In this wide-ranging book, Professor Eamon Duffy explores the broad sweep of the English Reformation, and the ways in which that Reformation has been written about. Tracing the fraught history of religious change in Tudor England, and the retellings of that history to shape a protestant national identity, once again he emphasizes the importance of the study of late medieval religion and material culture for our understanding of this most formative and fascinating of eras. Getting to grips with the misconceptions, discontinuities and dilemmas which have dogged the history of Tudor religion, he traces the lived experience of Catholicism in an age of upheaval: from what it meant to be a Catholic in early Tudor England; through the nature of militant Catholicism at the height of the conflict; to the after-life of Tudor Catholicism and the ways in which the 'old religion' was remembered and spoken about in the England of Shakespeare. Duffy writes at all times with grace, elegance and wit as he questions prejudices and myths about the Reformation, to demonstrate that the truth about the past is never pure nor simple.

In this wide-ranging book, Professor Eamon Duffy explores the broad sweep of English Reformation history, including a study of Late Medieval religion and society.

About the Author
Professor Eamon Duffy is Emeritus Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of Magdalene College. He is the author of The Stripping of the Altars, Reformation Divided and Royal Books and Holy Bones and appears regularly on radio and television as an authority on religion and the Reformation in England.

Reviews
This book is a collection of essays on various aspects of early modern English religion which Duffy has written over the past fifteen years, complemented by a few previously unpublished pieces. Collections like that can be annoyingly miscellaneous, but here the stronger impression is of the unity of his body of work. A series of strong, consistent ideas emerges. Nobody who knows Duffy's robust approach to the Reformation will be surprised by anything that is here, but they will still find it worth reading. -- Alec Ryrie, Durham University * Theology *
There is something compelling and even thrilling about Duffy's combination of cutting-edge historical scholarship and effortless prose. -- Peter Stanford * The Independent *



Book Information
ISBN 9781472909176
Author Professor Eamon Duffy
Format Paperback
Page Count 320
Imprint Bloomsbury Continuum
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Weight(grams) 367g