The English Reformation C.1520-c.1550 | OCR GCSE History A (J410)

The English Reformation C.1520-c.1550

82 questions
8 subtopics
Paper 3
Paper 3

The English Reformation c.1520–c.1550 is examined in Paper 3, British depth study with a study of the historic environment.

It covers the church in England c.1520 and its critics, popular attitudes to reform, the annulment and the Reformation Parliament, cromwell, the Valor Ecclesiasticus and the dissolution of the monasteries, immediate reactions to Dissolution including support, resistance and protest, development and changes in religious policy under Henry VIII and Edward VI, enforcing the new religious policies and the Prayer Book Rebellion 1549 and the English Church before and after the Reformation.

Sample questions from The English Reformation C.1520-c.1550

Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.

The church in England c.1520 and its critics

In what language was the mass said before the Reformation, and what did that mean for worshippers?

Show the answer
Latin, so almost no ordinary parishioner understood the words and the priest performed the service on their behalf.
Popular attitudes to reform, the annulment and the Reformation Parliament

Whom had Henry VIII married in 1509, and why did he want that marriage ended?

Show the answer
Catherine of Aragon, who had given him a daughter but no surviving son to secure the Tudor succession.
Cromwell, the Valor Ecclesiasticus and the dissolution of the monasteries

Who carried out the Visitation of the Monasteries, and when?

Show the answer
Cromwell’s commissioners, chiefly Richard Layton and Thomas Legh, who toured the houses in 1535–36.
Immediate reactions to Dissolution including support

How many religious houses remained in England by 1540?

Show the answer
None; about 800 houses had been shut and monastic life in England was ended altogether.
Resistance and protest

Who led the Pilgrimage of Grace?

Show the answer
Robert Aske, a Yorkshire lawyer, who took charge of the Yorkshire rising in October 1536.
Development and changes in religious policy under Henry VIII and Edward VI

What did the Chantries Act of 1547 do?

Show the answer
It closed the chantries and religious guilds and took their endowments for the Crown, ending the masses paid for on behalf of the dead.
Enforcing the new religious policies and the Prayer Book Rebellion 1549

How did many parishes respond to the order to destroy images?

Show the answer
They obeyed slowly and hid what they could, storing vestments, plate and statues in the hope the old religion would return.
The English Church before and after the Reformation

How did the language of worship change across the period?

Show the answer
From Latin recited by the priest on the people’s behalf to English that the whole congregation could follow and answer.

The 8 subtopics

One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.

Subtopic	What it covers	Questions
The church in England c.1520 and its critics	The church's wealth and its churchmen in government, papal authority, the Latin mass and purgatory, parish guilds and lay involvement, the Lollards, Luther's teaching and its arrival in England, the Supplication against the Ordinaries and complaints against the clergy.	11
Popular attitudes to reform, the annulment and the Reformation Parliament	What wills and churchwardens' accounts show, where reform was strongest, anticlericalism, Henry VIII's case against his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, the Pope's refusal, Anne Boleyn, and the Acts of Appeals, Supremacy and Succession.	10
Cromwell, the Valor Ecclesiasticus and the dissolution of the monasteries	Cromwell as Vicegerent in Spirituals, the Valor Ecclesiasticus and why the Crown wanted it, the Visitation of the Monasteries and its reports, the Court of Augmentations, the stripping of closed houses, and the Suppression Acts of 1536 and 1539.	10
Immediate reactions to Dissolution including support	Who bought the monastic estates, the reformers' case for closure, opposition in the north, the closures by 1540, the friars, the loss of charity and other services, new landlords, the libraries and the ruined abbeys.	10
Resistance and protest	The Lincolnshire Rising, its grievances and collapse, Robert Aske and the Pilgrimage of Grace, the Five Wounds banner, the size of the host, the Pontefract Articles, Norfolk's promise and the executions after Bigod's rising.	10
Development and changes in religious policy under Henry VIII and Edward VI	The Ten and Six Articles, the Protestant turn under Edward VI, the Chantries Act, Tyndale and the Great Bible, the Prayer Book and Act of Uniformity, the communion table, the priests' oath and clerical marriage.	11
Enforcing the new religious policies and the Prayer Book Rebellion 1549	Royal injunctions and parish registers, bishops and churchwardens as enforcers, slow obedience and hidden images, falling gifts under Edward VI, the regions that took to change, and the Prayer Book Rebellion in Devon and Cornwall, its demands and its defeat.	10
The English Church before and after the Reformation	The mass in 1520, what had gone by 1550, Pope to Crown, Latin to English, why Henry VIII's church was not Protestant, gainers and losers, the church interior of 1550, rebellion and Parliament.	10

The English Reformation C.1520-c.1550 is 82 of the 1,449 questions in the guide.Get the guide, £7

How the guide is worked

Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.

Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.

Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.