Synopses & Reviews
The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century collects nine essays by Trevor-Roper on the themes of religion, the Reformation, and social change. As Trevor-Roper explains in his preface, "the crisis in government, society, and ideas which occurred, both in Europe and in England, between the Reformation and the middle of the seventeenth century" constituted the crucible for what "went down in the general social and intellectual revolution of the mid-seventeenth century." The Civil War, the Restoration, and the Glorious Revolution in England laid the institutional and intellectual foundations of the modern understanding of liberty, of which we are heirs and beneficiaries. Trevor-Roper's essays uncover new pathways to understanding this seminal time.
In his longest essay, "The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," Trevor-Roper points out that "In England the most active phase of witch-hunting coincided with times of Puritan pressure—the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the period of the civil wars—and some very fanciful theories have been built on this coincidence. But . . . the persecution of witches in England was trivial compared with the experience of the Continent and of Scotland. Therefore . . . [one must examine] the craze as a whole, throughout Europe, and [seek] to relate its rise, frequency, and decline to the general intellectual and social movements of the time. . . ." Neither Catholic nor Protestant emerges unscathed from the examination to which Trevor-Roper subjects the era in which, from political and religious causes, the identification and extirpation of witches was a central event.
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre, is retired Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford. Among his works are The Last Days of Hitler, The Gentry, 1540-1640, The Rise of Christian Europe, the Plunder of the Arts in the Seventeenth Century, Princes and Artists: Patronage and Ideology at Four Hapsburg Courts, 1517-1633, and The Hermit of Peking.
Synopsis
The Crisis of the Seventeenth Century collects nine essays by Trevor-Roper on the themes of religion, the Reformation, and social change.
In his longest essay, "The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries," Trevor-Roper points out that "in England the most active phase of witch-hunting coincided with times of Puritan pressure--the reign of Queen Elizabeth and the period of the civil wars--and some very fanciful theories have been built on this coincidence. But . . . the persecution of witches in England was trivial compared with the experience of the Continent and of Scotland. Therefore . . . one must examine] the craze as a whole, throughout Europe, and seek] to relate its rise, frequency, and decline to the general intellectual and social movements of the time."
Because Trevor-Roper believes that "the English Revolution of the seventeenth century cannot be isolated from a general crisis in Europe," he devotes the longest of his essays to the European Witch-craze. Events in England--and the intellectual currents from which they emerged and to which they gave impetus--cannot be understood apart from events and intellectual currents on the Continent.
Trevor-Roper acknowledges that the belief in witches, and the persecution of people believed to be witches, may be, to some at least, "a disgusting subject, below the dignity of history." However, he goes on, " I]t is also a historical fact, of European significance, and its rise precisely in the years of the Renaissance and Reformation is a problem which must be faced by anyone who is tempted to overemphasize the 'modernity' of that period."
Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre (1914-2003) was Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford.
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Table of Contents
List of Illustrations vii Preface ix 1 Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change 1
2 The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century 43
3 The European Witch-craze of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries 83
4 The Religious Origins of the Enlightenment 179
5 Three Foreigners: The Philosophers of the Puritan Revolution 219
6 The Fast Sermons of the Long Parliament 273
7 Oliver Cromwell and His Parliaments 317
8 Scotland and the Puritan Revolution 359
9 The Union of Britain in the Seventeenth Century 407 Index 427