Exclusion from the Eucharist: The Re-shaping of Idiocy in the Seventeenth-Century Church

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. F. Goodey
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Holy Communion ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Political Processes

Throughout the English revolution of the mid-seventeenth century, churchmen disagreed about whom to exclude from taking holy communion, who should do the excluding, and how this exclusion should be imposed. The constant reclassifications of potential contaminants of church ritual fluctuated in tandem with larger socio-political processes. The ferocity of the debate in the 1650s reflects that decade’s social revolutionary chaos. Near the end of it, the label ‘idiot’ – whatever that may mean – arrives on the list, emerging from a dialectic of disputes which acknowledge the socio-political context. In that particular deployment of the label we start to see an outline of the modern psychological definition.

Orthodox Radicals

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Group Identity ◽  
Religious Toleration ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Infant Baptism ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Baptist Identity ◽  
Ongoing Project

Orthodox Radicals explores the origins and identity of Baptists during the English Revolution (1640–1660), arguing that mid-seventeenth century Baptists did not, in fact, understand themselves to be part of a larger, all-encompassing “Baptist” movement. Contrary to both the explicit statements of many historians and the tacit suggestion embedded in the very use of “Baptist” as an overarching historical category, the early modern men and women who rejected infant baptism would not have initially understood that single theological move as being in itself constitutive of a new group identity. Rather, the rejection of infant baptism was but one of a number of doctrinal revisions then taking place among English puritans eager to further their ongoing project of godly reformation. Orthodox Radicals thus complicates our understanding of Baptist identity and addresses broader themes including early modern religious toleration, the mechanisms by which early modern groups defined and defended themselves, and the perennial problem of historical anachronism. By combining a provocative reinterpretation Baptist identity with close readings of key theological and political texts, Orthodox Radicals offers the most original and stimulating analysis of mid-seventeenth century Baptists in decades.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Matthew C. Bingham
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
The Self ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
The World ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
To Come ◽  
Considerable Body

Ushering the reader into both the world of early modern radical religion and the considerable body of scholarly literature devoted to its study, the introduction offers a précis of what is to come and a backward glance to explain how the proposed journey contributes to ongoing scholarly conversations. After orienting readers to the basic methodological boundaries within which the book will operate and briefly situating the book within the wider historiography, the introduction adumbrates the shape of the work as a whole and encapsulates its central argument. The introduction contends that the mid-seventeenth-century men and women often described as “Particular Baptists” would not have readily understood themselves as such. This tension between the self-identity of the early modern actors and the identity imposed upon them by future scholars has significant implications for how we understand both radical religion during the English Revolution and the period more broadly.

Repackaging Milton for the Late Seventeenth-Century Book Trade

Making Milton ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 42-52
Author(s):  
Emma Depledge
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Paradise Lost ◽  
Turning Points ◽  
Book Trade ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
The Impact

This chapter focuses on the magisterial 1688 folio edition of Paradise Lost, published by Jacob Tonson and Richard Bentley, exploring the possible reasons why these men chose to publish Milton at this time, as well as the impact the edition had both on Milton’s authorial afterlife and on their careers as stationers. The chapter places the 1688 Paradise Lost folio in the wider context of Tonson’s career, including his involvement in pirate publication schemes and his status (from 1678) as Dryden’s publisher, to argue that the 1688 edition of Paradise Lost, one of the most profound turning points in Milton’s authorial afterlife, had less to do with the political context of 1688 and the perceived vendibility of the poem and more to do with Tonson’s own ambitions and frustrations as a stationer.

Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? and the Politics of the Thirty Years War

2016 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 355-408
Author(s):  
Derek Stauff
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Context ◽  
The Political ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Devotional Writings

For early modern Lutherans Heinrich Schütz's Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich? would have evoked fears of religious persecution. Its text, from the narrative of Paul's conversion in Acts 9, appears in seventeenth-century devotional writings and confessional polemics about persecution. Moreover, recently uncovered archival evidence shows that Schütz performed his concerto in 1632 at a state-sponsored political festival marking the first anniversary of the Battle of Breitenfeld, a major Protestant victory in the Thirty Years War. Here Schütz's concerto clearly stoked fears of persecution, because the celebrations touted the battle as a victory over Catholic oppression. The political context in 1632 might also explain some of the piece's most notable features. Its unusually brief text and vivid music do not illustrate the whole story of Saul's conversion but solely the moment at which Christ intervened to put a stop to persecution. Schütz's listeners would have heard in Saul's example a parallel to the victory they were celebrating in 1632 and the persecution they feared from their Catholic and imperial adversaries. This performance of Saul, the only one known from Schütz's lifetime, shows how his music partook in a broader campaign of Protestant propaganda designed to reinforce the confessional and political divisions that fueled this phase of the war.

