This book is a corpus-based study examining thou and you in three speech-related genres from 1560–1760, a crucial period in the history of second person singular pronouns, spanning the time from when you became dominant to when thou became all but obsolete. The study embraces the fields of corpus linguistics, historical pragmatics, and historical sociolinguistics. Using data drawn from the recently released A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 and manuscript material, the aim is to ascertain which extra-linguistic and linguistic factors highlighted by previous research appear particularly relevant in the selection and relative distribution of thou and you. Previous research on thou and you has tended to concentrate on Drama and/or been primarily qualitative in nature. Depositions in particular have hitherto received very little attention. This book is intended to help fill a gap in the literature by presenting an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of pronoun usage in Trials, Depositions, and, for comparative purposes, Drama Comedy.

This book describes the English language between the years 1500 and 1700 - the different varieties of the language, the attitudes of its speakers towards it, its pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.

In early Pennsylvania, translation served as a utopian tool creating harmony across linguistic, religious, and ethnic differences. Patrick Erben challenges the long-standing historical myth--first promulgated by Benjamin Franklin--that language diversity posed a threat to communal coherence. He deftly traces the pansophist and Neoplatonist philosophies of European reformers that informed the radical English and German Protestants who founded the "holy experiment." Their belief in hidden yet persistent links between human language and the word of God impelled their vision of a common spiritual idiom. Translation became the search for underlying correspondences between diverse human expressions of the divine and served as a model for reconciliation and inclusiveness. Drawing on German and English archival sources, Erben examines iconic translations that engendered community in colonial Pennsylvania, including William Penn's translingual promotional literature, Francis Daniel Pastorius's multilingual poetics, Ephrata's "angelic" singing and transcendent calligraphy, the Moravians' polyglot missions, and the common language of suffering for peace among Quakers, Pietists, and Mennonites. By revealing a mystical quest for unity, Erben presents a compelling counternarrative to monolingualism and Enlightenment empiricism in eighteenth-century America.

Desiderius Erasmus' humanist works were influential throughout Europe, in various areas of thought including theology, education, philology, and political theory. Exploiting Erasmus examines the legacy of Erasmus in England from the mid-sixteenth century to the overthrow of James II in 1688 and studies the various ways in which his works were received, manipulated, and used in religious controversies that threatened both church and state. In viewing movements and events such as the rise of anti-Calvinism, the religious politics leading to the English civil war, and the emergence of the Latitudinarians during the Restoration, Gregory D. Dodds provides a fascinating account not only of the reception and effects of Erasmus' works, but also of the early history of English Protestantism. Exploiting Erasmus offers a critical new angle for rethinking the theology and rhetoric of the time. It is a remarkable study of Erasmus' influence on issues of conformity, tolerance, war, and peace.

Quakeriana Latina: Quaker texts in Latin from the 1670s juxtaposes translations of texts written in Latin by arguably the finest early Quaker theologians, George Keith and Robert Barclay. A commentary provides philological, historical, and theological perspectives. The works by Keith are two substantial letters to German polymath and Christian Kabbalist, Baron Christian Knorr von Rosenroth. The chief concerns of these letters are Christian appropriation of concepts from Jewish mysticism and eschatology. In the year before Keith began this correspondence, Barclay wrote his Animadversiones, a response to an attack from the Dutch Calvinist, Nikolaus Arnold, on his Theses Theologicae. Thus, both writers illustrate how a Quaker might write to a non-Quaker, even non-British, audience, one in a persuasive tone, and the other in a more polemical mode. Together, these texts cast new light on Quakerism in the 1670s.

The early Quakers denounced the clergy and social élite but how did that affect Friends' relationships with others? Drawing upon the insights of sociologists and anthropologists, this lively and original study sets out to discover the social consequences of religious belief. Why did the sect appoint its own midwives to attend Quaker women during confinement? Was animosity to Quakerism so great that Friends were excluded from involvement in parish life? And to what extent were the remarkably high literacy rates of Quakers attributable to the Quaker faith or wider social forces? Using a wide range of primary source material, this study demonstrates that Quakers were not the marginal and isolated people which contemporaries and historians often portrayed. Indeed the sect had a profound impact not only upon members but more widely by encouraging a greater tolerance of diversity in early modern society.