Today in 1513 Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici was proclaimed Pope Leo X.
It’s on his watch that the Reformation began in 1517, and he is also the Pope who proclaimed Henry VIII the Defender of the Faith in 1521 as a reward for the king’s pamphlet Assertio septem sacramentorum adversus Martinum Lutherum (“Declaration of the Seven Sacraments Against Martin Luther”), written against Luther.
When Henry broke with the papacy, Pope Paul III deprived him of his designation, but the title was restored to the king by Parliament in 1544 and is still used by his successors on the English throne. The abbreviation Fid. Def. or the letters F.D. have been regularly on the coinage from the time of George I.
That’s your Tudor Minute for today. Remember you can dive deeper into life in 16th-century England through the Renaissance English History Podcast at englandcast.com.
Suggested link:
Episode 088: The Henrician Reformation
Heather Teysko is the creator, writer, and producer of The Renaissance English History Podcast, the original Tudor history podcast, started in 2009. She's been writing about history online for over 25 years, since her first site on Colonial American history became number one in history on Yahoo in 1998. In 2019 she created Tudorcon, which is now a yearly event, in addition to writing books, and running TudorFair.com - a whimsical Tudor Merch shop.
She has been passionate about Tudor England since she first read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII 30 years ago, and subsequently moved to London after college to spend her time immersed in Tudor history (how exciting when she got to interview Alison for the first time!). In addition to history, she is passionate about travel, and has lived in 3 countries and 4 states (not counting her perpetual state of confusion), and her family (who help her host her YouTube channel occasionally).
