Sermons, Separatists, and Succession Politics in Late Elizabethan England
Abstract In late 1599 the population of York was able to witness a fairly extraordinary sight. In York Castle, the Catholic prisoners of conscience, as they saw themselves (though others regarded them as dangerous political dissidents), were being compelled to listen, once a week, to a Protestant sermon. These sermons were preached at them by a slate of godly ministers. This exercise was something the prisoners actively contested by murmuring, blocking their ears, shouting, and attempting to rush out of the hall. The prisoners' antics provoked the authorities into increasingly coercive measures to make them hear the Word of God. This outwardly rather ridiculous and unseemly charade went on, week after week, for nearly a year, at which point the whole business was abandoned by the lord president, Lord Burghley, as a waste of time. However, by decoding the extant manuscript narrative that we have of the sermon series and by looking at who was involved in this business and why, and what political messages were being sent during the course of it, we can say something about the popular politics of late Elizabethan England. In particular, we can comment on the strategies adopted by those who were anticipating the moment, surely not far off, when Tudor power would be extinguished and Elizabeth's crown would pass to her successor.
The art of hearing : English preachers and their audiences, 1590-1640
(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 RELIGIOUS SITES DURING THE CHINESE CULTURAL REVOLUTION, 1966-1976
This study presents a thought-provoking picture of statistical data regarding the growth patterns of the religious sites for five main Chinese religions during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976. Applying comparative and quantitative lenses, this paper addresses the diE™erent growth rates of religious sites during the four diE™erent periods from 1949 to 2004 to test the relative growth pace of religious sites during the Cultural Revolution. To understand the patterns of growing religious sites from 1966 to 1976, this study also compares the diE™erent growth rates of religious sites between the first phase (1966 to 1970) and the second phase (1971-1976) of the Cultural Revolution. Furthermore, it provides detailed information concerning the year of building new religious sites for all five major religions that hold more than 2,500 new religious sites during the Cultural Revolution. In addition, the study shows the top five provinces which built the most new religious sites while denoting their respective rural and urban locations in an eE™ort to demonstrate their geographical expansion during the period. Finally, this study addresses the growth rates of the national population and per capita GDP as compared to the growth of the religious sites during the period of national disaster (1966-1976).