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.
Agnes Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England
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
Conflictual Media Events, Eyewitness Images, and the Boston Marathon Bombing (2013)
The proliferation of camera phones over the past decade has created an unprecedented landslide of visual information in the online public sphere, transforming the form and amount of communication in relation to crisis events. International research on this subject has primarily centered on the way in which the production and dissemination of eyewitness images convert mainstream media's coverage of crisis. This article broadens the perspective by focusing on eyewitness images in relation to “conflictual media events.” The article contributes to discussions on the definition of conflictual media events in today's mediatized and connective media environment, which has undergone radical changes from the era of mass media hegemony when Daniel Dayan and Elihu Katz first outlined media events. The article further examines the ways in which the circulation of eyewitness images erodes established boundaries between experts and laymen and between professionals and non-professionals in relation to conflictual media events. The bombing of the Boston Marathon in April 2013 constitutes the empirical point of departure.