HIERARCHY AND COMMUNITY IN THE ELIZABETHAN PARISH: THE SWALLOWFIELD ARTICLES OF 1596

1999 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 835-851 ◽  
Author(s):  
STEVE HINDLE
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Organization ◽  
Popular Participation ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
First Time ◽  
Locus Classicus

The politics of the parish are increasingly attracting the attention of historians of early modern England. The exploration of the depth and extent of popular participation in the process of governance has disclosed sophisticated forms of political organization at relatively humble social levels. The locus classicus of innovation in parish governance is arguably the set of articles drawn up by the chief inhabitants of the Wiltshire community of Swallowfield in 1596. The articles are printed here for the first time. The introduction seeks to place them in their geographical, chronological, and historiographical contexts. In particular, the articles have profound implications for current debates over the nature and meaning of ‘community’, the dynamics of the growth of the state, and the scale and impulse of the reformation of manners.

scholarly journals Speaking for the People in Early Modern England*

2019 ◽  
Vol 244 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Coast
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
English Civil War ◽  
Common People ◽  
Wide Audience ◽  
The People ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Voice

Abstract The voice of the people is assumed to have carried little authority in early modern England. Elites often caricatured the common people as an ignorant multitude and demanded their obedience, deference and silence. Hostility to the popular voice was an important element of contemporary political thought. However, evidence for a very different set of views can be found in numerous polemical tracts written between the Reformation and the English Civil War. These tracts claimed to speak for the people, and sought to represent their alleged grievances to the monarch or parliament. They subverted the rules of petitioning by speaking for ‘the people’ as a whole and appealing to a wide audience, making demands for the redress of grievances that left little room for the royal prerogative. In doing so, they contradicted stereotypes about the multitude, arguing that the people were rational, patriotic and potentially better informed about the threats to the kingdom than the monarch themselves. ‘Public opinion’ was used to confer legitimacy on political and religious demands long before the mass subscription petitioning campaigns of the 1640s.

Rethinking Iconoclasm in Early Modern England: the Case of Cheapside Cross

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 379-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joel Budd
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Traditional Religion ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
Beliefs And Practices ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
Complex Variety ◽  
City Of London ◽  
The City

AbstractProtestant iconoclasm has generally been understood as an assault on the beliefs and practices of traditional religion. This article challenges that understanding through a detailed study of Cheapside Cross, a large monument that was repeatedly attacked by iconoclasts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It draws on contemporary pamphlets and the manuscripts records of the City of London to reveal the complex variety of associations that Cheapside Cross acquired before and during the Reformation era. It argues that perceptions of the monument were shaped not only by its iconography but also by its involvement in ceremonies and rituals, including royal coronation processions. The iconoclastic attacks on Cheapside Cross should be interpreted not merely as a challenge to traditional beliefs but as attempts to restructure the monument's associations. The paper concludes that attacks on other images may be understood in a similar manner.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
J. V. Fesko
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
The State ◽  
Early Church ◽  
Secondary Literature ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of

This chapter introduces the topic of the history of the early modern Reformed doctrine of the covenant of works. It first defines the doctrine and then provides a state of the question through a survey of relevant secondary literature. After the state of the question, the chapter states the book’s main aim, which is to present an overview of the origins, development, and reception of the covenant of works. In contrast to critics of the doctrine, this book stands within another strand of historiography that sees the covenant of works as a legitimate development of ideas present in the early church, middle ages, and Reformation periods. The chapter then lays out the topics of each of following chapters: the Reformation, Robert Rollock, Jacob Arminius, James Ussher, John Cameron and Edward Leigh, The Westminster Standards, the Formula Consensus Helvetica, Thomas Boston, and the Twentieth Century.

Annotating the Golden Legend in Early Modern England

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (3) ◽  
pp. 816-862
Author(s):  
Morgan Ring
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
History Of Reading ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
The Reformation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Golden Legend

This article discusses annotations to some eighty surviving copies of William Caxton's “Golden Legend.” It assesses reactions from male and female readers across the religious spectrum, exploring the varied ways in which early modern readers engaged with a book that quickly became—and has remained—a shorthand for medieval religion. It seeks to contribute to the history of the “Legend” itself, to historical understanding of annotation, and to the history of reading during the Reformation.

“Vows to the Blackest Devil”: Hamlet and the Evolving Code of Honor in Early Modern England

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 1070-1086 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reta A. Terry
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The State ◽  
Honor Code ◽  
Honor System ◽  
The Individual ◽  
State Analysis

The Renaissance was a period in which the honor code underwent a significant metamorphosis. The medieval, chivalric code of honor, with its emphasis on lineage, allegiance to one's lord and violence, evolved into an honor code that was both more moral and political in that it began to emphasize the individual conscience and allegience to the state. Analysis of Shakespeare's Hamlet, and in particular its characters' use of promise, provides new and revealing insights into the evolving Renaissance codes of honor, for Shakespeare creates characters in Hamlet that represent various stages in the evolution of a changing honor system.

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.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document