George Fox, Millenarian

1992 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 261-278 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. Larry Ingle
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Civil Wars ◽  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Small Step ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Charles I ◽  
New Jerusalem ◽  
Divine Intervention ◽  
George Fox ◽  
Widespread Interest

“Friends, take heed of setting up that which God will throw down, lest you be found fighters against God.”The nearly two decades comprising the period of the English Revolution were marked by a widespread interest in the timely appearance of the millennium, the thousand year period of Christ's promised earthly reign. From scholarly biblical studies of Daniel and Revelation to omens such as total eclipses of the sun and rumors of a Nottingham girl returning from the dead to warn a sinful world of approaching destruction, people in revolutionary England were bombarded with “evidence” of divine intervention and the expected arrival of the new kingdom. Parliament's victory in the English civil wars and its execution of Charles I in 1649 dramatically blew away the aura of divinity surrounding the monarchy and promised a new and glorious age. As they read prophecies in Revelation about a New Jerusalem where God would dry all tears and banish death, sorrow, and pain, enthusiasts of the seventeenth century anxiously looked for the Christ who promised, “Behold, I come quickly.” So prevalent were such notions that, as one authority has stressed, popular millenarianism seemed only a small step beyond received orthodoxy.

Legitimacy and Mass Compliance: Reflections on Max Weber and Soviet-Type Societies

1986 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-56 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jan Pakulski
Keyword(s):  
Max Weber ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Political Order ◽  
Legitimate Authority ◽  
Conceptual Scheme ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
The One

It is worthwhile debating the meaning of concepts only when they start to hinder the process of inquiry. This seems to be the case with Max Weber's concepts of legitimacy and legitimate authority. They are becoming increasingly popular among students of Soviet-type societies despite the numerous problems posed by their application in a socio-political context that is so different from the one Weber had in mind. This increased popularity results in a ‘conceptual stretch’. More importantly, it increases the danger of a serious misinterpretation of socio-political processes in Soviet-type societies because, as will be argued in this article, the concept of legitimacy is not appropriate for the analysis of mass compliance in such societies. Instead, the persistence of (relatively) stable social and political order in these societies, as well as the occurrences of mass dissent, may be better accounted for in terms of ‘conditional tolerance’. In order to demonstrate the utility of this concept, and to show the problematic nature of accounts in terms of legitimacy and legitimate authority, it is necessary to start with a brief reprise of Weber's conceptual scheme.

Civilian Society and Political Power in the Ottoman Empire: A Report on Research in Collective Biography (1480–1830)

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suraiya Faroqhi
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Ottoman Empire ◽  
Recent Literature ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Public Office ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Research Technique ◽  
Collective Biography ◽  
Roman Antiquity

Prosopography, or collective biography, as this field of study is sometimes called by scholars dealing with periods later than Greek and Roman antiquity, is a relatively simple and unsophisticated research technique. Basically, it consists of assembling and comparing biographical data for all individuals belonging to a clearly circumscribed group of people. Frequently, but not necessarily, the individuals in question held public office of some kind. This technique recommends itself by the fact that it can be applied even to periods on which very little evidence is available, such as the Roman Republic But on a different level, prosopography can also contribute to our understanding of societies with a fairly rich documentation. Thus, quite a few items among the more recent literature cited by Lawrence Stone in his book on the causes of the seventeenth-century English revolution might be described at least in part upon prosopographical techniques. In the same vein, the research technique has been used by a number of scholars to shed some light upon the institutions and society of the Ottoman Empire.

The Problem of a Courtly Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. 80-104
Author(s):  
Julianne Werlin
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Literary History ◽  
Commercial Sector ◽  
Book Market ◽  
Socioeconomic Change ◽  
Market Growth ◽  
Royal Authority ◽  
English Revolution ◽  
Courtly Culture ◽  
Marxist Interpretation

This chapter analyses the seventeenth-century shift from aristocratic forms of literary evaluation to the book market as a key source of prestige—from a courtly to a commercial model of literary judgment and value. Setting the literature of the Caroline court within larger debates about the monarchy’s authority over an increasingly powerful commercial sector, it argues that English courtly culture crystalized in response to the challenges to royal authority posed by market growth and autonomy. It thus returns to a Marxist interpretation of the causes of the English Revolution, while using recent research on the book market, print censorship, and coterie literary circulation to draw new connections between socioeconomic change and literary history.

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