Prayer Book and People in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History)
Cambridge University Press
Edition: Paperback ed., 7/23/1998
EAN 9780521453134, ISBN10: 0521453135
Hardcover, 332 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.2 cm
Language: English
This book explores the culture of conformity to the Church of England and its liturgy in the period after the Reformation and before the outbreak of the Civil War. It provides a necessary corrective to our view of religion in the period by a serious exploration of the laity who conformed, out of conviction, to the Book of Common Prayer. Through the use of church court records and parliamentary petitions, the views of lay people are examined - those who were neither 'puritan' nor 'Laudian', yet were committed to the reformed liturgy and episcopacy out of sincere belief, and not as a matter of political expediency.
Acknowledgements
List of figures
List of tables
1. Introduction
the good, the bad, and the godly? The laity and the established church
2. Conformity and the church courts, c. 1570–1642
3. The rhetoric of conformity, c. 1640–1642
4. Sir Thomas Aston and the campaign for the established church, c. 1640–1642
5. Parishioners, petitions, and the Prayer Book in the 1640s
6. Conclusion
laity, clergy, and conformity in post-Reformation England
Appendix 1. Petitions for the Book of Common Prayer and episcopacy, 1640–1642
Appendix 2. Subscribing Cheshire parishes and townships, 1641
Appendix 3. Five subscribing Cheshire communities
Bibliography.