Overview

No-one would question the fact that the reign of Henry VIII witnessed the greatest changes ever to befall the English convocations, but the true range and nature of those changes is less widely understood. Most observers assume that the reformation convocation of 1529-36 was the turning point, but this perception is misleading. In institutional terms, radical reform was on the agenda from about 1515, when Thomas Wolsey, cardinal archbishop of York, was appointed the king's chief minister. It was Wolsey who began dissolving monasteries and converting their assets to other (largely educational) uses,47 and Wolsey too, who tried to merge the two convocations into one national synod, a reform which would not succeed until 1970. Even so, there can be no doubt that his centralizing efforts impressed the king, who did his best to continue and further them after Wolsey's fall from power on 18 October 1529, only a few days before parliament and the convocations were due to meet.

The 1529 convocation began in the traditional way and was much preoccupied with reforms of a conservative type, but it was inevitably sucked into the king's search for an annulment to his marriage, and by 1531 the question of the royal supremacy in church affairs was dominating the agenda in both provinces. On 15 May 1532 the convocation of Canterbury was forced to agree not to enact legislation without a royal licence, a restriction which was later construed to mean that it should not even be summoned without a royal writ. This rather narrow interpretation effectively put paid to provincial councils summoned only on the authority of the archbishop, so that the one which met in 1510 turned out to be the last.

The ancient system of taxation was thoroughly revamped in 1535 when Henry VIII authorized the compilation of a new tax assessment known as the Valor ecclesiasticus, which was to remain in force until 1836. On the other hand, the abolition of the faculties of canon law in Oxford and Cambridge, which also occurred in 1535, had relatively little effect on the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. The ancient canon law continued in force, only now it was interpreted and administered by a corporation of lawyers mostly associated with the nascent Doctors’ Commons in London.