Parish Communities and Religious Conflict in the Vale of Gloucester, 1590-1690 / / Daniel C. Beaver.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter HUP eBook Package Archive 1893-1999
• VerfasserIn: Beaver, Daniel C.,
• Place / Publishing House: Cambridge, MA : : Harvard University Press, , [2021]; ©1998
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Series: Harvard Historical Studies ; 129
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (476 p.)

Many historians have attempted to understand the violent religious conflicts of the seventeenth century from viewpoints dominated by concepts of class, gender, and demography. But few studies have explored the cultural process whereby religious symbolism created social cohesion and political allegiance. This book examines religious conflict in the parish communities of early modern England using an interdisciplinary approach that includes all these perspectives. Daniel Beaver studies the urban parish of Tewkesbury and six rural parishes in its hinterland over a period of one hundred years, drawing on local ecclesiastical court records, sermons, parish records, corporate minutes and charity books, and probate documents. He discusses the centrality of religious symbols and ceremonies in the ordering of local societies, particularly in local conceptions of place, personal identity, and the life cycle. Four phases in the transformation of parish communities emerge and are examined in this book. This exploration of the interrelationship of religion, politics, and society, and the transformation of local communities in civil war, has a value beyond the particular history of early modern England, contributing to a broader understanding of religious revivals, fundamentalisms, and the persistent link between religion, nationalism, and ethnic identity in the modern world.Table of Contents: Introduction: Church History as a Cultural System Part I: Social Form, 1590-1690 Reverend Histories: Geography and Landscape Parts, Persons, and Participants in the Commonwealth: Social Relations, Institutions, and Authority Under the Hand of God: Parish Communities and Rites of Mortality Part II: Social Process, 1590-1690 Circumcisions of the Heart: Church Courts, Social Relations, and Religious Conflict, 1591-1620 A Circle of Order: The Politics of Religious Symbolism, 1631-1640 To Unchurch a Church: Civil War and Revolution, 1642-1660 Astraea Redux: Religious Conflict, Restoration, and the Parish, 1660-1689 Bloody Stratagems and Busy Heads: Persecution, Avoidance, and the Structure of Religion, 1666-1689 Conclusion. Symbol and Boundary: Relgious Belief, Ceremony, and Social Order Appendix 1. Tables Appendix 2. Accusations of Witchcraft in Tewkesbury Notes Manuscript Sources IndexReviews of this book: "In an intriguing argument, Beaver suggests that the reception of the Reformation into the Vale of Gloucester, where it lacked broad support, enabled dissenting religious groups to reject the territorial parish, in favour of the 'imagined communities' of the like-minded.His work is an important one. It translates the conflict of the seventeenth century into a local study that has a wider theoretical application.Beaver has written a perceptive and incisive study of religious and communal conflict in Stuart England, and one that is central to our understanding of seventeenth century society." --William Gibson, Albion [UK] "A significant historical study.This is not simply a work of local history, as it throws considerable light on wider aspects of the great conflict that convulsed Stuart England.The discussions are confident, sensible, and well grounded in the evidence.No other book that I know of covers the experience of a region (as distinct from a town) throughout the entire troubled history of seventeenth-century England in anything like this depth.It is original in the systematic way it applies anthropological concepts to English political and religious conflicts." --David E. Underdown, Yale University "He turns a local study into something that has theoretical force, as well as taking issue with other historians of Tudor-Stuart England on matters like the impact of the Civil War, 'revolution,' 'Restoration,' Laudianism and the like." --David D. Hall, Harvard Divinity School "

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Acknowledgments -- Contents -- The Vale of Gloucester in the Vicinity of Tewkesbury -- Introduction: Church History as a Cultural System -- I. Social Form, 1590-1690 -- 1. Reverend Histories: Geography and Landscape -- 2. Parts, Persons, and Participants in the Commonwealth: Social Relations, Institutions, and Authority -- 3. Under the Hand of God: Parish Communities and Rites of Mortality -- II. Social Process, 1590-1690 -- 4. Circumcisions of the Heart: Church Courts, Social Relations, and Religious Conflict, 1591-1620 -- 5. A Circle of Order: The Politics of Religious Symbolism, 1631-1640 -- 6. To Unchurch a Church: Civil War and Revolution, 1642-1660 -- 7. Astraea Redux: Religious Conflict, Restoration, and the Parish, 1660-1665 -- 8. Bloody Stratagems and Busy Heads: Persecution, Avoidance, and the Structure of Religion, 1666-1689 -- Conclusion: Symbol and Boundary: Religious Belief, Ceremony, and Social Order -- Appendix 1. Tables -- Appendix 2. Accusations of Witchcraft in Tewkesbury -- Notes -- Manuscript Sources -- Index