| Abstract |
"The protracted religious revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries involved a concerted attempt to reshape social memory. It repudiated some key aspects of medieval commemorative culture, rehabilitated others in a modified guise, and created new modes of memorialisation, which were embodied in texts, material objects, physical buildings, rituals, and bodily gestures. This volume places these complex developments under the microscope. It also investigates the retrospective process, involving amnesia and reinvention, by which the English Reformation became a historic event. Examining the dissident as well as the official dimensions of this story, this richly illustrated, interdisciplinary collection traces how memory of the English Reformation evolved in the two centuries following the Henrician schism. Moving beyond the heated debates that have taken place about its nature, success and significance, it diverts attention towards the ways in which the Reformation entered and embedded itself in the cultural imagination"-- Provided by publisher. |
