The Shrine of St. Winefride and Social Control in Early Modern England and Wales

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-19
Author(s):  
Matthias Bryson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Control ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Alternative Concept ◽  
The Church

In 1534, Henry VIII declared himself the supreme head of the Church of England. In the years that followed, his advisors carried out an agenda to reform the Church. In 1536, the Crown condemned pilgrimages and the veneration of saints’ shrines and relics. By the end of the seventeenth century, nearly every shrine in England and Wales had been destroyed or fell into disuse except for St. Winefride’s shrine in Holywell, Wales. The shrine has continued to be a pilgrimage destination to the present day without disruption. Contemporary scholars have credited the shrine’s survival to its connections with the Tudor and Stuart regimes, to the successful negotiation for its shared use as both a sacred and secular space, and to the missionary efforts of the Jesuits. Historians have yet to conduct a detailed study of St. Winefride’s role in maintaining social order in recusant communities. This article argues that the Jesuits and pilgrims at St. Winefride’s shrine cooperated to create an alternative concept of social order to the legal and customary orders of Protestant society.

Episcopal Tombs in Early Modern England

2004 ◽  
Vol 55 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-680 ◽  
Author(s):  
PETER SHERLOCK
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Other ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Church

The Reformation simultaneously transformed the identity and role of bishops in the Church of England, and the function of monuments to the dead. This article considers the extent to which tombs of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century bishops represented a set of episcopal ideals distinct from those conveyed by the monuments of earlier bishops on the one hand and contemporary laity and clergy on the other. It argues that in death bishops were increasingly undifferentiated from other groups such as the gentry in the dress, posture, location and inscriptions of their monuments. As a result of the inherent tension between tradition and reform which surrounded both bishops and tombs, episcopal monuments were unsuccessful as a means of enhancing the status or preserving the memory and teachings of their subjects in the wake of the Reformation.

Piety and Poisoning in Restoration Plymouth

2006 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 261-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Marshall
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Literary Source ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
True Crime ◽  
Cheap Print ◽  
Convicted Felons ◽  
The Church

Can we identify a pre-eminent physical location for the encounter between elite and popular religious mentalities in seventeenth-century England? A once fashionable and almost typological identification of ‘elite’ with the Church, and ‘popular’ with the alehouse, is now qualified or rejected by many historians. But there has been growing scholarly interest in a third, less salubrious, locale: the prison. Here, throughout the century and beyond, convicted felons of usually low social status found themselves the objects of concern and attention from educated ministers, whose declared purpose was to bring them to full and public repentance for their crimes. The transcript of this process is to be found in a particular literary source: the murder pamphlet, at least 350 of which were published in England between 1573 and 1700. The last two decades have witnessed a mini-explosion of murder-pamphlet studies, as historians and literary scholars alike have become aware of the potential of ‘cheap print’ for addressing a range of questions about the culture and politics of early modern England. The social historian James Sharpe has led the way here, in an influential article characterizing penitent declarations from the scaffold in Foucauldian terms, as internalizations of obedience to the state. In a series of studies, Peter Lake has argued that the sensationalist accounts of ‘true crime’ which were the pamphlets’ stock-in-trade also allowed space for the doctrines of providence and predestination, providing Protestant authors with an entry point into the mental world of the people.

ENGLISH ‘FEMINIST’ WRITINGS AND JUDITH DRAKE'S AN ESSAY IN DEFENCE OF THE FEMALE SEX (1696)

2001 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 727-747 ◽  
Author(s):  
HANNAH SMITH
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Young Women ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Female Sex ◽  
Mary Astell ◽  
The Church

English ‘feminist’ writings of the late seventeenth century frequently united pro-woman arguments with party-political polemics. But although such texts have been discussed in terms of rationalist and contractarian philosophy, or as forerunners of modern feminist concerns, the contemporary issues which underscore them have been ignored. However, an understanding of these debates is vital to comprehending fully the motives of pro-woman writers, many of whom were more concerned with the survival of the Church of England than ameliorating the lot of seventeenth-century women. The underlying importance of party politics is exemplified in one of the greatest works of early modern ‘feminism’, Judith Drake's An essay in defence of the female sex (1696). Although Drake shared political similarities with other tory ‘feminists’, including the more celebrated Mary Astell, Drake's work differed radically from theirs over how an Anglican tory society could be maintained. Instead of stressing the necessity of teaching the tenets of Anglicanism to young women, as had her predecessors, Drake combined tory ideas with Lockean philosophy and concepts of ‘politeness’ to formulate an early Enlightenment vision of sociable, secularized, learning and the role female conversation could play in settling a society fractured by party politics.

Thomas Fuller

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. B. Patterson
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Church History ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Critical Assessment ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
History Of Christianity ◽  
Biographical Dictionary ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Long considered a distinctive English writer, Thomas Fuller (1608–1661) has not been recognized as the important historian he was. Fuller’s The Church-History of Britain (1655) was the first history of Christianity from its planting in ancient Britain to the mid-seventeenth century. Fuller’s History of the Worthies of England (1662) was, moreover, the first biographical dictionary in England. It seeks to represent noteworthy individuals in the context of their native counties. This book, Thomas Fuller: Discovering England’s Religious Past, highlights the fact that Fuller was a major contributor to the flowering of historical writing in early modern England. It provides a biography of Thomas Fuller, an account of the tumultuous times in which he lived, and a critical assessment of the origins, growth, and achievements of a new kind of history, a genre to which he made significant and lasting contributions. Memory is a central theme. Widely known for his own memory, Fuller sought to revive the memory of the English people concerning their religious and political past. By means of historical research involving records, books, personal interviews, and travels, he sought to discover his country’s religious past and to bring it to the attention of his fellow English men and women, who might thereby be enabled to rebuild their shattered Church and nation.

