Book Description
From childbirth and baptism through to courtship, weddings, and funerals, every stage in the life-cycle of Tudor and Stuart England was accompanied by ritual. Even under the protestantism of the reformed Church, the spiritual and social dramas of birth, marriage, and death were graced with elaborate ceremony. Powerful and controversial protocols were in operation, shaped and altered by the influences of the Reformation, the Revolution, and the Restoration. Each of the major rituals was potentially an arena for argument, ambiguity, and dissent. Ideally, as classic rites of passage, these ceremonies worked to bring people together. But they also set up traps into which people could stumble, and tests which not everybody could pass. In practice, ritual performance revealed frictions and fractures that everyday local discourse attempted to hide or to heal. Using fascinating first-hand evidence, David Cressy shows how the making and remaking of ritual formed part of a continuing debate, sometimes strained and occasionally acrimonious, which exposed the raw nerves of society in the midst of great historical events. In doing so, he vividly brings to life the common experiences of living and dying in Tudor and Stuart England. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A must read
I actually had to read this for an MA class in history and it's definitely a textbook of the Tudor and Stuart time period but it wasn't as dry as I had expected it to be, thanks to Mr. Cressy's amazing writing ability. But it is thoroughly researched and offers up very important conclusions about the social life of the Tudor/Stuart period and anyone who wants the recent and best literature on the subject should read this book.

Social history at its best
I've just finished writing a series of books about life in Elizabethan England, and this book was invaluable to me in my research. It is full of interesting details about how people in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England approached and experienced the major transition points of the life cycle. I would have read and enjoyed Birth, Marriage, and Death even if I had not needed it as a reference, and I would heartily recommend it to any reader who wants to get a feel for this time period.

Great book!
Most historical books of this sort are amazingly dry; this one is not.Mr. Cressy has done a huge amount of research, and the text is peppered with primary source quotations.I now have a real feel for what theseexperiences were like in Tudor & Stuart England.I plan to buywhatever other material Mr. Cressy has written--I found him an easy,extremely informative read. ... Read more

Book Description
This is the first book about the only Welsh antiphonal known, and it discusses in particular the material for services celebrating the memory of the Welsh patron saint. The `Penpont Antiphonal', National Library of Wales MS. 20541 E, is the only source known of the Latin rhymed Office of St David. An introduction to this fourteenth-century antiphonal includes a full listing and description of its contents. In Part 2 of the book Professor Edwards is concerned to show the significance of the Office of St David. The chants and the literary text are described and discussed, supported by full transcriptions of the musical and literary texts, and by facsimile reproduction of the manuscript folios. The office is considered in its historical perspective: its relationship to other similar late medieval offices and to Rhigyfarch's Life of St David, the importance of this rare survivor in the light of the almost total annihilation of Welsh Latin liturgical material in 1550, and as evidence of the active cultivation of music in Wales during the Middle Ages.OWAIN TUDOR EDWARDS is Professor of Music History at the Norwegian State Academy of Music, Oslo. ... Read more

Book Description
In Travesties and Transgressions, David 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. He uses a series of linked stories and close readings of local texts and narratives to investigate unorthodox happenings such as bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, excommunication and irregular burial, nakedness and cross-dressing. Each story, and the reaction it generated, exposes the strains and stresses of its local time and circumstances. The reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I were witness to endless religious disputes, tussles for power within the aristocracy, and arguments galore about the behaviour and beliefs of common people. Questions raised by 'unnatural' episodes were debated throughout society at local and national levels, and engaged the attention of the magistrates, the bishops, the crown, and the court. The resolution of such questions was not taken lightly in a world in which God and the devil still fought for people's souls. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent book on Royal Navy
This is a very good book on the Royal Navy at the time of Nelson.The name is a bit misleading, as it concerns battles other than only Nelson's.The book starts out with the usual introduction to ships, e.g. ratings, construction, etc.However, it discusses things that I hadn't picked up in some other books.For example, there are detailed discussions on how pumps work, how the large anchor ropes were reeled in, compass headings, tacking and wearing, and so on.The section on tacking and wearing set the table for the later discussions of the battles-ships were `stuck in the mud' if a battle and the wind were behind them.The brilliance of the British tactic of attacking the middle and rear of the enemy line becomes crystal clear.I particularly enjoyed this book for several reasons. First, it was easily readable.Some things were rather technical, but for the most part, I moved quickly through the text.I also enjoyed the maps of the battles. Without those, the discussions of the movements of the ships would have been meaningless.The maps made everything understandable.In addition to chapters on the most famous battles, there is a chapter on lesser-known actions.This was icing on the cake.When I was finished reading this book I felt like I had really learned a lot about the Royal Navy in the Napoleonic period.I highly recommend this book.

