<P> The Reformation reshaped the Church of England decisively after 1547 . The separation of the Church of England (or Anglican Church) from Rome under Henry VIII, beginning in 1529 and completed in 1537, brought England alongside this broad Reformation movement; however, religious changes in the English national church proceeded more conservatively than elsewhere in Europe . Reformers in the Church of England alternated, for decades, between sympathies for ancient Catholic tradition and more Reformed principles, gradually developing, within the context of robustly Protestant doctrine, a tradition considered a middle way (via media) between the Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions . </P> <P> The following outcomes of the Protestant Reformation regarding human capital formation, the Protestant ethic, economic development, governance, and "dark" outcomes have been identified by scholars . </P> <P> Margaret C. Jacob argues that there has been a dramatic shift in the historiography of the Reformation . Until the 1960s, historians focused their attention largely on the great leaders and theologians of the 16th century, especially Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli . Their ideas were studied in depth . However, the rise of the new social history in the 1960s look at history from the bottom up, not from the top down . Historians began to concentrate on the values, beliefs and behavior of the people at large . She finds, "in contemporary scholarship, the Reformation is now seen as a vast cultural upheaval, a social and popular movement, textured and rich because of its diversity ." </P> <P> The Age of Enlightenment refers to the 18th century in European philosophy, and is often thought of as part of a period which includes the Age of Reason . The term also more specifically refers to a historical intellectual movement, The Enlightenment . This movement advocated rationality as a means to establish an authoritative system of aesthetics, ethics, and logic . The intellectual leaders of this movement regarded themselves as a courageous elite, and regarded their purpose as one of leading the world toward progress and out of a long period of doubtful tradition, full of irrationality, superstition, and tyranny, which they believed began during a historical period they called the Dark Ages . This movement also provided a framework for the American and French Revolutions, the Latin American independence movement, and the Polish--Lithuanian Commonwealth Constitution of May 3, and also led to the rise of liberalism and the birth of socialism and communism . It is matched by the high baroque and classical eras in music, and the neo-classical period in the arts, and receives contemporary application in the unity of science movement which includes logical positivism . </P>

What was the political and cultural context in europea ca. 1750