Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth
and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan
reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its
services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the
gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate
and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress,
and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.
England's Culture Wars explores how far this agenda could be
enforced, especially in urban communities which offered the
greatest potential to build a godly civic commonwealth. How far
were local magistrates and ministers willing to cooperate, and what
coercive powers did the regime possess to silence or remove
dissidents? How far did the reformers themselves wish to go, and
how did they reconcile godly reformation with the demands of
decency and civility? Music and dancing lived on, in genteel
contexts, early opera replaced the plays now forbidden, and
puritans themselves were often fond of hunting and hawking. Bernard
Capp explores the propaganda wars waged in press and pulpit, how
energetically reformation was pursued, and how much or little was
achieved. Many recent historians have dismissed interregnum
reformation as a failure. He demonstrates that while the reforming
drive varied enormously from place to place, its impact could be
powerful. The book is therefore structured in three parts: setting
out the reform agenda and challenges, surveying general issues and
patterns, and finally offering a number of representative
case-studies. It draws on a wide range of sources, including local
and central government records, judicial records, pamphlets,
sermons, newspapers, diaries, letters, and memoirs; and
demonstrates how court records by themselves give us only a very
limited picture of what was happening on the ground.
General
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