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Voices of Morebath Essay

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The Reformation May 5, 2012 Final Paper The Voices of Morebath is a book by Eamon Duffy about the small parish of Morebath in England during the time of the Reformation. His book is a microhistory, focusing solely on a very small and specific area in time and space. This book, like all microhistories, seeks to help the reader understand a larger area of history by showing a great amount of detail about one specific area. It helps the reader come to terms with normal daily life, and gives a more personable feeling to the history rather than cold faceless facts and statistics. In this essay I will explain first the basic everyday life of Morebath and its inhabitants. I will then look into how specifically this parish evolved during the …show more content…

King Henry began rapidly shifting what was and what was not couth within the country of England and this frustrated many parishioners and left others simply confused. While they were often not fond of changing their deeply rooted religious practices, the parishioners were generally compliant; they certainly didn’t want to anger King Henry or any of his predecessors. However, again due to this unsteady period of time, the people within Morebath began to stop their contributions to the Church. They feared investing their hard earned money in an establishment that might be outlawed the very next day. In the closing chapter of Morebath Duffy makes it very clear that the people did not agree with the reformation, but dutifully went along with whatever laws were made. However, at any given chance they were swift to reestablish old practices. In his book, Duffy helps explain that the Reformation was more of a political process than a religious one. As we learned in class, it certainly had enormous impact on the religious life of people in England but the reasoning behind it was much more about a power play by King Henry than any actual questions of Faith. The book Morebath echoes this theme as it tells the tale of how many of the villagers choose a similar path. Rather than remaining true to their faith for the sake of God, they throw their beliefs away in order to remain in a comfortable and

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