Synopses & Reviews
This book examines how the orderly, Protestant, and hierarchical society of post-Reformation England coped with the cultural challenges posed by various beliefs and events outside the social norm. David Cressy employs a series of linked stories and close readings of local texts and narratives to investigate such unorthodox happenings as bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, excommunication and irregular burial, and nakedness and cross-dressing.
Each story--and the reaction it generated--exposes the strains and stresses of this unique phase of British history. As Cressy points out, the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I saw endless religious disputes, tussles for power within the aristocracy, and countless arguments about the behavior and beliefs of common people. Questions raised by "unnatural" episodes were widely debated at both the local and national levels, and drew the attention of magistrates, bishops, crown, and court. The resolution of such questions was not taken lightly in a world where God and the devil were still fighting for people's souls.
Review
"Cressy's endnotes are copious and his writing is exemplary, both erudite and fun to read. [This book] deserves the highest praise and placement on the bookshelves of anyone interested in Tudor-Stuart society."--History
Synopsis
Cressy examines how the orderly, Protestant, and hierarchical society of post-Reformation England coped with the cultural challenges posed by beliefs and events outside the social norm. Drawing on local texts and narratives he reveals how a series of troubling and unorthodox happenings--bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, nakedness and cross-dressing, excommunication and irregular burial, iconoclasm and vandalism--disturbed the margins, cut across the grain, and set the authorities on edge.
About the Author
David Cressy is Professor of History at The Ohio State University. Among his many books are Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (OUP 1997) and Religion and Society in Early Modern England (1996).
Table of Contents
List of illustrations
Introduction
1. Agnes Bowker's Cat: Childbirth, Seduction, Bestiality and Lies
2. Monstrous Births and Credible Reports: Portents, Texts and Testimonies
3. Mercy Gould and the Vicar of Cuckfield: Domestic and Clerical Pleading
4. Rose Arnold's Confession: Seduction, Deception and Distress in the Heart of England
5. The Essex Abortionist: Depravity, Sex and Violence
6. Another Midwife's Tale: Alcohol, Patriarchy and Childbirth in Early Modern London
7. Cross-Dressing in the Birth Room: Gender Trouble and Cultural Boundaries
8. Who Buried Mrs Horseman? Excommunication, Accommodation, and Silence
9. Mocking the Clergy: Wars of Words in Parish and Pulpit
10. The Atheists Sermon: Belief, Unbelief and Traditionalism in the Elizabethan North
11. Baptised Beasts and Other Travesties: Affronts to Rites of Passage
12. The Battle of the Altars: Turning the Tables and Breaking the Rails
13. The Portraiture of Prynne's Pictures: Performances on the Public Stage
14. The Downfall of Cheapside Cross: Vandalism, Ridicule and Iconoclasm
15. The Adamites Exposed: Naked Radicals in the English Revolution
Conclusion
Index