ABSTRACT
During the 1530s there was a momentous shift in the manner in which religious affairs in England were governed. Whatever powers medieval English kings had enjoyed over the Church in England, they always exercised these powers as, in theory at least, the partner of the pope who was in some sense head of the universal church. Henry VIII’s Reformation accomplished an unprecedented transfer of ecclesiastical authority in England from the pope to the king. The king was, Parliament declared, to be recognized as the Supreme Head of the Church of England, the source of all spiritual as well as temporal jurisdiction within the realm.
