Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on the text
- Introduction
- Part I The break with Rome and the crisis of conservatism
- Part II Points of contact: the Henrician Reformation and the English people
- Part III Sites of Reformation: collaboration and popular politics under Edward VI
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- List of abbreviations
- Note on the text
- Introduction
- Part I The break with Rome and the crisis of conservatism
- Part II Points of contact: the Henrician Reformation and the English people
- Part III Sites of Reformation: collaboration and popular politics under Edward VI
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
- Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
Summary
Europe's sixteenth century was an age of faith. Religion could be found everywhere, not only in churches and liturgies but in financial transactions, legal proceedings and scientific treatises. Spirituality structured the intimacy of family life no less than the conduct of foreign wars. Even time was reckoned according to sacred rhythms: so many hours to matins, so many weeks to Michaelmas, so many years since the incarnation of Christ. So pervasive was religion, in fact, that the great revolution of the early modern world was not a conflict over political philosophy or economic resources but rather a dispute over the path to Christian salvation. By destabilising traditional religion, the Protestant Reformation sent violent shock waves through even the most seemingly stable communities and institutions. As old certainties were questioned, old loyalties tested and old practices undermined, the Reformation seemed to dissolve the glue that held together the familiar coherence of the social world.
Yet if the centrality of religion for sixteenth-century experience underscores the importance of the Reformation, it also makes the Reformation very difficult to explain.
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- Popular Politics and the English Reformation , pp. 1 - 26Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002