Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England : : history, rhetoric, and the origins of Christianity / / by Lauren Horn Griffin.

• Superior document: Supplements to method & theory in the study of religion ; Volume 22
• VerfasserIn: Griffin, Lauren Horn,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : BRILL,, 2023.
• Year of Publication: 2023
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Supplements to Method & theory in the study of religion ; Volume 22.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (vi, 231 pages).

"In Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England, Lauren Horn Griffin argues that in order to understand nationalisms, we need a clearer understanding of the types of cultural myths, symbols, and traditions that legitimate them. Myths of origin and election, memories of a greater and purer past, and narratives of persecution and mission are required for the production and maintenance of powerful national sentiments. Through an investigation of how early modern Catholics and Protestants reimagined, reinterpreted, and rewrote the lives of the founder-saints who spread Christianity in England, this book offers a theoretical framework for the study of origin narratives. Analyzing the discursive construction of time and place, the invocation of forces beyond the human to naturalize and authorize, and the role of visual and ritual culture in fabrications of the past, this book provides a case study for how to approach claims about founding figures. Serving as a timely example of the dependence of national identity on key cultural resources, Griffin shows how origin narratives - particularly the founding figures that anchor them - function as uniquely powerful rhetorical tools for the cultural production of regional and national identity."-- Provided by publisher.

Table of Contents

Copyright Page -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- Note to the Reader -- Introduction: the Cultural Production of National Identity -- Chapter 1 Making Time, Tradition, and Truth: the Origins of the English Christian Origins Debate -- Chapter 2 Framing Space: Territory, Ethnicity, and Culture -- Chapter 3 Authorizing Origins: Martyrology, Hagiography, and the Varieties of Supernatural Authorization in Christian Foundation Narratives -- Chapter 4 Experiencing Origins: Founding Figures in Ritual and Material Culture, or Public History and the Realm of the Everyday -- Conclusion -- Bibliography -- Index.