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As an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Eamon Duffy is preeminent. In his revisionist masterpiece
The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation.
Duffy's focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers abolished as idolatry and superstition. The first part of
A People's Tragedy examines the two most important of these institutions: the rise and fall of pilgrimage to the cathedral shrines of England, and the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII, as exemplified by the dissolution of the ancient Anglo-Saxon monastery of Ely. In the title essay of the volume, Duffy tells the harrowing story of the Elizabethan regime's savage suppression of the last Catholic rebellion against the Reformation, the Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569.
In the second half of the book Duffy considers the changing ways in which the Reformation has been thought and written about: the evolution of Catholic portrayals of Martin Luther, from hostile caricature to partial approval; the role of historians of the Reformation in the emergence of English national identity; and the improbable story of the twentieth century revival of Anglican and Catholic pilgrimage to the medieval Marian shrine of Walsingham. Finally, he considers the changing ways in which attitudes to the Reformation have been reflected in fiction, culminating with Hilary Mantel's gripping trilogy on the rise and fall of Henry VIII's political and religious fixer, Thomas Cromwell, and her controversial portrayal of Cromwell's Catholic opponent and victim, Sir Thomas More.
List of contents
List of IllustrationsProloguePart One: Studies in Reformation1 Cathedral Pilgrimage: The Late Middle Ages
2 The Dissolution of Ely Priory
3 1569: A People's Tragedy
4 Douai, Rheims and the Counter-Reformation
5 The King James Bible
6 Richard Baxter, Reminiscent
Part Two: Writing the Reformation7 Luther Through Catholic Eyes
8 James Anthony Froude and the Reign of Queen Mary
9 A.G. Dickens and the Medieval Church
10 Walsingham: Reformation and Reconstruction
11 Writing the Reformation: Fiction and Faction
NotesIndexPlates
About the author
Professor Eamon Duffy is Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Magdalene College. He is the author of The Stripping of the Altars, Reformation Divided and Royal Books and Holy Bones and appears regularly on radio and television as an authority on religion and the Reformation in England.
Summary
As an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Professor Eamon Duffy is preeminent.
In his revisionist masterpiece The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation. Duffy's focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers abolished as idolatry and superstition.
The first part of A People's Tragedy examines the two most important of these institutions: the rise and fall of pilgrimage to the cathedral shrines of England, and the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII, as exemplified by the dissolution of the ancient Anglo-Saxon monastery of Ely. In the title essay of the volume, Duffy tells the harrowing story of the Elizabethan regime's savage suppression of the last Catholic rebellion against the Reformation, the Rising of the Northern Earls in 1569.
In the second half of the book Duffy considers the changing ways in which the Reformation has been thought and written about: the evolution of Catholic portrayals of Martin Luther, from hostile caricature to partial approval; the role of historians of the Reformation in the emergence of English national identity; and the improbable story of the twentieth century revival of Anglican and Catholic pilgrimage to the medieval Marian shrine of Walsingham.
Finally, he considers the changing ways in which attitudes to the Reformation have been reflected in fiction, culminating with Hilary Mantel's gripping trilogy on the rise and fall of Henry VIII's political and religious fixer, Thomas Cromwell, and her controversial portrayal of Cromwell's Catholic opponent and victim, Sir Thomas More.
Foreword
Professor Eamon Duffy returns to the themes of his hugely successful and career-defining book The Stripping of the Altars in this collection of essays on medieval religious life around the time of the Reformation.
Additional text
This very readable collection poses some profound questions about the use of the past and the relation between meticulous scholarship and our understanding of the episodes that have contributed so profoundly to the way in which we view the world in our own day.