Required reading for all sea-lovers
Required reading for all sea-lovers
What a great book! I wish I'd read it before I started reading any naval fiction (or fact, for that matter).
Not as detailed as Dr.Roger's 'Wooden World' but much more readable, with lots of snippets of info and descriptions ofprocedures that are taken for granted in most books - like 'what is a messenger and how is it used?' - most buffs have a vague idea, but not in the detail that is shown here.
The text is lively, flows logically from one subject to an allied one, keeping one interested as one is taken through the construction, manning and working of the ship. Then we are treated to remarkably un-jingoistic descriptions of the famous battles of the Napoleonic era, with blow-by-blow diagrams showing the positions of the opposing fleets throughout the action.
My only complaint is that not quite enough space is given to shipboard life, and a little too much praise is heaped on Nelson (after all, that's what Nelson expects....) but not a mention of Cochrane, whose tactics, gung-ho zeal and inventiveness were the epitome of what afighting captain should be (at least, in the eyes of the public - and Patrick O'Brien).
However, a damned good show ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Textbook on the Tudor state
Professor Loades's book is unfortunately titled.I had hoped for an imaginative synthesis of institutional, social and cultural history; what Loades has written is an overly familiar history of the institutions through which the Tudors ruled.As a result very little of Loades's book feels original (although I found the coverage of Ireland and the Channel Islands unusually wide-ranging).But if you want a history of Tudor government, you're better off with S. J. Gunn's 'Early Tudor Government'; if you're after a book that's actually about power in Tudor England, then the best work is still Penry Williams's 'The Tudor Regime'. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Excellent introduction to the psychological side of monarchy
From Henry VII to Elizabeth, the court during the Tudor era was both the political and cultural focus of the English state, where the monarch attracted talent and dispensed patronage. They dealt heavily in image-building, especially Henry VIII and Elizabeth, for the ruler was not merely a personal executive but the center of a rich symbolism expressing all the aspects of authority. The monarch had not only to be (or have been) a chivalrous war leader, but must also show magnanimity and generosity to his subordinates in the peerage and to his people in general -- and he must do it publicly. The king was also responsible to God for his subjects' well-being, which was why it was so important to Henry VIII to produce a son; not to do so was regarded as a sign of divine disapproval. Royal pageantry was also a tool of statecraft, as shown by Edward IV's competition with the glittering court of Burgundy and the attention paid by Henry VIII to the elegance of Francis I. The author deals at length with the sources on which English courts modeled themselves, their often amorphous administrative structure and day-to-day workings, the nature of access to and security within the court (a nobleman had to be sure of his welcome there, which was often the acid test of his personal political status), the political role of royal sports and entertainment, and the nature of factional political maneuvering. Even the architectural layout of the king's place of residence provided context to the court, and the book includes an annotated list of the king's houses, when and by whom they were built, to what use the monarch put them, and their eventual fate. Mining the private and public writings of the peerage for examples, Loades has produced a very readable account of a subtle side of kingship of which most modern students are not even aware -- even though much of what he has to say might also apply to the White House. ... Read more

Book Description
This book examines the structures of power and jurisdiction that operated in Tudor England. It explains what the institutions of central government were designed to do, and how they related to each other. ... Read more

Book Description
This digital document is an article from Renaissance Quarterly, published by Thomson Gale on December 22, 2006. The length of the article is 775 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The Church of Mary Tudor.(Book review)
Author: Linda Gibson Thorne
Publication: Renaissance Quarterly (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 59Issue: 4Page: 1290(3)

Article Type: Book review

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more