Agnes Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England / Edition 1

by David Cressy

Overview

Cressy examines how the orderly, Protestant, and hierarchical society of post-Reformation England coped with the cultural challenges posed by beliefs and events outside the social norm. Drawing on local texts and narratives he reveals how a series of troubling and unorthodox happenings—bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, nakedness and cross-dressing, excommunication and irregular burial, iconoclasm and vandalism—disturbed the margins, cut across the grain, and set the authorities on edge.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198207818
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	01/20/2000
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	364
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

David Cressy is Professor of History at Ohio State University, USA.

Table of Contents

List of illustrationsIntroduction1. Agnes Bowker's Cat: Childbirth, Seduction, Bestiality and Lies2. Monstrous Births and Credible Reports: Portents, Texts and Testimonies3. Mercy Gould and the Vicar of Cuckfield: Domestic and Clerical Pleading4. Rose Arnold's Confession: Seduction, Deception and Distress in the Heart of England5. The Essex Abortionist: Depravity, Sex and Violence6. Another Midwife's Tale: Alcohol, Patriarchy and Childbirth in Early Modern London7. Cross-Dressing in the Birth Room: Gender Trouble and Cultural Boundaries8. Who Buried Mrs Horseman? Excommunication, Accommodation, and Silence9. Mocking the Clergy: Wars of Words in Parish and Pulpit10. The Atheists Sermon: Belief, Unbelief and Traditionalism in the Elizabethan North11. Baptised Beasts and Other Travesties: Affronts to Rites of Passage12. The Battle of the Altars: Turning the Tables and Breaking the Rails13. The Portraiture of Prynne's Pictures: Performances on the Public Stage14. The Downfall of Cheapside Cross: Vandalism, Ridicule and Iconoclasm15. The Adamites Exposed: Naked Radicals in the English RevolutionConclusionIndex

Editorial Reviews

"Cressy's endnotes are copious and his writing is exemplary, both erudite and fun to read. [This book] deserves the highest praise and placement on the bookshelves of anyone interested in Tudor-Stuart society."—History

"Outstanding as a piece of historical reconstruction...Cressy's impressive blend of documentary grasp, empathy and imagination throws a bright light upon the nature of the discipline of the established church, of dissent and the strength of the popular sense of community...Cressy shows himself a master."—Professor Ivan Roots, Cromwelliana

"Offers readers fifteen distinct chapters, each telling a different set of stories...The author explores the contested cultural terrain of late Tudor and early Stuart England by giving vent to competing voices found in narratives drawn from a very wide variety of manuscript and printed sources...As in the best microhistories, Cressy's book passes easily between specific stories and the rich yet concise contextualizations that effectively excavate broader cultural issues."—Sixteenth Century Journal

"Curious and entertaining...Cressy is a pioneer in history...This book takes an honorable place in the genre of microhistories."—American Historical Review

From the Publisher