Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to today's lesson about the Reformation.

My name is Mrs. Goullee, and I will be your history teacher for this topic.

This is actually one of my favourite topics to teach, so I really hope you will enjoy learning it as much as I know I will enjoy teaching it.

For today's lesson, all you need is a pen and paper, or something to write on or with.

Please take a moment now to clear away any distractions.

If you can, turn off the notifications on any apps you've got running, and find a quiet place that you can complete this lesson.

So, once you're ready and I've got my PowerPoint open, we'll begin.

So, now I've got my PowerPoint open.

I minimised my webcam so you can focus on the pictures on my slides.

That's where I want to begin, with this picture.

This picture shows Ely Cathedral.

Ely Cathedral is a huge cathedral, a massive church in a town called Ely, not that far from Cambridge which is right about where I live.

And you can see from this picture just how massive Ely Cathedral is.

It's got huge towers you can go on.

And it's just this massive building.

And as you go inside, you're really struck by just how big it is.

It has this huge open space opening up in front of you with huge pillars on either side.

And off to one side, on the far end to the entrance is this place, the Lady Chapel.

You can see how beautiful it is if you look at this picture.

And this chapel is dedicated to Saint Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And if you look closely at the picture, you might notice a little blue figure at the far end of the chapel, and that's a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

And that statue has been added into the chapel, this special, holy place in quite recent years.

But, what I'm about to show you now a statue of Mary from longer ago.

So here, we have a statue of Mary, the mother of Jesus in the Lady Chapel in Ely Cathedral.

What do you notice about the statue? What do you think has happened? I'd like you to pause the video now, just press pause, and have a look at the statue.

What do you notice? What do you think has happened? Well, hopefully you had a chance to think about these questions now.

I'm sure you noticed that Mary's head is missing.

The statue of Mary from Ely Cathedral has no head.

I wonder why you think that's happened.

When I've done this lesson in the past, some of them have wondered whether the statue has eroded and worn away over time.

And I guess that makes sense, it is a very old statue, it's been there for hundreds of years.

But actually, if we look really closely, we'll see that the rest of Mary looks okay.

Slightly worn, but that wouldn't be enough for her whole head to be missing.

What's happened, you might have figured this out, is her head has been chopped off.

Mary's head has literally been chopped off of the statue.

But who's done this? Well, bit of a surprise coming up.

Mary's head has been deliberately chopped off, and not by accident.

This was done on the orders of Thomas Goodrich, the Bishop of Ely.

The man in charge of Ely Cathedral and the churches in the area.

So we've got a bishop, a church leader, a Christian, giving orders to chop off Mary's head.

But why would a bishop want to destroy a religious statue? Why would a Christian give orders to have Mary's head chopped off? I mean, it might make sense though possibly for someone who's not a Christian to destroy a statue in a church, that might make sense, but it doesn't make sense surely, does it, that a bishop to give orders to destroy his own statue.

Well, why would a bishop want to destroy a statue? Well, to understand why a bishop would want to destroy a statue, we need to look at what was going on in Europe at this time.

During the sixteenth century, people across Europe were arguing about the right way of worshipping God.

By this time, Europe had been Christian for centuries.

However, in the sixteenth century, some people had new ideas about what churches should look like and what church services should involve.

On the one hand, there was the Catholic Church.

Every single church in Europe was part of Catholic Church -- this massive organisation of churches -- and the leader of the Catholic Church was the Pope in Rome.

And you can see on this slide the picture of Pope Leo X.

The pope in the early part of the sixteenth century.

But on the other hand in the sixteenth century, there was a group of people nicknamed The Protestants.

And this group, the Protestants, included this man Martin Luther.

And the Protestants wanted to protest against the teachings of the Catholic church, hence their name, Protestants, because they were protesting, they were challenging, they were criticising the Catholic church.

And to give you an idea, Martin Luther actually wrote 95 complaints against the Catholic church, and he nailed it to a church door in a town called Wittenberg in Germany.

He had 95 complaints, 95 criticisms of the Catholic church which he nailed up to a church door.

So, in Europe, in the sixteenth century, we have these arguments over religion.

Arguments between Catholics on the one hand, and Protestants on the other.

Now, before I go any further and tell you anymore of the story, I'm just going to pause here and ask you a question.

What was going on in the sixteenth century? Choose the two correct answers based on the story I've told you so far, I want you to pause the video, I'd like you to read these answers and choose the two correct ones.

There are some that are sort of correct, half-right.

There are two that are properly correct.

I'd like you to pause the video and see if you can figure out.

Choose, sorry, see if you can choose the two correct, completely correct answers.

So, which of these options are correct then? Hopefully, you've picked Option 3 and 4.

They're the two options, 3 and 4, that are completely correct.

I mean, Option 1 is sort of fine.

Everybody was Christian.

The first bit is right.

But the last bit is wrong because there were disagreements.

There were Catholics and Protestants, and they were both arguing with each other.

