ABSTRACT
The middle third of the sixteenth century witnessed a legislative Reformation but this did not necessarily mean that the new faith was accepted at grass roots level. We need to ask: how far did people change their beliefs in response to governmental directives? Was the implementation of a new Protestant order made possible by the presence of latent support for reform in the country? Or did parishioners cling to the faith of their forebears? If so, for how long? And if they retained traditional sympathies, how did governments manage to impose an alien religious order on them? It used to be assumed that the Reformation was a change waiting to happen, welcomed by a population disillusioned with a corrupt Catholicism. A.G.Dickens’ widely respected The English Reformation, first published in 1964, stressed the early growth of popular support for the new faith. More recently, historians such as J.J.Scarisbrick, Christopher Haigh and Eamon Duffy have proposed that governmentimposed changes were accepted only slowly and reluctantly by a population still wedded to traditional ways. A lively and ongoing historical debate has focused on whether change was fast or slow, imposed from above or embraced from below, on when and even whether England became a Protestant country. Our understanding of the process of change has been enhanced by research on the impact of the Reformation in particular localities. These prompted the revisionist thesis in the first place, but they also modified it by revealing variations between and within regions, towns and even parishes. This chapter examines the different reactions to the Reformation. It considers why certain long-established religious practices disappeared
quickly while others proved more persistent. Thus it seeks to illuminate the complex process of religious change at local level.
