Reformation:
A historical term referring to the intellectual and political upheavals caused by the new Protestant religion which originated in the early sixteenth century with Martin Luther's breakaway from the Roman Catholic Church. Apart from its attack on the institutions or Catholicism, Protestantism in general placed new stress on the individual's state of mind in the spiritual struggle between doubt and faith: the individual is alone before God, and only faith will lead to salvation. The Bible became the one true source of Christainity, rather than the teaching of the Church, and hence translation was begun in 1521 and published in 1526. Tyndale's English translation was smuggled into England in 1526, but banned. The work of various translators, working from the 1530's onwards, culminated in the great Authorised Version of 1611.
In Britain the Reformation was initiated by Henry VIII's political break with the papacy in 1534; Protestantisn steadily gained ground during the sixteenth century inspite of the setback of Mary's attempts to return to Catholicism(1553-1558)
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