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David
J. B. Trim and Peter J. Balderstone, eds.
Cross, Crown &
Community: Religion, Government and Culture in Early Modern England
1400-1800.
Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004.
xxii,350pp.
Paperback.
ISBN 3039100165.
Publisher's
recommended price SFR91.00/€62.60/£41.00/US$69.95
The values and institutions
of the Christian Church remained massively dominant in early modern
English society and culture, but its theology, liturgy and unity were
increasingly disputed. The period was overall one of institutional
conformity and individual diversity: the centrality of Christian
religion was universally acknowledged; yet the nature of religion and
of religious observance in England changed dramatically during the
Reformation, Renaissance, and Restoration.
Further, because English culture was still biblical and English society
was still religious, the state involved itself in ecclesiastical
matters to an extraordinary extent. Successive political and
ecclesiastical administrations were committed to helping each other,
but their attempts to mould religious beliefs and customs were
effectively attempts to modify English culture. Church and state were
complementary, yet because they were ultimately distinct estates, they
could work only, at best, uneasily in partnership with each other.
Cultural output is thus an ideal lens for examining this period of
tension in the church, state and society of England. The case studies
contained in this volume examine the intersection of politics, religion
and society over the entire early modern period, through distinct
examples of cultural texts produced and cultural practices followed.
Contents: Michael and Helen Pearson: Harry Leonard - a tribute - D. J.
B.Trim/Peter J. Balderstone: Introduction: Church, state, society, and
English culture in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries - Richard K.
Emmerson: Visualising the Apocalypse in late medieval England: the York
Minster Great East Window - D. J. B.Trim: «Knights of
Christ»? Chivalric culture in England, c.1400-c.1550 - Ralph A.
Houlbrooke: Magic and witchcraft in the diocese of Winchester,
1491-1570 - Robert Surridge: «An English Laodicea»: the
influence of Revelation 3:14-22 on mid-seventeenth-century England -
William Lamont: The religious origins of the English Civil War: two
false witnesses - Willy Maley: Divorced from reality or in the spirit
of the letter? Manipulation and metaphor in Milton's
«charitable» readings of Scripture - John F. Cox:
Shakespeare reworked: Davenant's The Law Against Lovers and the
cultural politics of the Restoration - Mary Trim: «Awe upon my
heart»: children of dissent, 1660-1688 - Keith A. Francis:
«An Absurd, a Cruel, a Scandalous, and a Wicked [Bill]»:
the Church of England and the (Clandestine) Marriage Act of 1753 -
Penny Mahon: Awakening the horror: Anna Letitia Barbauld and the
anti-war movement in late eighteenth-century England.
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