People and Piety: Protestant Devotional Identities in Early Modern England

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This compelling collection examines the 'lived devotion' of men and women in England's Long Reformation. Through cutting-edge research, fourteen chapters explore how English piety was at once segregational and social, fixed in principle yet fluid in practice, and where authors worked out their faith in painstaking and sometimes painful ways. -- .

Reviews

'Situating itself broadly within the well-established field of "self fashioning" studies, but more particularly within the more recent "devotional turn" in historiography, this is a well-chosen, carefully structured... effective and handsomely produced volume... well-thought-out and stimulating... Much new research is to be found here.' Literature & History, R. C. Richardson

'...all of the fine essays in this volume reflect the considerable time given by the contributors to the "otherness" of their subjects and, as a result, offer the reader fascinating insights into the variety of devotional identities in early modern England.'
Baptist Quarterly, Karen E. Smith

''This fine new volume... is predicated on the principle that it is through the detailed study of particular lives that we can come closest to appreciating early modern religion and religious writing. The result is a fascinating collection of new essays... I recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone interested in the history, literature or religion of early modern England, and especially in the meeting of these elements in the endlessly fascinating devotional lives of its people.'
Bunyan Studies, Helen Wilcox

'This collection of fourteen essays provides a wealth of examples of the ways that devotional identities were formed and understood in early modern England... Whether a reader approaches the collection as a whole or dips into it according to her interests, she is sure to emerge with a deeper understanding of popular piety in early modern England.'
Milton Quarterly, Brook Conti

'In their important edited collection... Elizabeth Clarke and Robert W. Daniel succeed in their intention of demonstrating that piety did not define people in early modern England, for it was people who defined their piety. Responding to the recent devotional turn, and in particular, renewed calls to consider individuals lived religious practice, Clarke and Daniel bring together wide-ranging and interdisciplinary chapters that survey the breadth and vitality of Protestant devotional identities... This volume serves as a snapshot of the state of a flourishing field, a comprehensive and enlightening overview of the construction of devotional identities, and deserves to be widely consulted as a key survey of English Protestantism.'
Journal of British Studies, Emily Vine

Author Bio

Elizabeth Clarke is Professor Emeritus in English and Comparative Literary Studies at the University of Warwick
Robert W. Daniel is Associate Tutor in English at the University of Warwick