ABSTRACT
The evangelical emphasis on empiricism and the persistence of affective sensory physiology resulted in two underlying issues for Tudor religion from the 1530s. Unlatching English religious life from the institutional church's modes of authentication required restructuring how individual perceptions of religious life related to one another. Perceptive hierarchies in Tudor England were closely related to Tudor polity, foremost the keystone to Tudor religious policy the Royal Supremacy. Examining the language surrounding Tudor monarchy, morality and religious reform exposes the extent to which reform efforts contained within them a sensory strand which gave pride of place to royal perception. Physical immersion in gostly thynges' with a lack of consideration of their meaning, or failure properly to govern the senses at all was fleshliness that obscured true spiritual religion and its sensing. Governing required omniscience, but for religion, legitimate perception, legitimated reform. Clashes between parliament and Tudor monarchs often derived from whose wit was best.
