Soon after his excommunication, Parliamentary action enacting Henry’s decision to break from the Roman Catholic Church followed. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 recognized that the king (Henry VIII) was “the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia.” This schism between the kind and the Pope forced members of the clergy, office holders and other subjects to choose their side. Another effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries. This consisted of monastic lands and possessions being broken up and sold off. From the year 1535 to 1536 about 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved followed by the remaining greater houses from 1538 to 1540. Much of the land taken from monasteries was sold to the common people. This made them beneficiaries of the Reformation and therefore less likely to resist it
Soon after his excommunication, Parliamentary action enacting Henry’s decision to break from the Roman Catholic Church followed. The Act of Supremacy in 1534 recognized that the king (Henry VIII) was “the only supreme head of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia.” This schism between the kind and the Pope forced members of the clergy, office holders and other subjects to choose their side. Another effect of the English Protestant Reformation was the Dissolution of Monasteries. This consisted of monastic lands and possessions being broken up and sold off. From the year 1535 to 1536 about 200 smaller monasteries were dissolved followed by the remaining greater houses from 1538 to 1540. Much of the land taken from monasteries was sold to the common people. This made them beneficiaries of the Reformation and therefore less likely to resist it