Printing Press Dbq
This essay will assess to what degree the invention of the printing press has contributed to the spread of the ideas and ultimately the success of the Reformation in England and Scotland during the Tudor period. The impact of print has been studied by several historians and conclude that the Reformation was ‘virtually unimaginable without the invention of the printing press’. The movable type printing press invented circa 1450 by Johann Gutenberg in Mainz. In 1517 Martin Luther’s nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the Church door in Wittenburg criticising the corruption and abuse of the Catholic Church and its doctrine, and this date is widely accepted to be the starting point of the Reformation. The subsequent printing and distribution of this
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Antipapal sentiments were deeply rooted well before the Reformation instigated by Luther. A notable example would be John Wycliffe who published a vernacular English Bible in 1382 and thus challenged the privileged status of the clergy. It can be argued that the reason of his failure to make progress could have been the absence of a means of communicating his radical thoughts. The Tudor King Henry VIII disapproved of the new heretical theories advocated by Tyndale and other Lutheran Reformers, so much so that he authored a book called ‘Assertio Septem Sacramentorum’ (Defence of the Seven Sacraments) criticising these ideas. The refusal of Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon can be considered as the pivotal incident that led the way for the early English Reformation and the break from Rome. Henry VIII encouraged his secretary Thomas Cromwell to ‘turn loose his coterie of publicists and printers against the Pope’. Professor Geoffrey Elton in his book states that ‘this was the first such campaign ever mounted by any government in any state in Europe’. Henry’s ministers Cromwell and Cranmer enacted swiftly: a series of Legal Acts culminating in the Act of Supremacy 1534, and oversaw the publication of the first Great Bible in English in 1539. The Tudor Crown used printing and the printed word to advance it’s ‘official and propaganda’ agenda and as a consequence the printing thrived during the 1530s. As the English Bible was introduced literacy increased, this is supported by A.G. Dickens’s studies which claim that the Reformation happened ‘from below [a spontaneous and voluntary shift in religious sentiments from the lower and middle classes]’. The new Bible was available for people to read the Scriptures in their own language and
Antipapal sentiments were deeply rooted well before the Reformation instigated by Luther. A notable example would be John Wycliffe who published a vernacular English Bible in 1382 and thus challenged the privileged status of the clergy. It can be argued that the reason of his failure to make progress could have been the absence of a means of communicating his radical thoughts. The Tudor King Henry VIII disapproved of the new heretical theories advocated by Tyndale and other Lutheran Reformers, so much so that he authored a book called ‘Assertio Septem Sacramentorum’ (Defence of the Seven Sacraments) criticising these ideas. The refusal of Pope Clement VII to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon can be considered as the pivotal incident that led the way for the early English Reformation and the break from Rome. Henry VIII encouraged his secretary Thomas Cromwell to ‘turn loose his coterie of publicists and printers against the Pope’. Professor Geoffrey Elton in his book states that ‘this was the first such campaign ever mounted by any government in any state in Europe’. Henry’s ministers Cromwell and Cranmer enacted swiftly: a series of Legal Acts culminating in the Act of Supremacy 1534, and oversaw the publication of the first Great Bible in English in 1539. The Tudor Crown used printing and the printed word to advance it’s ‘official and propaganda’ agenda and as a consequence the printing thrived during the 1530s. As the English Bible was introduced literacy increased, this is supported by A.G. Dickens’s studies which claim that the Reformation happened ‘from below [a spontaneous and voluntary shift in religious sentiments from the lower and middle classes]’. The new Bible was available for people to read the Scriptures in their own language and