Synopses & Reviews
Belief in the importance of angels was as widespread and intense in the early modern era as it had been in the middle ages. This volume is the first to consider how ideas about the nature, existence and activities of angels negotiated the religious, intellectual and cultural upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contributors explore the fate and fortunes of these heavenly protectors and messengers against the backdrop of the Renaissance and Reformation and in the context of scientific change. Ranging from the British Isles and continental Europe to New England and Latin America, they consider how angels were implicated in the processes of Protestant and Catholic renewal, their relationship with witchcraft and magic, and their representation in literature and art. Based on original research, the essays offer genuinely fresh insight into the moments and movements that defined the early modern world.
Synopsis
This volume is the first to consider how belief in the existence of angels negotiated the religious, intellectual and cultural upheavals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The contributors explore the fate of these heavenly protectors against the backdrop of the Renaissance and Reformation and in the context of scientific change. Ranging from Europe to New England and Latin America, they consider how angels were implicated in the processes of Protestant and Catholic renewal, their relationship with magic, and their representation in literature and art.
Synopsis
Explores the role of belief in the existence of angels in the early modern world.
About the Author
Peter Marshall is Reader in History at the University of Warwick. His recent publications include Reformation England 1480-1642 (2003) and Religious Identities in Henry VIII's England (2005).Alexandra Walsham is Professor of Reformation History at the University of Exeter. Her previous publications include Providence in Early Modern England (1999) and Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in England 1500-1700 (2006).
Table of Contents
Preface and acknowledgments; 1. Migrations of angels in the early modern world Peter Marshall and Alexandra Walsham; 2. The Renaissance angel Bruce Gordon; 3. Luther on the angels Philip M. Soergel; 4. Angels around the deathbed: variations on a theme in the English art of dying Peter Marshall; 5. Angels conquering and conquered: changing perceptions in Spanish America Fernando Cervantes; 6. Angels and idols in England's long Reformation Alexandra Walsham; 7. Dubious messengers: Bodin's daemon, the spirit world and the Sadducees Robin Briggs; 8. Guardian angels and the Society of Jesus Trevor Johnson; 9. Imagining angels in early modern Ireland Raymond Gillespie; 10. 'Patronage of angels and combat of demons': good versus evil in seventeenth-century Spain María Tausiet; 11. 'With the tongues of angels': angelic conversations in Paradise Lost and seventeenth-century England Joad Raymond; 12. Otherworldly visions: angels, devils and gender in puritan New England Elizabeth Reis; 13. Angels in elite and popular magic, 1650-1790 Owen Davies.