ABSTRACT
Before Henry VIII’s break with the papacy in the 1530s the English Church was part of the international Roman Church. The archbishoprics of York and Canterbury were separate provinces with their own administrative structure and jurisdictions, and each archbishop was a papal legate within his own archdiocese, a legatus natus. That the Church in England was a part of an international organisation was also evident from its personnel. A number of foreigners, mainly Italians, held English bishoprics and lesser benefices in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Equally, some Englishmen held ecclesiastical office abroad and a handful were represented in the College of Cardinals, most notably Thomas Wolsey who was also bishop of Tournai in France and of Badajoz in Spain. For these reasons, it is more accurate to speak of the Church in England rather than of England (Swanson, 1989).
