France is renowned in the world for its many cathedrals and basilica, as well as its numerous churches. This page provides links to all the pages created and written by abelard on this fascinating part of French, and world, history.
France was fortunate and did not have its religious artefacts, its buildings, stained glass, statues, tombs, destroyed by one of their monarchs changing faith. This happened in across the Channel in England, when Henry VIII 'invented' English Protestantism and its English Reformation, abandoning Catholicism so he could remarry, to Jane Seymour.
During the English Reformation, the overwhelming majority of the 625 monastic communities were dissolved - in the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Their physical possessions confiscated by Henry VIII, with many abbeys destroyed, their lands confiscated by the King, and churches and cathedrals desecrated and brutally damaged.
As a result, there is now very few medieval cathedrals remaining in England and Wales, and little medieval stained glass.
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end notes
- Henry VIII's marital history can be remembered by the ditty,
"divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived".
• Catherine of Aragon (Spanish princess) : divorced
• Anne Boleyn : beheaded, after being tried and found guilty of adultery, which amounted to treason when the 'wronged' party was the King.
• Jane Seymour : died. She caught a fever and died 12 days afterr giving birth to the future Edward VI.
• Anne of Cleves (German noblewoman) : divorced (in fact, the marriage was annuled).
• Catherine Howard : beheaded. 32 years younger than Henry, she was known to be unfaithful and therefore beheaded for treason.
• Catherine Parr : survived, as Henery died before she did.
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