The Imprint of Gender: Authorship and Publication in the English Renaissance

A companion to the reformation world

Middle-Class Culture in Elizabethan England.

This text presents a reassessment of the career and cultural background of John Dee (1527-1609), one of Elizabethan England's most interesting figures. Challenging the conventional image of the isolated eccentric philosopher, Sherman situates Dee in a fresh context, revealing that he was a well-connected adviser to the academic, courtly and commercial circles of his day. The centrepiece of Dee's life is shown to be the massive library and museum at Mortlake, perhaps the first modern \"think tank\". There he lived, worked and entertained some of the period's most influential intellectuals and politicians. Sherman discusses Dee's household arrangements, reading practices, and writings on subjects ranging from calendar reform to imperial policy. He also offers an account of the broad network of scholars and other experts who, along with Dee, operated behind the political scenes, providing textual and technological support during this time of unprecedented intellectual and global expansion.

John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance.

* Origins of Trade * Establishment of the Puritan Merchants * Adjustments and Early Failures * The Legacy of the First Generation * Introduction to Empire * Elements of Change * The Merchant Group at the End of the Seventeenth Century * Notes * Bibliographical Note * Index

The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century.

Religious books, in conventional terms, are found to have been the single most important component of the publishing trade. In England, apart from oral communication, there was a mass of both polemical and devotional material which, if published, was published scribally, surviving only in manuscript. Some of the most active preachers of the age never appeared in print, or never in their lifetimes. A large part of the story of indoctrination concerns English Bibles, and there is no better case study of the interaction of public and private interest, commerce and edification, than the English Bible. Many of the Catholic books of the devotional writers included prefaces addressed to the impartial Christian reader, and not just to the Catholics. The use of a commonplace book was typical of university-trained readers, but Nicholas Byfield's Directions for the private reading of the Scriptures, first published in 1617 or 1618, was an attempt to make the practice more widespread among lay Bible readers.

Religious publishing in England 1557–1640

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)Ecclesiastical authorities of the Elizabethan and early Stuart Church of England demanded adherence to the Book of Common Prayer and allowed no deviation from this scripted liturgy. Parishioners heard the same words wherever they worshipped. The only avenue for pastoral virtuosity was the sermon, which many ministers regarded as an optional addition to their duties. Nobody can tell how many sermons were preached year by year in the early modern era, or what proportion of priests were preachers. But sermons survive in bulk in manuscript and in print, and Arnold Hunt seems to have seen most of them. In this effective and persuasive study he elaborates both the theory and practice of preaching, explores the differences between live performance and printed text, and examines the contribution of sermons to social, political, and theological discourse. This is a learned and judicious work, attentive to the ambience and context of ecclesiastical auditories and fully attuned to modern historiography. Its greatest achievement is to resuscitate a scattered trove of manuscript material, including notes and drafts of sermons not yet doctored for the press.Sermons, like plays, employed persuasive language, artful rhetoric, and arresting ideas. Most expounded a verse or passage from Scripture, and applied it in the service of conventionally pious instruction. Relatively few sermons were transgressive, though those considered radical or dangerous have disproportionately attracted the attention of historians. Hunt cleaves close to the mainstream, and is more concerned with routine practice than with notorious exceptions. He shows how ministers matched their preaching to their audience, and how some then revised their words for the very different medium of print. Preaching was a dynamic exercise, the voice in action, designed for religious persuasion. Different styles of address and erudition were appropriate to different audiences--clerical, academic, urban, rural--or at the royal court, county assizes, or Paul's Cross in London. Published sermons that are easy to find and read are almost surely unrepresentative of the vast numbers that were preached.English Protestants argued among themselves about the importance of sermons. Some insisted that the pastor's principal duty was preaching, without which there was no salvation. Others fell back on the homilies, and on routine reading of scripture. Ceremonialists and Laudians by no means avoided preaching, and some were very good at it, but they disagreed with puritans who privileged the spoken word from the pulpit above the printed word of God. Hunt traces this debate from Carter and Whitgift to the eve of the English Civil War, but rather than emphasizing the differences he looks for evidence of compromise and common ground.Most fruitfully, Hunt directs out attention to the audience for sermons, as well as the preacher, and reminds us of the importance of reception as well as production. …

The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640

Toute solide doctrine sur la predestination implique inevitablement une devaluation radicale et ultime de toutes les distributions magiques, sacramentelles et institutionnelles de la grâce, a ecrit Max Weber sur le protestantisme de la Reforme. Cet article considere quelques-uns des temoignages concernant les attitudes populaires a l'egard de la Sainte Cene dans les debuts de l'Angleterre moderne (en particulier pendant la periode 1590-1640), et montre qu'il faut replacer les sacrements aux centre du debat historique sur la Reforme anglaise.

The Lord's Supper in early modern England

Catholic and reformed. The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant thought, 1600–1640 . By Anthony Milton. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.) Pp. xvi + 601. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. £50. 0 521 40141 0

Arnold Hunt

Papers

Religious publishing in England 1557–1640

The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640

The Lord's Supper in early modern England

Catholic and reformed. The Roman and Protestant Churches in English Protestant thought, 1600–1640 . By Anthony Milton. (Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History.) Pp. xvi + 601. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. £50. 0 521 40141 0

From Books to Bezoars: Sir Hans Sloane and His Collections