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Examines the pursuit of orthodoxy, and its consequences for the
history of Christianity. Christianity is a hugely diverse and
quarrelsome family of faiths, but most Christians have nevertheless
set great store by orthodoxy - literally, 'right opinion' - even if
they cannot agree what that orthodoxy should be. The notion that
there is a 'catholic', or universal, Christian faith - that which,
according to the famous fifth-century formula, has been believed
everywhere, at all times and by all people - is itself an act of
faith: to reconcile it with the historical fact of persistent
division and plurality requires a constant effort. It also requires
a variety of strategies, from confrontation and exclusion, through
deliberate choices as to what is forgotten or ignored, to creative
or even indulgent inclusion. In this volume, seventeen leading
historians of Christianity ask how the ideal of unity has clashed,
negotiated, reconciled or coexisted with the historical reality of
diversity, in a range of historical settings from the early Church
through the Reformation era to the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries. These essays hold the huge variety of the Christian
experience together with the ideal of orthodoxy, which Christians
have never (yet) fully attained but for which they have always
striven; and they trace some of the consequences of the pursuit of
that ideal for the history of Christianity.
New insights into the nature of the seventeenth-century English
revolution - one of the most contested issues in early modern
British history. The nature of the seventeenth-century English
revolution remains one of the most contested of all historical
issues. Scholars are unable to agree on what caused it, when
precisely it happened, how significant it was in terms of
political, social, economic, and intellectual impact, or even
whether it merits being described as a "revolution" at all. Over
the past twenty years these debates have become more complex, but
also richer. This volume brings together new essays by a group of
leading scholars of the revolutionary period and will provide
readers with a provocative and stimulating introduction to current
research. All the essays engage with one or more of three themes
which lieat the heart of recent debate: the importance of the
connection between individuals and ideas; the power and influence
of religious ideas; and the most appropriate chronological context
for discussion of the revolution. STEPHEN TAYLOR is Professor in
the History of Early Modern England at the University of Durham.
GRANT TAPSELL is Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of
Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall. Contributors:
Philip Baker, J. C. Davis, Kenneth Fincham, Rachel Foxley, Tim
Harris, Ethan H. Shagan, John Spurr, Grant Tapsell, Stephen Taylor,
Tim Wales, John Walter, Blair Worden
An illuminating history of how religious belief lost its
uncontested status in the West This landmark book traces the
history of belief in the Christian West from the Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment, revealing for the first time how a distinctively
modern category of belief came into being. Ethan Shagan focuses not
on what people believed, which is the normal concern of Reformation
history, but on the more fundamental question of what people took
belief to be. Shagan shows how religious belief enjoyed a special
prestige in medieval Europe, one that set it apart from judgment,
opinion, and the evidence of the senses. But with the outbreak of
the Protestant Reformation, the question of just what kind of
knowledge religious belief was-and how it related to more mundane
ways of knowing-was forced into the open. As the warring churches
fought over the answer, each claimed belief as their exclusive
possession, insisting that their rivals were unbelievers. Shagan
challenges the common notion that modern belief was a gift of the
Reformation, showing how it was as much a reaction against Luther
and Calvin as it was against the Council of Trent. He describes how
dissidents on both sides came to regard religious belief as
something that needed to be justified by individual judgment,
evidence, and argument. Brilliantly illuminating, The Birth of
Modern Belief demonstrates how belief came to occupy such an
ambivalent place in the modern world, becoming the essential
category by which we express our judgments about science, society,
and the sacred, but at the expense of the unique status religion
once enjoyed.
An illuminating history of how religious belief lost its
uncontested status in the West This landmark book traces the
history of belief in the Christian West from the Middle Ages to the
Enlightenment, revealing for the first time how a distinctively
modern category of belief came into being. Ethan Shagan focuses not
on what people believed, which is the normal concern of Reformation
history, but on the more fundamental question of what people took
belief to be. Shagan shows how religious belief enjoyed a special
prestige in medieval Europe, one that set it apart from judgment,
opinion, and the evidence of the senses. But with the outbreak of
the Protestant Reformation, the question of just what kind of
knowledge religious belief was-and how it related to more mundane
ways of knowing-was forced into the open. As the warring churches
fought over the answer, each claimed belief as their exclusive
possession, insisting that their rivals were unbelievers. Shagan
challenges the common notion that modern belief was a gift of the
Reformation, showing how it was as much a reaction against Luther
and Calvin as it was against the Council of Trent. He describes how
dissidents on both sides came to regard religious belief as
something that needed to be justified by individual judgment,
evidence, and argument. Brilliantly illuminating, The Birth of
Modern Belief demonstrates how belief came to occupy such an
ambivalent place in the modern world, becoming the essential
category by which we express our judgments about science, society,
and the sacred, but at the expense of the unique status religion
once enjoyed.
Religion in Tudor England offers readers the prose and the poetry,
the theology and the spirituality, the prayers and the polemics, of
one of the most important epochs in the making of modern
Christianity. Beginning with King Henry VII, the Tudors' reign
included the break with Rome and the rise of English Protestantism,
a series of religiously inspired revolts, the burnings of nearly
three hundred Protestants for heresy under Queen Mary, the
executions of scores of Catholics for treason under Queen
Elizabeth, and the emergence of the Puritan challenge to the Church
of England. Moreover, the English Reformation coincided with the
English Renaissance, and the foremost religious thinkers of the
age, Catholic as well as Protestant, are also among the greatest of
English prose stylists. The sources in this unique anthology,
accidentals modernized and accompanied by careful notes and
detailed historical, literary, and theological introductions,
immerse readers in this world and allow them to explore
comprehensively - for the first time - what was lost, what was
transformed, and what was preserved in the English Reformation.
Why was it that whenever the Tudor-Stuart regime most loudly
trumpeted its moderation, that regime was at its most vicious? This
groundbreaking book argues that the ideal of moderation, so central
to English history and identity, functioned as a tool of social,
religious and political power. Thus The Rule of Moderation rewrites
the history of early modern England, showing that many of its key
developments - the via media of Anglicanism, political liberty, the
development of empire and even religious toleration - were defined
and defended as instances of coercive moderation, producing the
'middle way' through the forcible restraint of apparently dangerous
excesses in Church, state and society. By showing that the
quintessentially English quality of moderation was at heart an
ideology of control, Ethan Shagan illuminates the subtle violence
of English history and explains how, paradoxically, England came to
represent reason, civility and moderation to a world it slowly
conquered.
Why was it that whenever the Tudor-Stuart regime most loudly
trumpeted its moderation, that regime was at its most vicious? This
groundbreaking book argues that the ideal of moderation, so central
to English history and identity, functioned as a tool of social,
religious and political power. Thus The Rule of Moderation rewrites
the history of early modern England, showing that many of its key
developments - the via media of Anglicanism, political liberty, the
development of empire and even religious toleration - were defined
and defended as instances of coercive moderation, producing the
'middle way' through the forcible restraint of apparently dangerous
excesses in Church, state and society. By showing that the
quintessentially English quality of moderation was at heart an
ideology of control, Ethan Shagan illuminates the subtle violence
of English history and explains how, paradoxically, England came to
represent reason, civility and moderation to a world it slowly
conquered.
This study of popular responses to the English Reformation analyzes how ordinary people received, interpreted, debated, and responded to religious change. It differs from other studies by arguing that the subject cannot be understood simply by asking theological questions about people's beliefs, but must be understood by asking political questions about how they negotiated with state power. Therefore, it concerns political as well as religious history, since it asserts that, even at the popular level, political and theological processes were inseparable in the sixteenth century.
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