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Desiderius Erasmus' humanist works were influential throughout Europe, in various areas of thought including theology, education, philology, and political theory. Exploiting Erasmus examines the legacy of Erasmus in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the overthrow of James II in 1688 and studies the various ways in which his works were received, manipulated, and used in religious controversies that threatened both church and state. In viewing movements and events such as the rise of anti-Calvinism, the religious politics leading to the English civil war, and the emergence of the Latitudinarians during the Restoration, Gregory D. Dodds provides a fascinating account not only of the reception and effects of Erasmus' works, but also of the early history of English Protestantism. Exploiting Erasmus offers a critical new angle for rethinking the theology and rhetoric of the time. It is a remarkable study of Erasmus' influence on issues of conformity, tolerance, war, and peace.
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, University of Oxford
This book explores the religious concerns of Enlightenment thinkers from Thomas Hobbes to Thomas Jefferson. Using an innovative method, the study illuminates the intellectual history of the age through interpretations of Jesus between c.1650 and c.1826. The book demonstrates the persistence of theology in modern philosophy and the projects of social reform and amelioration associated with the Enlightenment. At the core of many of these projects was a robust moral-theological realism, sometimes manifest in a natural law ethic, but always associated with Jesus and a commitment to the sovereign goodness of God. This ethical orientation in Enlightenment discourse is found in a range of different metaphysical and political identities (dualist and monist; progressive and radical) which intersect with earlier ‘heretical’ tendencies in Christian thought (Arianism, Pelagianism, and Marcionism). This intellectual matrix helped to produce the discourses of irenic toleration which are a legacy of the Enlightenment at its best.
The Bible in Shakespeare is a critical study of the links between the two great pillars of English culture, the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.
"The first Italian translation of the Book of Common Prayer was made in 1608 by William Bedell (the chaplain to James I's ambassador in Venice) with the help of Fulgenzio Micanzio and Paolo Sarpi. This translation was part of an English propaganda plan to instigate a schism in the Church of Venice, at a time of conflict between the court of Rome and the Venetian Republic. This chapter reconstructs the relationships between Sarpi and Micanzio and the English embassy in Venice. As far as we know, Bedell's translation remained a manuscript with no known copies extant"--
Although not translated into English until 1549, Erasmus's most famous work, the Praise of Folly, has an English provenance as the product of his friendship with Thomas More. The text of the original translation, by Thomas Chaloner, appears here for the first time in a fully annotated, modernised edition. It is presented alongside a selection from the English Paraphrases, a central text of the Edwardian Reformation; translations of two pacifist works, the Bellum Erasmiand The Complaint of Peace, the second of which is constructed as an oration, like Praise of Folly; and the essay on the adage Sileni Alcibiadis.
Studies the thought and actions of the Reformation's central figures - reformers, counter-reformers, and their supporters - in the light of ordinary people.
Erasmus was not only one of the most widely read authors of the early modern period, but one of the most controversial. For some readers he represented the perfect humanist scholar; for others, he was an arrogant hypercritic, a Lutheran heretic and polemicist, a virtuoso writer and rhetorician, an inventor of a new, authentic Latin style, etc. In the present volume, a number of aspects of Erasmus’s manifold reception are discussed, especially lesser-known ones, such as his reception in Neo-Latin poetry. The volume does not focus only on so-called Erasmians, but offers a broader spectrum of reception and demonstrates that Erasmus’s name also was used in order to authorize completely un-Erasmian ideals, such as atheism, radical reformation, Lutheranism, religious intolerance, Jesuit education, Marian devotion, etc. Contributors include: Philip Ford, Dirk Sacré, Paul J. Smith, Lucia Felici, Gregory D. Dodds, Hilmar M. Pabel, Reinier Leushuis, Jeanine De Landtsheer, Johannes Trapman, and Karl Enenkel.
How the English Reformation was Named analyses the shifting semantics of 'reformation' in England between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. Originally denoting the intended aim of church councils, 'reformation' was subsequently redefined to denote violent revolt, and ultimately a series of past episodes in religious history. But despite referring to sixteenth-century religious change, the proper noun 'English Reformation' entered the historical lexicon only during the British civil wars of the 1640s. Anglican apologists coined this term to defend the Church of England against proponents of the Scottish Reformation, an event that contemporaries singled out for its violence and illegality. Using their neologism to denote select events from the mid-Tudor era, Anglicans crafted a historical narrative that enabled them to present a pristine vision of the English past, one that endeavoured to preserve amidst civil war, regicide, and political oppression. With the restoration of the monarchy and the Church of England in 1660, apologetic narrative became historiographical habit and, eventually, historical certainty.
To the extent that she is popularly known, Katherine Parr (1512–48) is the woman who survived King Henry VIII as his sixth and last wife. She merits far greater recognition, however, on several other fronts. Fluent in French, Italian, and Latin, Parr also began, out of necessity, to learn Spanish when she ascended to the throne in 1543. As Henry’s wife and queen of England, she was a noted patron of the arts and music and took a personal interest in the education of her stepchildren, Princesses Mary and Elizabeth and Prince Edward. Above all, Parr commands interest for her literary labors: she was the first woman to publish under her own name in English in England. For this new edition, ...