Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500–1620

Charity and Lay Piety in Reformation London, 1500–1620 PDF

Author: Claire S. Schen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 1351952633

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The degree to which the English Protestant Reformation was a reflection of genuine popular piety as opposed to a political necessity imposed by the country's rulers has been a source of lively historical debate in recent years. Whilst numerous arguments and documentary sources have been marshalled to explain how this most fundamental restructuring of English society came about, most historians have tended to divide the sixteenth century into pre and post-Reformation halves, reinforcing the inclination to view the Reformation as a watershed between two intellectually and culturally opposed periods. In contrast, this study takes a longer and more integrated approach. Through the prism of charity and lay piety, as expressed in the wills and testaments taken from selected London parishes, it charts the shifting religious ideas about salvation and the nature and causes of poverty in early modern London and England across a hundred and twenty year period. Studying the evolution of lay piety through the long stretch of the period 1500 to 1620, Claire Schen unites pre-Reformation England with that which followed, helping us understand how 'Reformations' or a 'Long Reformation' happened in London. Through the close study of wills and testaments she offers a convincing cultural and social history of sixteenth century Londoners and their responses to religious innovations and changing community policy.

Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France

Experiences of Poverty in Late Medieval and Early Modern England and France PDF

Author: Anne M. Scott

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-15

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 131713785X

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Exploring a range of poverty experiences-socioeconomic, moral and spiritual-this collection presents new research by a distinguished group of scholars working in the medieval and early modern periods. Collectively they explore both the assumptions and strategies of those in authority dealing with poverty and the ways in which the poor themselves tried to contribute to, exploit, avoid or challenge the systems for dealing with their situation. The studies demonstrate that poverty was by no means a simple phenomenon. It varied according to gender, age and geographical location; and the way it was depicted in speech, writing and visual images could as much affect how the poor experienced their poverty as how others saw and judged them. Using new sources-and adopting new approaches to known sources-the authors share insights into the management and the self-management of the poor, and search out aspects of the experience of poverty worthy of note, from which can be traced lasting influences on the continuing understanding and experience of poverty in pre-modern Europe.

Pity and Identity in the Age of Shakespeare

Pity and Identity in the Age of Shakespeare PDF

Author: Toria Johnson

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1843845741

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Exploring a wide range of material including dramatic works, medieval morality drama, and lyric poetry this book argues for the central significance of literary material to the history of emotions. Early modern English writing about pity evidences a social culture built specifically around emotion, one (at least partially) defined by worries about who deserves compassion and what it might cost an individual to offer it. Pity and Identity in the Age of Shakespeare positions early modern England as a place that sustains messy and contradictory views about pity all at once, bringing together attraction, fear, anxiety, positivity, and condemnation to paint a picture of an emotion that is simultaneously unstable and essential, dangerous and vital, deceptive and seductive. The impact of this emotional burden on individual subjects played a major role in early modern English identity formation, centrally shaping the ways in which people thought about themselves and their communities. Taking in a wide range of material - including dramatic works by William Shakespeare, Thomas Heywood, Ben Jonson, Thomas Middleton, and William Rowley; medieval morality drama; and lyric poetry by Philip Sidney, Thomas Wyatt, Samuel Daniel, Thomas Lodge, Barnabe Barnes, George Rodney and Frances Howard - this book argues for the central significance of literary material to the broader history of emotions, a field which has thus far remained largely the concern of social and cultural historians. Pity and Identity in the Age of Shakespeare shows that both literary materials and literary criticism can offer new insights into the experience and expression of emotional humanity.

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600

Poor Relief in England, 1350–1600 PDF

Author: Marjorie Keniston McIntosh

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2011-12-15

Total Pages: 391

ISBN-13: 1139503650

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Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

The Virginia Venture

The Virginia Venture PDF

Author: Misha Ewen

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2022-08-16

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1512823007

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The Virginia Venture is an innovative exploration of how a wider public of women, children, and men across English society contributed to the foundation of the first permanent English colony in America: Jamestown, Virginia. Drawing on sources from dozens of archives in the United States and England, it provides a fresh perspective on how capital and labor were mobilized to help build the colony—not from the perspective of elite investors alone, but from the point of view of ordinary people across the country. Women and the laboring poor have been overlooked in these efforts: The Virginia Venture brings them center stage. As well as exploring how society at home supported colonization, the book examines the impact that colonization had on English society, including changes in attitudes and behaviors—from the provision of poor relief to domestic tobacco cultivation. The book shows that as English society became more tightly invested in colonization in America, this sparked contestations over the prioritization of “English” and “American” interests. English social history in the seventeenth century cannot be understood without this imperial perspective. The Virginia Venture is essential reading for scholars of English social and imperial history and early American history. It draws on the methods of transatlantic history, showing the intimate connections between England and America, but it is deeply rooted in the social history archive of England. It demonstrates how English archives can be used, to their fullest extent, to illuminate this crucial period of American history.

