Roger Martyn's Long Melford Church Before The Reformation

Although there are clear differences between the ideals of Catholic and Protestant faith, I believe that by the end of the reign of Elizabeth I, English Christianity was a fusion of old Catholic tradition still battling the ideas of Protestant reformation. I will demonstrate this in this essay by establishing catholic traditions, analysing what changes the protestants wished to make and finally evaluating their effect.

There are three traditions that stand out within the practises of the Catholic Church, iconography, rituals and community life. We can explore these through 'Long Melford Church Before the Reformation ' in which Roger Martyn recounts his boyhood memories of the traditions of the Catholic Church. The use of images in the Catholic …show more content…
From the translation of the Latin, we can see that the boy exclaims ' Behold your King comes ', symbolising the bread of sacrament to be the body of Christ. This enables those attending to physically as well as mentally take Christ into their own bodies and therefore their lives. It is easy to argue that this theatrical display brings people together into a shared worship which is more digestible and tangible than a conventional sermon would have allowed. This allows us to see that traditions of the Catholic Church focus on bringing communities together for prayer through either the majesty of their art or ceremonies. In return, the community looks to the Church for support with its harvest in Rogation Week which Martyn describes as ' a time of special prayer for a good harvest '. So not only are the communities coming together to pray for Christ, they pray for their fellow brothers in the community to be blessed by good harvest to ensure the survival of the community as a whole . This shows us that the Catholic Church 's foundations lay in its strong community bonds and the traditions that have grown from this seek to help the community understand religion in an accessible and communal