The reformation of the deathbed in mid-sixteenth-century England

This paper examines the religious controversies and reforms of the early English Reformation (c.1530 to 1560) and considers how they impacted upon the spiritual preparation of the dying. The advent of Lutheran ideas in the 1520s challenged traditional beliefs about the role of the Church and the sacraments in the salvation of the individual and the fate of the soul after death. These ideas were rapidly disseminated through preaching and the transmission of reformist literature in those parts of England with the closest links to the continent, most notably London. Whilst Henry VIII accepted reform only in so far as he regarded it as personally and politically expedient, his son, Edward VI, was committed to the destruction of traditional Catholicism and presided over a rapid succession of religious changes. Through an analysis of Henrician and Edwardian religious policy, reformist literature and deathbed descriptions taken from legal depositions, this paper looks at the interaction between reformist ideas and centrally imposed reform and at how these shaped individuals' religious experience of dying during this period.