Option 2, again that's sort of right.

There was one Catholic church, but not quite everyone was a part of it anymore.

Because you have the Catholics and then you also have the Protestants who are arguing against them.

So again, that's sort of right but not quite, fully right.

But Option 3, that's definitely right isn't it? There were arguments about how to worship God.

Arguments between Catholics and Protestants.

And Option 4, you know, that one's definitely right as well.

There was the Catholic church and a group called the Protestants who were arguing and protesting against the Catholic church.

Don't worry if you didn't quite get all the answers right.

It doesn't matter.

Key things to remember now are in the sixteenth century, there were arguments about how to worship God.

There was a Catholic church on one hand and another group, the Protestants, who were criticising and protesting the Catholic church.

But why? Well, I think we need now to know a little bit more of the story.

What do these groups believe? Well, the Catholic church, like we said, were led by the Pope.

And they taught that it was not enough just to believe in God.

You also had to do good things.

Basically, to get to Heaven, yes believing in God was important, but you needed to do good things as well in your life.

And by doing good things, you'll be able to get into Heaven.

The Catholic church also believed in beautiful, decorated churches.

Look at this Catholic church on this slide.

Look at this picture.

You can see the beautiful statues, all the decorations, the gold and the paint.

This beautiful screen called the rood screen with the statue of Jesus on top.

The Catholic church believed in beautiful, decorated churches, and they also thought that church services should be in Latin.

They wanted there to be these church services in Latin which people couldn't necessarily understand but that added to the mystery and the beauty, they believed, the church service having it in Latin.

So, Catholic church, led by the Pope, good things important to get to Heaven, beautiful decorated churches, and church services in Latin.

On the other hand, well, the Protestants they included Martin Luther, a man who criticised and wrote his 95 complaints against Catholic church, and they taught that faith alone got you to Heaven.

Belief was enough.

So, was the Catholic church believed you needed to do good works as well, the Protestants said that belief was enough.

You simply had to believe in God, believe in Jesus, and that got you to Heaven.

They also, the Protestant church, believed in plain, simple churches.

Just look at this picture.

You can see how much plainer this Protestant church is.

Got bare walls, no statues or decorations, and the Protestants thought it was important to have plain churches to help people focus on God.

To help them avoid any distractions.

The Protestants also thought that reading the Bible was important.

They thought that every single person should be able to read the Bible for themselves, and that the Bible should be in the language that they spoke.

So English if they were English, German if they were German, etc.

And they also, the Protestants, thought it was really important that church services were in people's own language.

They wanted people to be able to understand everything that was going on.

They didn't like the Catholic idea of these Latin church services which not everybody could understand.

So, in Europe in the sixteenth century, you got the Catholic church, the beautiful decorated churches.

This church that most people were part of and had been for centuries.

This, these beautiful decorated churches, which had church services in Latin.

And on the other hand, you've got this new group, the Protestants, who wanted plain, simple churches, who wanted people to read the Bible and have church services in their own language.

It's time to pause again.

I've got a question for you.

Based on what I've told you, which of these beliefs are Catholic? And which are Protestant? So what I'd like you to do now is pause the video.

I'd like you to decide which of these options are Catholic.

Sorry, which of these are Catholic beliefs and which of these are Protestant beliefs.

Hopefully you've got an idea now about which of these are Catholic beliefs and which are Protestant.

So um, hopefully you picked Option 1 and Option 4 for the Catholic beliefs.

Catholics believed in fancy decorated churches beautiful decorations and statues, and church services in Latin which added to the beauty and mystery.

So Catholics wanted fancy churches and church services in Latin.

Whilst the other group, the Protestants, they wanted well, for them, Option 2 and 3 are correct.

Protestants wanted plain, simple churches whilst the, they also wanted people to be able to read the Bible and have church services in their own language, okay? So Catholics do good things to get to Heaven, fancy churches, church services in Latin.

While this new group, the Protestants thought they should be plain, simple churches, people should be reading the Bible, focusing on God, and having church services in their own language.

So, now I want you to do your first written task.

I'd like you to pause the video and based on everything we've been speaking about so far I'd just like you to finish these sentences on your piece of paper or notebook or whatever you're writing on.

Catholics believed in.

Finish off that sentence.

Protestants believed in.

finish off that sentence.

So you're going to pause the video now, you're going to finish off those two sentences, Catholics believed in, Protestants believed in.

You might find it helpful to just rewind the video a few seconds to get the options back up but I'll leave that up to you so pause the video now finish those sentences.

Hopefully you've finished your sentences now and Catholics believed in fancy decorated churches, church services in Latin, and doing good things to get to Heaven.

Protestants believed in plain, simple churches, church services in people's own language, and reading the Bible.

I hope you got those things, and it's time to move on.

How does this effect England? We've been speaking quite a lot now about Catholics and Protestants and what they believed, but how did this effect England? Well, during the sixteenth century, the English church experienced a roller coaster of religious change.

