England's Culture Wars

Puritan Reformation and Its Enemies in the Interregnum, 1649-1660
1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-0-19-964178-9
Verlag: OUP UK

Buch, Englisch, 288 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 602 g

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

England's Culture Wars explores how far this agenda could be enforced, especially in urban communities which offered the greatest potential to build a godly civic commonwealth. How far were local magistrates and ministers willing to cooperate, and what coercive powers did the regime possess to silence or remove dissidents? How far did the reformers themselves wish to go, and how did they reconcile godly reformation with the demands of decency and civility? Music and dancing lived on,
in genteel contexts, early opera replaced the plays now forbidden, and puritans themselves were often fond of hunting and hawking. Bernard Capp explores the propaganda wars waged in press and pulpit, how energetically reformation was pursued, and how much or little was achieved. Many recent historians have
dismissed interregnum reformation as a failure. He demonstrates that while the reforming drive varied enormously from place to place, its impact could be powerful. The book is therefore structured in three parts: setting out the reform agenda and challenges, surveying general issues and patterns, and finally offering a number of representative case-studies. It draws on a wide range of sources, including local and central government records, judicial records, pamphlets, sermons, newspapers,
diaries, letters, and memoirs; and demonstrates how court records by themselves give us only a very limited picture of what was happening on the ground.

Zielgruppe

Scholars, postgraduates and undergraduates studying the English Civil War; scholars and students with an interest in the literary propaganda war, music, the theatre, elite cultural practices; general readers interested in the civil war period

Autoren/Hrsg.

Capp, Bernard

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kultur- und Ideengeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Europäische Geschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Mentalitäts- und Sozialgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Europäische Länder
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religionsgeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Introduction
Part I
2: Clearing the Way: Challenges and Agenda
3: Moulding Instruments of Reform: Men and Machinery
4: Propaganda Wars
Part II
5: Sins against God: Swearing and the Sabbath
6: The Puritan Parish
7: Puritans and Sex
8: Drink and Disorder
9: Worldly Pleasures: Dress, Music, Dancing, Art
10: Worldly Pleasures: Plays, Shows, Sports
Part III
11: Local contexts
12: Godly rule: Exeter
13: Conclusion
Manuscript Sources
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Capp, Bernard
Educated at Pembroke College Oxford, Bernard Capp has taught at Warwick since 1968 as Lecturer, Senior Lecturer, Reader, and Professor from 1994. He became head of Department in the early-mid 1990s and has been a Fellow of the British Academy since 2005. Capp formally retired in 2010 and is now Emeritus Professor, but still teaches part-time. He has published five books and numerous articles and essays on a wide range of social, cultural, and religious themes in early modern English history. He has also made numerous radio and TV contributions over the years.