Faith and Fraternity

Faith and Fraternity PDF

Author: Laura Branch

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-05-08

Total Pages: 287

ISBN-13: 9004330704

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In Faith and Fraternity Laura Branch provides the first sustained comparative analysis of London’s livery companies during the Reformation, and demonstrates how they retained a vibrant religious culture despite their confessionally mixed membership.

Identity and Agency in England, 1500–1800

Identity and Agency in England, 1500–1800 PDF

Author: J. Barry

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2004-11-23

Total Pages: 254

ISBN-13: 0230523102

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This collection of essays is arranged around the central issue raised by a raft of new empirical research - the relationship between social identity, or the 'vision of the self', and the ways in which this can explain historical agency. If identities in early modern society were multiple, complex, and dependent on context, rather than homogenous, consistent, or easily determined, then it is difficult to make simple causal links to behaviour. This collection aims to make innovative new research on the structures of English society available to the wider scholarly audience. The essays use a number of detailed contextual case studies to explore the twin themes of the nature of identities in early modern society, and their role in influencing historical agency. They examine the variety of identities available to individuals in early modern England, and the ways in which these were invoked and employed.

Commonwealth and the English Reformation

Commonwealth and the English Reformation PDF

Author: Ben Lowe

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 291

ISBN-13: 135195038X

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Whilst much recent research has dealt with the popular response to the religious change ushered in during the mid-Tudor period, this book focuses not just on the response to broad liturgical and doctrinal change, but also looks at how theological and reform messages could be utilized among local leaders and civic elites. It is this cohort that has often been neglected in previous efforts to ascertain the often elusive position of the common woman or man. Using the Vale of Gloucester as a case study, the book refocuses attention onto the concept of "commonwealth" and links it to a gradual, but long-standing dissatisfaction with local religious houses. It shows how monasteries, endowed initially out of the charitable impulses of elites, increasingly came to depend on lay stewards to remain viable. During the economic downturn of the mid-Tudor period, when urban and landed elites refocused their attention on restoring the commonwealth which they believed had broken down, they increasingly viewed the charity offered by religious houses as insufficient to meet the local needs. In such a climate the Protestant social gospel seemed to provide a valid alternative to which many people gravitated. Holding to scrutiny the revisionist revolution of the past twenty years, the book reopens debate and challenges conventional thinking about the ways the traditional church lost influence in the late middle ages, positing the idea that the problems with the religious houses were not just the creation of the reformers but had rather a long history. In so doing it offers a more complete picture of reform that goes beyond head-counting by looking at the political relationships and how they were affected by religious ideas to bring about change.

Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace

Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace PDF

Author: Kristin M.S. Bezio

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2021-11-29

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 1000487695

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Religion and the Early Modern British Marketplace explores the complex intersection between the geographic, material, and ideological marketplaces through the lens of religious belief and practice. By examining the religiously motivated markets and marketplace practices in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England, Scotland, and Wales, the volume presents religious praxis as a driving force in the formulation and everyday workings of the social and economic markets. Within the volume, the authors address first spiritual markets and marketplaces, discussing the intersection of Puritan and Protestant Ethics with the market economy. The second part addresses material marketplaces, including the marriage market, commercial trade markets, and the post-Reformation Catholic black market. In the third part of the volume, the chapters focus specifically on publication markets and books, including manuscripts and commonplace books, as well as printed volumes and pamphlets. Finally, the volume concludes with an examination of the literary marketplace, with analyses of plays and poems which engage with and depict both spiritual and material markets. Taken as a whole, this collection posits that the "modern" conception of a division between religion and the socioeconomic marketplace was a largely fictional construct, and the chapters demonstrate the depth to which both were integrated in early modern life.