region overall. Either province had its own clerical parliament, Convocation, but the Convocation of Canterbury met while the national parliament was assembled and had real significance as a lawmaking body; York more or less rubber-stamped decisions from the south. After long and bitter disputes over three centuries from the Norman Conquest, the archbishop of Canterbury had emerged with a subtly-adjusted title of precedence over the archbishop of York: ‘Primate of All England’, as against York’s ‘Primate of England’. 1

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