Examining the Caroline era - a period of great importance to English history in the build-up to the Civil War, these essays address politics, religion, the monarchy, culture, literature, and art history.

Velazquez. Poussin. Carvaggio. Bernini. Despite their disparate backgrounds, these greats of European Baroque art converged at one remarkable place in time: Rome, 1630. In response to the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Church turned to these masters of Baroque art to craft works celebrating the glories of the heavens manifested on earth. And so, with glittering monuments like Bernini's imposing bronze columns in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome, 1630 came to be the crossroads of seventeenth-century art, religion, and power. In Rome, 1630, the renowned French poet and critic Yves Bonnefoy devotes his attention to this single year in the Baroque period in European art. Richly illustrated with artwork that reveals the unique, yet instructive, place of Rome in 1630 in European art history, Bonnefoy dives deep into this transformative movement. The inclusion of five additional essays on seventeenth-century art situate Bonnefoy's analysis within a lively debate on Baroque art and art history. Translator Hoyt Rogers's afterword pays homage to the author himself, situating Rome, 1630 in Bonnefoy's productive career as a premier French poet and critic.

The comprehensive history of a system of faith that shaped the nation.

This book uncovers what might seem to be a dark side of the American dream: the New World from the viewpoint of those who decided not to stay. At the core of the volume are the life histories of people who left New England during the British Civil Wars and Interregnum, 1640–1660. More than a third of the ministers who had stirred up emigration from England deserted their flocks to return home. The colonists’ stories challenge our perceptions of early settlement and the religious ideal of New England as a "City on a Hill." America was a stage in their journey, not an end in itself. Susan Hardman Moore first explores the motives for migration to New England in the 1630s and the rhetoric that surrounded it. Then, drawing on extensive original research into the lives of hundreds of migrants, she outlines the complex reasons that spurred many to brave the Atlantic again, homeward bound. Her book ends with the fortunes of colonists back home and looks at the impact of their American experience. Of exceptional value to studies of the connections between the Old and New Worlds, Pilgrims contributes to debates about the nature of the New England experiment and its significance for the tumults of revolutionary England.

'Puritan' was originally a term of contempt, and 'Puritanism' has often been stereotyped by critics and admirers alike. As a distinctive and particularly intense variety of early modern Reformed Protestantism, it was a product of acute tensions within the post-Reformation Church of England. But it was never monolithic or purely oppositional, and its impact reverberated far beyond seventeenth-century England and New England. This Companion broadens our understanding of Puritanism, showing how students and scholars might engage with it from new angles and uncover the surprising diversity that fermented beneath its surface. The book explores issues of gender, literature, politics and popular culture in addition to addressing the Puritans' core concerns such as theology and devotional praxis, and coverage extends to Irish, Welsh, Scottish and European versions of Puritanism as well as to English and American practice. It challenges readers to re-evaluate this crucial tradition within its wider social, cultural, political and religious contexts.

This abridged edition of Winthrop's journal, which incorporates about 40 percent of the governor's text, with his spelling and punctuation modernized, includes a lively Introduction and complete annotation. It also includes Winthrop's famous lay sermon, "A Model of Christian Charity", written in 1630. As in the fuller journal, this abridged edition contains the drama of Winthrop's life - his defeat at the hands of the freemen for governor, the banishment and flight of Roger Williams to Rhode Island, the Pequot War that exterminated his Indian opponents, and the Antinomian controversy. Here is the earliest American document on the perpetual contest between the forces of good and evil in the wilderness - Winthrop's recounting of how God's Chosen People escaped from captivity into the promised land. While he recorded all the sexual scandal - rape, fornication, adultery, sodomy, and buggery - it was only to show that even in Godly New England the Devil was continually at work, and man must be forever militant.

This is an exciting collection of essays on the rule of Charles I at a time of fundamental importance to English history. It combines the work of historians with academics from literary studies to provide an interdisciplinary examination of the culture and political life of the decade. The chapters focus on issues in politics, religion, the monarchy and culture, as well as literature and art history. Essays examine everything from the King's correspondence to the role of consort queens at court and opposition to the King in libel, satire and on the stage.Many historians assert that it was Charles's inept and dangerous policy of 'personal rule' which was responsible for putting the country on the road to civil war. This book will be invaluable for students and lecturers seeking to better understand the causes of the conflict.