ABSTRACT
The Christian Church had assumed the role of regulator of the moral behaviour of the English laity centuries before the Reformation. By the early sixteenth century it was exercising this social influence chiefly through three formal mechanisms: the sacrament of penance, the sermons and homilies delivered by the clergy and sometimes disseminated through print, and the ecclesiastical courts. During the following two centuries, however, penance ceased to be a sacrament and its function as a moral regulator was correspondingly diminished. Preaching and print expanded to become a fundamental feature of Protestant culture, while the ecclesiastical courts survived the Reformation crisis, but were mortally wounded during the Civil War and Interregnum.
