Churches: How to Read Them - Reformation: Chaos and Creation

The late middle ages was a time of destruction that still leaves its mark on our churches today. With the help of art historian Sister Wendy Beckett and a spectacular stained glass window, Richard Taylor tries to understand the intense medieval devotion to the Virgin Mary and how this fuelled the anger of the Reformation that followed. Richard 'reads' a ruined church and explains how it was not Henry VIII but his boy-king successor, Edward VI, who was responsible for the greatest changes in the Reformation. He also traces how the Book of Common Prayer and the translation of the Bible into English transformed the way that the English worshipped and the appearance of their churches. Richard travels to Burntisland in Fife, whose square-built church was a radical attempt by the Scots to break with their Catholic past.