On Mar 16, 2012, at 1:26 PM, M Christol wrote: >> >> Henry VIII had to found his own damn church to get a divorce. He was the >> first King to assert that he had authority in his country above that of the >> Church. EVERYWHERE ELSE the civil government only ruled with the consent of >> the Church. >> > Did Henry really put the state before the church or just make himself head of > 2 things?
Yes, this was the thing that REALLY pissed off the big guy in Rome*. Henry formalized the notion that the King had a 'divine right to rule' straight from God by virtue of being the King, and thus he was not subordinate to "Christ's Representative on Earth". Previously Henry was the King of England, but as the Pope was the earthly regent of the King of Kings, in theory, Henry was subordinate to the Pope. Henry made himself the titular head of the CofE (as the English monarch is to this day), engineering it so that the Church was an instrument of the King's power, not an independent entity as the Roman Church had been. He couldn't very well be excommunicated from the church he lead... This happened during the Reformation but is only tangentially related; Luther was very specifically staging a theological revolution, and was drawing in princes and kings in northern Europe via genuine faith or cynical opportunism (Luther would want less gold and land than the Church in Rome); Henry's split was absolutely and firmly political in nature. The Church couldn't fight back because it was battling the Protestants up north and while Henry was openly defying their power, he still commanded a very large and powerful army, and an extremely defensible position as a self-sufficient island nation; there was no one around willing to take him on on behalf of the Church. *Well that and he took a gargantuan amount of gold, land and other holdings from the Catholic Church and only gave some of it over to the CofE. Redistributing that certainly helped the rest of England to rapidly accept the new CofE... -- Bruce Johnson University of Arizona College of Pharmacy Information Technology Group Institutions do not have opinions, merely customs -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "StrataList-OT" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/stratalist-ot?hl=en.
