front cover of England and the Crusades, 1095-1588
England and the Crusades, 1095-1588
Christopher Tyerman
University of Chicago Press, 1988
A potent mixt of salvation and adventure, the Crusades were one of the most prominent features of medieval Europe, reflecting and directing religious and secular movements in Western society for half a millennium. Christopher Tyerman offers the first book-length study of the role of England in the Crusades. Focusing on the courtroom and council chamber rather than the battlefield, he demonstrates the impact of the Crusades on the political and economic functions of English society.

Drawing on a wide range of archival, chronicle, and literary evidence, Tyerman brings to life the royal personalities, foreign policy, political intrigue, taxation and fundraising, and the crusading ethos that gripped England for hundreds of years.

"An ambitious task to undertake. . . . Tyerman has done the job not only thoroughly but brilliantly. . . . A highly impressive study, deserving rich praise and wide readership."—Norman Housley, Times Literary Supplement

"Christopher Tyerman has written a wonderful book. . . . [He] manages to confront thorny issues in scholarship and to contribute new perspectives on them."—William Chester Jordan, American Historical Review

"Tyerman provides valuable insights into preaching, recruitment, and the funding and organisation of crusading expeditions. . . . Fascinating new perspectives on English history."—Edward Powell, Sunday Times

"Impressive. . . . Tyerman's research has yielded valuable evidence, and his admirably lucid argument sheds new light on a complex and bloody period in English history."—Virginia Quarterly Review
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front cover of Godliness and Governance in Tudor Colchester
Godliness and Governance in Tudor Colchester
Laquita M. Higgs
University of Michigan Press, 1999
The Tudor period was a time of extremes, when King Henry VIII beheaded wives and Queen Mary executed her subjects by burning. As an early supporter of Henry's Protestant Reformation, the borough of Colchester took the full brunt of Catholic Mary's wrath, and at least thirteen Colchester Protestants were burned for their faith. When the Protestant Elizabeth came to the throne, Colchester leaders, influenced by returning refugees, determined to try to produce a godly society on the Genevan model. They hired their own preacher, but their efforts to reform sinful behavior through civil government met with strong resistance.
In Godliness and Governance in Tudor Colchester Laquita M. Higgs traces the governance and the religion of that town. Though traditional piety held sway early in the Tudor era, there was a strong undercurrent of hereticism, even among town leaders. Such sympathy helps explain Colchester's embrace of Henry VIII's religious reforms. Town governors also found it advantageous to cooperate with the local nobleman, the earl of Oxford, and with their own Thomas Audley, who helped the King shape the reformation. Queen Mary's attempts to root out Protestantism strengthened Colchester's commitment to reform. Under Elizabeth, reformers gradually took over governance of the borough.
Colchester provides one of the earliest illustrations of the workings and tensions of Puritan town governance. Higgs examines the connections between governance and religion with special emphasis on the Elizabethan period. The town's development toward religious radicalism is shown by a comparison of the aldermen of 1530, 1560, and 1590. Higgs explores the camaraderie of the reformers, the attempt of town leaders to correct immoral behavior, and the resultant tensions that produced deep divisions between moderate reformers and radical Puritans. An analysis of extant wills shows the extent to which Puritan governors achieved some degree of success.
Godliness and Governance in Tudor Colchester will be of interest to historians of the Tudor period, Catholicism, Lollardy, and the English Protestant Reformation.
Laquita M. Higgs is Adjunct Lecturer in History, University of Michigan, Dearborn.
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front cover of Reading Holinshed's Chronicles
Reading Holinshed's Chronicles
Annabel Patterson
University of Chicago Press, 1994
Reading Holinshed's Chronicles is the first major study of the greatest of the Elizabethan chronicles. Holinshed's Chronicles—a massive history of England, Scotland, and Ireland—has been traditionally read as the source material for many of Shakespeare's plays or as an archaic form of history-writing. Annabel Patterson insists that the Chronicles be read in their own right as an important and inventive cultural history.

Although we know it by the name of Raphael Holinshed, editor and major compiler of the 1577 edition, the Chronicles was the work of a group, a collaboration between antiquarians, clergymen, members of parliament, poets, publishers, and booksellers. Through a detailed reading, Patterson argues that the Chronicles convey rich insights into the way the Elizabethan middle class understood their society. Responding to the crisis of disunity which resulted from the Reformation, the authors of the Chronicles embodied and encouraged an ideal of justice, what we would now call liberalism, that extended beyond the writing of history into the realms of politics, law, economics, citizenship, class, and gender. Also, since the second edition of 1587 was called in by the Privy Council and revised under supervision, the work constitutes an important test case for the history of early modern censorship.

An essential book for all students of Tudor history and literature, Reading Holinshed's Chronicles brings into full view a long misunderstood masterpiece of sixteenth-century English culture.
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