Thomas Cranmer (redirected from Archbishop thomas cranmer)

Cranmer, Thomas 

Born July 2, 1489, in Aslacton, Nottinghamshire; died Mar. 21, 1556, in Oxford. English Reformation leader.

Cranmer received the degree of doctor of divinity at Cambridge University. In 1533 he became the archbishop of Canterbury. He assisted in establishing the supremacy of the king in church affairs (Henry VIII was proclaimed head of the English, or Anglican, Church in 1534 by Parliament) and in carrying out the Reformation and the secularization of church property. Under Henry VIII and Edward VI he carried out a number of church reforms in the Protestant spirit, but his work did not result in a thorough reorganization of the English Church. When Catholicism was restored under Mary Tudor, Cranmer was accused of high treason. He was imprisoned and then burned at the stake as a heretic.

REFERENCE

Pollard, A. F. Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation, 2nd ed.
London, 1926.