Welcome to the History of English Podcast, a podcast about the history of the English language.

This is Episode 150, a capital offense.

In this episode, we're going to look at heads and the loss of heads.

Two important developments took place in England in the early 1530s.

The first was the emergence of Henry VIII as the supreme head of the Church of England.

Henry took control of the church and became one of the most powerful kings in English history,

but in the process he also became a tyrant.

Those who crossed his path or refused to recognize his authority committed a capital offense,

and they often lost their head in the process.

The other major development during this period was the emergence of the modern punctuation

system.

The language of punctuation is also full of violence.

It also involves heads and the loss of heads, puncturing with pointed implements, and cutting

off clauses with words related to axes.

So this time, we'll explore the violence of the early 1500s in the realm of politics,

religion, and English writing.

But before we begin, let me remind you that the website for the podcast is historyofenglishpodcast.com,

and you can sign up to support the podcast and get bonus episodes at patreon.com slash

historyofenglish.

Transcripts of most of the episodes are also available there.

Now let's turn to this episode, and let's pick up where we left off last time.

In the last episode, we explored the early stages of the Protestant Reformation, and we

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