Pilgrimage: The English Experience from Becket to Bunyan

by Colin Morris, Peter Roberts

Overview

Pilgrimage was a central feature of medieval English life which affected history, politics, art and literature. The shrines were destroyed during the Reformation and pilgrimage stopped, yet the idea of pilgrimage continued—refashioned - in Protestant theology. By reaching beyond the Reformation to explore the transformation of the idea of the pilgrim, this book confronts the religious experience of the English laity over half a millennium. In a series of ground-breaking studies the contributors challenge many orthodox assumptions about English pilgrims and their history.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521808118
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	06/13/2002
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	6.42(w) x 9.29(h) x 0.94(d)

About the Author

Professor Colin Morris (b. 1928) was Professor of Medieval History, University of Southampton, 1969-1992. His many publications include The Papal Monarchy: The Western Church from 1050 to 1250 (in the Oxford University Press 'History of the Christian Church' series).

Dr Peter Roberts is Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Kent, Canterbury. He has acted as co-editor for Religion, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain: Essays in Honour of Patrick Collinson (Cambridge, 1994), Christopher Marlowe and English Renaissance Culture (Scolar/Ashgate, 1996), and British Consciousness and Identity: The Making of Britain, 1533-1707 (Cambridge, 1998).

Table of Contents

Foreword Peter Roberts; Introduction Colin Morris; 1. The pilgrimages of the Angevin kings of England, 1154–1272 Nicholas Vincent; 2. The early imagery of Thomas Becket Richard Gameson; 3. Canterbury and the architecture of pilgrimage shrines in England Tim Tatton-Brown; 4. Curing bodies and healing souls: pilgrimage and the sick in medieval East Anglia Carole Rawcliffe; 5. Pilgrimage to Jerusalem in the late Middle Ages Colin Morris; 6. The dynamics of pilgrimage in late medieval England Eamon Duffy; 7. The pilgrimage of grace and the pilgrim tradition of the Holy War Michael Bush; 8. Politics, drama and the cult of Becket in the sixteenth century Peter Roberts; 9. 'To be a pilgrim': constructing the Protestant life in early modern England N. H. Keeble.

Editorial Reviews

"This impressive collection of essays...richly fulfills its promise to advance scholarship on English pilgrimage in ways which complement recent studies of pilgrimage on the Continent. This excellent volume will certainly take its place as an essential starting-point for future studies of English pilgrimage." Susan J. Ridyard, The University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, Canadian Journal of History

"...the embodiment of several of the most important trends in recent historiography, most conspicuously, cultural history...useful and interesting." Renaissance Quarterly

"...an important and timely contribution..." Albion

"Gives a very full picture of the importance of pilgrimage. The collection as a whole offers yet another angle on the remarkable national transformation that is the English Reformation." Studies in English Literature

"[An] erudite and eminently readable collection." H-NET

From the Publisher

This collection of nine essays written by nine historians from the UK originated in papers presented at a colloquium on English pilgrimage, held at the U. of Kent as part of Canterbury's celebration of the turn of the Millennium; all papers were revised for the present volume. The text explores the concept and experience of pilgrimage over five centuries, offering new perspectives on English spiritual, cultural, and political life of that time period. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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