The Reformation of King Edward VI: critical commentary of panoramic engraving from John Foxe's Acts and Monuments - (1563)

Résumé du document

This panoramic engraving is extracted from the 1563 edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, which relates the epic history of early Christian and Protestant martyrs. This image comes from its Second Part, dealing with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, during which the break with Rome led to the creation of the Church of England and its Protestant Identity. The picture depicts the interior of a church during the Reformation of Edward VI, which occurred between 1547 and 1553, six years during which the "boy-king" transformed his Nation by a "revolutionary act". John Foxe's illustrator depicted a simple, even austere church: its interior doesn't include any engravings or any images. The Reformation has purged the house of God of every ornament.

Extraits

[...] Her literacy as a woman is a proof of a high social level and presumably of a wealthy urban environment. Furthermore, if everybody is able to read the scriptures, therefore everybody has an equal relationship with God, and an equal chance of salvation. This is an essential skill, as there is no need to rely on the priest as an intercessor. Finally, this image represents a useful source for the religious history of the early modern period as it sums up some key features of the Edwardian Reformation. [...]

[...] Secondly, a priest is baptizing a child. Finally, only the two biblical Sacraments are depicted as the five others were rejected by the Reformation. At the foot of the image, many believers are listening to a priest who is preaching from a pulpit above them, some of them reading a Bible. This is the representation of a crucial element in the Reformation: the principle of edification. Thus through preaching and through their own reading of the scriptures, Protestants have to build their own faith. [...]

[...] The Reformation of King Edward VI: critical commentary of panoramic engraving from John Foxe's Acts and Monuments - (1563) This panoramic engraving is extracted from the 1563 edition of John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, which relates the epic history of early Christian and Protestant martyrs. This image comes from its Second Part, dealing with the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI, during which the break with Rome led to the creation of the Church of England and its Protestant Identity. [...]

[...] MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation (Penguin, 1999) S. Alford, Kingship and Politics in the reign of Edward VI, particularly Chapter 4 “Reforming the Kingdom”, pp 100-135 (Cambridge, 1970) D. Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches, 1500-2000 (Cambridge, 2003) D. MacCulloch, Tudor Church Militant: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, (Penguin, 1999) p.9 Ibid., p.134 D. Rosman, The Evolution of the English Churches, 1500-2000 (Cambridge, 2003) p D. [...]