Conclusion

Though there were significant elements of continuity between 1100 and 1500, this period saw a major transformation of the English church. Royal control, lay support and donations and a reforming tradition continued through all four centuries. But in the two centuries between 1050 and 1250 the English church underwent radical reform as continental influences, monastic reform, the papal revolution and developments in canon law and theology were absorbed. This was a vigorous, innovative and formative period, one that saw the development of diocesan administration, church courts, the parochial system and the redefining of papal and royal authority in the church. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were a period of consolidation in the more difficult circumstances of the Black Death, Schism and heresy. Even so, the achievements of the earlier period were maintained, clerical standards gradually rose, the sophisticated administrative machine was kept well oiled and parish life flourished. Monasticism waned but educational foundations expanded. This was also a period of growing Englishness in the church, reflected in local customs in canon law and the liturgy, the use of the English language in religious literature, sermons and prayers, and perpendicular architecture. In 1500 the church was secure and well established. It carried out its pastoral ministry broadly to the satisfaction of most of its members, none of whom could have imagined the fate that was soon to overtake it in the Reformation.