Description
Book SynopsisAs an authority on the religion of medieval and early modern England, Eamon Duffy is preeminent. In his revisionist masterpiece The Stripping of the Altars, Duffy opened up new areas of research and entirely fresh perspectives on the origin and progress of the English Reformation.
Duffy''s focus has always been on the practices and institutions through which ordinary people lived and experienced their religion, but which the Protestant reformers abolished as idolatry and superstition. The first part of A People''s Tragedy examines the two most important of these institutions: the rise and fall of pilgrimage to the cathedral shrines of England, and the destruction of the monasteries under Henry VIII, as exemplified by the dissolution of the ancient Anglo-Saxon monastery of Ely. In the title essay of the volume, Duffy tells the harrowing story of the Elizabethan regime''s savage suppression of the last Catholic rebellion against the Reformation, the Rising of the
Trade Review
Erudite, readable and acerbic ... [a] historian who, almost 40 years after publishing his first book, is still at the very top of his game. * The Tablet *
This very readable collection poses some profound questions about the use of the past and the relation between meticulous scholarship and our understanding of the episodes that have contributed so profoundly to the way in which we view the world in our own day. * Rt Revd Lord Chartres, former Bishop of London (Church Times) *
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations Prologue Part One: Studies in Reformation 1 Cathedral Pilgrimage: The Late Middle Ages 2 The Dissolution of Ely Priory 3 1569: A People's Tragedy 4 Douai, Rheims and the Counter-Reformation 5 The King James Bible 6 Richard Baxter, Reminiscent Part Two: Writing the Reformation 7 Luther Through Catholic Eyes 8 James Anthony Froude and the Reign of Queen Mary 9 A.G. Dickens and the Medieval Church 10 Walsingham: Reformation and Reconstruction 11 Writing the Reformation: Fiction and Faction Notes Index Plates
