England and the Continent in the Sixteenth Century.

There are those who would deny a distinction between England and the continent of Europe, alleging that the island is in every respect – politically, socially, culturally – a part of Europe. This is an opinion that could be held only by those whose knowledge of the continent is derived from books and from visits; anyone who has actually ever lived there knows how fundamental those differences are. Or perhaps one should say, how fundamental they were; possibly they have in the last thirty years been disappearing together with an England that was real, and apparently unchangeable, at any rate down to 1939. It may also be argued that those differences have not always existed, time out of memory: medieval England, part of one European Church, may have displayed more likeness to the rest of Christendom than difference. An island ruled for so many centuries by Danish, Norman and Angevin princes perhaps demands to be treated as part of those continental dominions. I am certainly familiar with arguments of this kind from historians concerned to understand the medieval English Church or the Norman Conquest and its consequences. Yet even then there were real differences, and if the novel (and very persuasive) thesis that England never knew a ‘true’ peasantry survives detailed scrutiny those differences may well come to matter more throughout English history than any superficial resemblances in religion, in language, or in the social habits of the upper classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]