Nicodemites : : faith and concealment between Italy and Tudor England / / M. Anne Overell.

• Superior document: St. Andrews studies in Reformation history
• VerfasserIn: Overell, M. Anne,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : Brill,, [2018]; ©2018
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: St Andrews Studies in Reformation History.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (294 pages).

In Nicodemites: Faith and Concealment Between Italy and Tudor England , Anne Overell examines a rarely glimpsed aspect of sixteenth-century religious strife: the thinkers, clerics, and rulers, who concealed their faith. This work goes beyond recent scholarly interest in conformity to probe inward dilemmas and the spiritual and cultural meanings of pretence. Among the dissimulators who appear here are Cardinal Reginald Pole and his circle in Italy and in England, and also John Cheke and William Cecil. Although Protestant and Catholic polemicists condemned all Nicodemites, most of them survived reformation violence, while their habits of silence and secrecy became influential. This study concludes that widespread evasion about religious belief contributed to the erratic development of toleration. 'Anne Overell is an accomplished practitioner of history as a sideways glance, revealing subtleties and contours that others have missed. In doing so, she enriches the story of the Reformation and helps us see its humanity and nuance more vividly and completely.' Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church at the University of Oxford.

Table of Contents

Prologue -- Lives -- The Landscape of ‘Holy Cunning’ -- A Nursery of Nicodemism: The Circle of Reginald Pole in Italy -- Pole’s Nicodemite Piety? Viterbo to England -- The Volte-Faces of Pietro Vanni -- Nicodemite’s Progress: Edward Courtenay -- Texts -- The Confusions of Il Beneficio di Cristo -- The Case against Nicodemites -- Exploiting Francesco Spiera in Italy and in England -- Counsel for Nicodemite Sinners: Vermigli, Curione and Cheke -- Radical Texts for the Queen of Nicodemites -- Mixed Messages in Elizabethan England -- Echoes.