And all this religious change was called the Reformation.

The Reformation.

Now, some of the Tudor monarchs, the kings and queens who were ruling England at this time, some of these Tudor monarchs were Catholic and some were Protestant.

And this meant the religion kept changing from one to the other.

They had a Catholic king then a Protestant then a Catholic then a Protestant, and the religion kept changing from one to the other.

You're now going to find out how each of the Tudor monarchs, the Tudor kings and queens, Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I changed the church.

You're going to find out which of these Tudor kings and queens were Catholic, which were Protestant, and how they changed the English church as a result.

So, to do that, to find out how these Tudor kings and queens changed the church, you need to pause the video.

You're going to need to read the slides on the next page and answer the comprehension questions.

So you're going to need to go onto the next page now because it's time for your main task.

You're going to go to the next page now, and then answer the comprehension questions at the end of those slides.

Go onto the next page, read the slides, then answer the comprehension questions.

Hopefully you've finished answering the comprehension questions now.

I'm just going to go through the answers with you.

And before I do, I just want to say that this isn't easy.

It's not easy working from home so please don't worry if you got any of the answers not quite right.

We can simply correct them as we go through the answers now.

That's the point.

So, answer one.

How did Henry VII change the English church? The correct answer was Henry made himself head of the church and made churches buy an English Bible.

So, if you got that, give yourself a tick, if not, don't worry.

Just write that down.

Question two.

How did Edward VI change the English church? Well, the correct answer Edward made the English church Protestant, he forced churches to destroy statues and use a new Protestant prayer book.

So if you got that, give yourself a tick, if not, don't worry just jot this down.

Ultimately, what we've got so far in our stories, Henry VIII putting himself in charge, but not really being Protestant.

And then Edward, this really strong, serious Protestant, making everything Protestant, getting rid of the statues, making people use a new Protestant prayer book.

Question three.

How did Mary I change the English church? The correct answer is Mary made the English church Catholic again, telling people to worship in a traditional, Catholic way.

If you got that, give yourself a tick.

If not, don't worry, just correct your things.

So far, we've had Henry making himself in charge of the church.

Then Edward a strict, serious Protestant making it all Protestant, and now we've got Mary making it Catholic again.

See why it's called a roller coaster? Final question.

How did Elizabeth I change the English church? The correct answer is Elizabeth made the English church Protestant, but she wasn't as strict so that everyone felt included.

So, give yourself a tick if you got that right.

If not, just correct your notes.

So, in a nutshell, in a nutshell all you need to remember is the English church changed in a roller coaster way.

Henry made himself in charge.

Then the church went Protestant under Edward.

Then it went Catholic under Mary.

And then it went Protestant again under Elizabeth.

So you go Catholic, Protestant, Catholic, Protestant.

And that's what happened.

So, if we go back to our statue of Saint Mary that we began the lesson with, based on what you now know, can you guess when the statue of Mary was destroyed and why? Just pause the video now and have a think.

When do you think Mary's statue was destroyed and why? Well, hopefully you've guessed that it was during Edward's reign because Edward was a serious Protestant and he made the church Protestant, and he forced people to destroy their statues.

So that's why the statue of Mary has her head chopped off.

So at least now, we got to the bottom of our puzzle.

Why did the bishop of England, a Christian, why did he destroy the statue of Mary? Why did he chop off her head? Well, it's because England was now Protestant, and as a result, they had to get rid of statues which was seen to be too fancy, and got in the way of worshipping God.

So why does this matter? It's easy now looking back at these religious changes to wonder why people were arguing so much about religion.

It's easy to question whether any of it really made a difference to people's daily lives.

Well, over the coming lessons, we are going to zoom in on the story of one ordinary English church called Morebath Church.

And this is a picture of Morebath Church.

Quite an ordinary church.

Well, over this topic, you are going to find out about the people who live there, and how their lives were affected by the religious change of the Reformation.

You are going to get to know some of the people who lived in that village and went to that church about 400 years ago.

And you're going to find out how their lives were affected by the Reformation, how their lives were affected by England going from Catholic to Protestant to Catholic to Protestant again.

And by doing that, we're going to answer our big question.

In what ways did the Reformation matter to ordinary people? In what ways did this religious change make a difference to ordinary people's lives? Now, I'm calling this the big question because it's going to take a whole topic to answer it properly.

And so over the coming lessons, each lesson will unveil the next part of our answer to that big question.

So the last thing I'd like you to do now is write that question down, maybe write it in capital letters, to help you remember that this is the big question, and it's going to take us some time to answer.

That brings us to the end of today's lesson.

Well done for all your hard work.

It wasn't easy and you've done a fantastic job.

If you're able to, please take a photo of your work, and ask your parent or carer to share it with your class teacher so that they can see all the fantastic work you've done.

Please also make sure you complete the final quiz if you have not done so already, so you can show off all that you have learned.

Well, all that's left is for me to say, well done, thank you, take care, and I look forward to my next history lesson with you.