The Religious Scene in Early Modern England

2020 ◽  
pp. 10-20
Author(s):  
Francis J. Bremer
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Henry Viii ◽  
English Reformation ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Religious Reform ◽  
Cambridge University ◽  
Home Town ◽  
The Church

From the start of the English Reformation in the 1530s under Henry VIII through into the early seventeenth-century there was unceasing controversy over how the new church should be defined. Some wished much of Roman Catholic belief and practice to be retained. Other, labeled puritans, sought to follow the lead of more advanced continental reformers and purge the church of all Catholic remnants. William Brewster was a young puritan who had studied at Cambridge University, traveled to the continent with the English envoy William Davison, and then, following Davison’s fall from grace, returned to his home town of Scrooby. There he sought to further the cause of religious reform and gathered around himself men and women of similar beliefs.

Lay Households

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Trill
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Religious Practices ◽  
Bear Witness ◽  
The Church ◽  
Devotional Texts

This chapter is primarily concerned with how devotional texts were used within lay (that is, non-clerical) households. As the household was frequently identified as ‘a little commonwealth’ such ‘private’ devotions had ‘political’ connotations, especially during a period in which officially sanctioned religious practices were continually shifting. This chapter focuses on how these changes impacted upon the devotions of three quite distinct seventeenth-century households: the controversial community established at Little Gidding by Nicholas Ferrar; the Presbyterian practice of Nehemiah Wallington’s household in Eastcheap; and, finally, the experience of Anne, Lady Halkett (née Murray) who solidly maintained her commitment to the Church of England whatever household she inhabited (whether in England or Scotland). While the differences between them are numerous, collectively these cases bear witness to the material ways in which early modern household devotions were a political minefield.

KINGSHIP AND COUNSEL IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2011 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
JACQUELINE ROSE
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political System ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Political ◽  
Distinctive Features ◽  
Advice Giving ◽  
The Church ◽  
Established Church

ABSTRACTCounsel was central to negotiating the politics of Reformation monarchy in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. In a personal monarchy, particularly one wherein the monarch was supreme governor of the church, shaping the character of the ruler was vital for the smooth functioning of the political system. This article provides a conspectus of a broader project on early modern kingship and counsel which will discuss advice-giving provided by privy councillors, parliaments, preachers, and courtiers between 1509 and 1689. It shows how ecclesiastical counsel was central to defenders of the established church and in absolutist theorizing, and how men between 1558 and 1688 drew on patristic examples of its practice. Comparing ecclesiastical counsel to other genres of advice-giving also shows their common and distinctive features.

The Lady is a Catholic: Lady Lovell's Reply to Sir Edward Hoby

2013 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arnold Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Society Of Jesus ◽  
High Profile ◽  
Christ Church ◽  
The Church

The first decade of James I's reign saw a wave of high-profile clerical conversions to the Church of Rome. Among the best-known cases are those of James Wadsworth, who travelled to Spain with Sir Charles Cornwallis's embassy in 1605, where, as William Bedell's biographer Alexander Clogie disgustedly recalled, he was ‘cheated out of his religion by the Jesuits and turned apostate’; Theophilus Higgons, a member of Christ Church, Oxford, who converted in 1607; his friend and Oxford contemporary Humphrey Leech, who followed him in 1609 and later joined the Society of Jesus; and Benjamin Carier, a royal chaplain and prebendary of Canterbury, who converted in 1613. As the work of Michael Questier has taught us, religious conversion was by no means an uncommon phenomenon in early modern England. Yet these cases had the potential to inflict serious damage on the Jacobean church, not only because they threatened to neutralise the propaganda advantages to be gained from Roman Catholic converts to the Church of England such as Marc’ Antonio de Dominis, but also because they drew unwelcome attention to doctrinal divisions within the Church of England over such issues as anti-popery and the theology of grace.

scholarly journals Anti-Calvinist? : ceremonial conformity and Laudian writing, reconsidered (c. 1590-1640)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Travis Knapp
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Religious Ideology ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Worship Practices ◽  
Internal Markers ◽  
The Church

In recent studies of religion in early modern England, scholars have come to the consensus that the religious identity of the Church of England was never quite as stable or uniform as commonly perceived, with a wide variety of religious beliefs and practices coexisting in practice and print. While a significant portion of work has been done exploring the various ranges of puritan thought, diminishing the restrictive stereotypes of the often-derogatory label, less work has been done on the Laudians, a group of English churchmen known for their ceremonial worship practices, often considered to be uniformly anti-Calvinist or anti-puritan, marked partially by their (exclusive) emphasis on external markers of worship. This dissertation examines a wide range of Laudian texts, most published between 1610 and 1633 across the genres of court sermons, private devotionals, polemics, and poetry, to explore the various nuances of Laudianism. It argues that, in practice and especially before William Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury, the religious ideology now called Laudianism was less exclusive and authoritarian than commonly assumed. Rather than target Calvinist critics to force conformity in gesture, sacramental and liturgical observance, Laudian writers seek to reform religious behavior amenably. While Laudians do emphasize external worship practices, these practices are informed by internal markers of piety, where the external shows of worship become meaningless if the worshippers' hearts and souls are not oriented to the worship and service they display with their bodies.

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