Overview

This book explores the nature of religious community at a time when, by some accounts, it was in its death throes. Many have argued that early modern communities suffered too much damage to survive, as cumulative assaults of the Reformation, the rise of Puritanism, and the denominational fragmentation of the Interregnum and Restoration destroyed parish unity forever. Without minimizing the significance of these events, this book argues for the resilience of religious community. By analyzing the religious networks of Oliver Heywood (1630-1702), a strategically-placed and well-documented Presbyterian minister, this work illustrates the flexibility of the communal ideal in the face of the challenges presented by the Long Reformation. Through Heywood's eyes we watch the inhabitants of the northern parish of Halifax as they cross, and at times blur, the denominational boundaries that loom large both in the heated rhetoric of the time and in recent historiography.

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9789004229297

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Reviews

Thomas's book is distinguished by the detail and force of its historical and archival research and for the light it sheds on the ways in which early modern communities were formed and kept together. It will be of interest not only to scholars of Restoration nonconformity, but anyone interested in the nature of religious and social cohesion in the seventeenth century. Carrie A. Hintz Cuny, Queens College and The Graduate Center. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 4, Winter 2013, p. 1444.

Author Information

Samuel S. Thomas, Ph.D. (2003) in History, Washington University in St. Louis, teaches history at University School outside Cleveland, Ohio. He has published scholarly articles and in 2013 will publish his first novel, The Midwife's Tale: A Mystery (Minotaur Press).

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