This volume collects previously published studies, now thoroughly updated and revised, with the aim of exploring the religious and political complexities of early modern English Catholicism from the mid-sixteenth through the late seventeenth centuries.
Together, these essays analyze the residual presence of Catholic culture within the larger narrative of English history, using the work of such writers as William Shakespeare, John Donne, and Dame Gertrude More, as well as a range of non-literary evidence, to interpret the varieties of religious experience and the multiple ways in which they related to contemporary audiences and readers. Including the "seigneurial" Catholicism of the upper classes, the popular survival of traditional religious practices, and the different colonial solutions to the problem of religious toleration, this account opposes the oversimplified "Whig" interpretation of English history with the complex forces of a changing political landscape.
Catholic culture had a remarkable persistence in the period and the lived experience of English Catholics varied widely. In its many incarnations, Catholicism remained an important cultural and demographic presence troubling the narrative of English history. Despite the control the government sought to exercise over religious belief, individual Catholics, who negotiated various forms of social functioning, survived beyond this period to emerge finally as a significant, and tolerated, minority within English society.
Marotti, Arthur F.
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