Question

b) Describe one political effect of the Protestant Reformation in England in the period 1500–1600.

Answer 1

Nonetheless, the Protestant Reformation was one of the most important movements in modern history and its 500th anniversary provides an excellent opportunity to take stock of how it has influenced the nature of politics today.

Long debates have been held about the effect of the Reformation on a number of phenomena related to modernity, but there are three that are of particular interest. The first is about the effect of the Reformation on the creation of modern states. The second is linked to the role of the Lutheran Reformation in defining the modern notion of identity. And the third relates to the influence of the Reformation on contemporary liberalism.

While Lutheranism was the work of princes, Calvinism was the work of local congregations, disaffected aristocrats, and others who, with less princely help, had to create political organizations from the bottom up.

In general, a modern state is defined by the presence of a centralized bureaucracy with direct taxing authority that seeks impersonal governance. It is a distinct form from patrimonial states in which the ruler's friends and family possess political control, where access to the state is not a right of citizenship but a feature of one's personal relationship with the ruler.

In the truest sense it has been a social, political, and economic revolution. It laid the theoretical foundation on which to develop the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment. The Protestant Reformation has resulted in liberal democracy, skepticism, liberalism, individualism, human rights, and many of today's ideals that we hold dear. Nearly every academic discipline was influenced by the Protestant Reformation, especially the social sciences such as economics, philosophy, and history. In this lesson we will learn how the Protestant Reformation had an influence on historical research