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While the term ‘radical’ is an effective hook for his readers, its use in Andrew Bradstock’s Radical Religion in Cromwell’s England is in some ways problematic. In the introduction the author sets out his awareness of this fact, and the pressing need to identify criteria by which ‘radical’ may be determined, but sidesteps precisely defining the term himself.
Over the past 35 years, the Toronto-based Records of Early English Drama (REED) project has revolutionized the study of drama and other performing arts in the British Isles before 1642.
In the wake of Douglass North’s theories on institutions and economic growth, the last two decades have seen various kinds of medieval and early modern institutions increasingly regarded as factors aiding in, rather than obstructing, the transformative processes that eventually led to modern industrial capitalism in the 19th century.
Chocolate, writes Emma Robertson in the introduction to her monograph, ‘has been invested with specific cultural meanings which are in part connected to … conditions of production’ (p. 3). At the heart of this study is a challenge to existing histories:
This splendid study is part of the admirable Oxford-Warburg Studies series dedicated to the history of scholarship, under the general editorship of Charles Hope and Ian Maclean. It is to be hoped, however, that it receives a far wider readership than that location might suggest, as Quantin’s study has important contributions to make in a number of disparate fields.
‘There is no salvation without preaching’ declared Thomas Cartwright, at the height of the Admonition controversy (p. 32). Nehemiah Wallington agreed – and he couldn’t get enough of it. One week he managed to squeeze in 19 sermons, a remarkable achievement, though his average of 30 a month may not have been so unusual.
Early modern English Presbyterianism found its expression in two bursts of activity: during the Elizabethan period as a movement to perfect the Reformation from the Elizabethan compromise and during the mid 17th-century Civil War and Republic as a contender for the Parliamentarian settlement of the Church of England.
Perhaps because it was concerned with maintaining obedience and the status quo rather than provoking violent eruptions of religious fervour, Socianism has remained a relatively unstudied aspect of the pantheon of heterodox religious beliefs during the English Revolution.
This collection has its origins in a conference on ‘The Consumption of Books During the Tudor Era: Printers, Publishers and Readers’, held at the Huntington Library in 2006. Its contents, however, only partially reflect that event, since a significant proportion of the essays (four out of the ten) have been written or co-written by scholars who did not attend the conference.
On Sunday 1 or Sunday 8 April 1649 – it is difficult, as the editors note, to establish the date with certainty (vol. 1, p. 28) – five people went to St. George’s Hill in the parish of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey and began digging the earth. They sowed the unfertile ground with parsnips, carrots and beans, returning the next day in increased numbers.