Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

The naming of Protestant England

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Marshall, Peter (2012) The naming of Protestant England. Past & Present, Vol.214 (No.1). pp. 87-128. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtr030

[img]
Preview
Text
WRAP_Marshall Naming of Protestant England Final Version.pdf - Accepted Version

Download (339Kb) | Preview
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtr030

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

The writer Daniel Defoe, surveying two centuries during which his country had
travelled 'from the Romish Religion to Reform'd, from Reform'd back again to
Romish, and then to Reform'd again', could note with satisfaction that 'the Name of
Protestant is now the common Title of an Englishman'. How, and how quickly,
England became Protestant, and English people became Protestants, in the course of
the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries is a longstanding and contentious
historical question. In the late 1970s, Britain's leading Tudor historian, G. R. Elton,
could confidently assert that by the end of the reign of Edward VI 'England was
almost certainly nearer to being a Protestant country than to anything else'. But it
was already becoming clear that what Patrick Collinson has christened 'the birthpangs
of Protestant England' were a more protracted and painful process. Revisionist
scholarship of the 1980s and 90s stressed the slow and uncertain pace of reform, and
the difficulty in securing conversions, with Christopher Haigh proposing, in an
intriguing formulation, that even by the middle of Elizabeth's reign, the Reformation
had succeeded in creating 'a Protestant nation, but not a nation of Protestants'. More
recently, attention has shifted from measuring patterns of conversion to investigating
political accommodations and negotiations on the part of rulers and ruled. Other studies of a broadly 'post-revisionist' character draw attention to transitions and continuities in religious culture across the putative Reformation divide. The 'Protestantism' of the English Church and its people is assumed, but the degree to which common understandings of it were shared by clergy and laity, and across social classes, remains deeply problematic.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BX Christian Denominations
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Great Britain -- Church history -- 16th century, Great Britain -- Church history -- 17th century, Protestantism -- Great Britain -- History -- 16th century, Protestantism -- Great Britain -- History -- 17th century
Journal or Publication Title: Past & Present
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISSN: 0031-2746
Official Date: 2012
Dates:
DateEvent
2012Published
Volume: Vol.214
Number: No.1
Page Range: pp. 87-128
DOI: 10.1093/pastj/gtr030
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Restricted or Subscription Access

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: publications@live.warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us