Early Modern Worship Network
Lead Research Organisation:
Durham University
Department Name: Theology and Religion
Abstract
The subject of this Network is the lived experience of religion in early modern Britain (c. 1500-1700). It is widely accepted that we cannot understand the political, social or cultural history of this period without taking religion seriously, and that early modern literature, music and art cannot be divorced from their religious context. However, until recently little attention has been paid to the lived experience of religion. This network aims to explore religious practice and its meanings in early modern British culture.
We expect to examine religious practice under two broad (and overlapping) categories:
1. Collective and public worship. This theme includes liturgy, the sacraments, music, attendance at sermons and the public doctrinal debates called 'prophesyings', processions, feasts, fasts and the ways in which buildings and places came to be treated as sacred.
2. Private and household devotions. This theme includes private prayer, family prayers, asceticism, devotional reading and writing. The distinctions between (for example) male and female piety, and adult and childhood piety, will be important here.
Most of the existing work on this subject has been discipline-specific, with a particular split between literary studies of devotional texts (led by North American scholars) and historical studies of the social history of religious practice (led by British scholars). There has also been relevant work by musicologists and by historians of material culture. A good deal of this work has also been focused exclusively on one religious tradition - whether 'Anglican', Catholic, Nonconformist, or relating to the English-speaking churches of Scotland, Ireland and colonial North America.
Our proposed Network aims to bring these different groups of scholars together in an international, interdisciplinary conversation, aimed at broadening our understanding of what it actually meant to live a Christian life in the early modern world.
We propose to achieve this through a series of panels and roundtables at international conferences, in the UK and North America; through two dedicated workshops; and through a high-profile website. We expect to produce (amongst other things) two edited volumes of essays exploring our two key themes.
We expect to examine religious practice under two broad (and overlapping) categories:
1. Collective and public worship. This theme includes liturgy, the sacraments, music, attendance at sermons and the public doctrinal debates called 'prophesyings', processions, feasts, fasts and the ways in which buildings and places came to be treated as sacred.
2. Private and household devotions. This theme includes private prayer, family prayers, asceticism, devotional reading and writing. The distinctions between (for example) male and female piety, and adult and childhood piety, will be important here.
Most of the existing work on this subject has been discipline-specific, with a particular split between literary studies of devotional texts (led by North American scholars) and historical studies of the social history of religious practice (led by British scholars). There has also been relevant work by musicologists and by historians of material culture. A good deal of this work has also been focused exclusively on one religious tradition - whether 'Anglican', Catholic, Nonconformist, or relating to the English-speaking churches of Scotland, Ireland and colonial North America.
Our proposed Network aims to bring these different groups of scholars together in an international, interdisciplinary conversation, aimed at broadening our understanding of what it actually meant to live a Christian life in the early modern world.
We propose to achieve this through a series of panels and roundtables at international conferences, in the UK and North America; through two dedicated workshops; and through a high-profile website. We expect to produce (amongst other things) two edited volumes of essays exploring our two key themes.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Alec Ryrie (Principal Investigator) |
Publications
Ryrie Alec
(2013)
Worship and the Parish Church in Early Modern Britain
Ryrie Alec
(2012)
Private and Domestic Devotion in Early Modern Britain
| Description | The grant did what was planned: to open up a new area of scholarship, namely worship and devotion in the Reformaiton era. We have put this much more firmly on the scholarly map, and made scholars of early modern religion and culture aware that they need to pay proper attention to religious experience and devotional practice. It has also, more unexpectedly, helped to inform work on the history of the emotions. The more specific impacts vary by scholars, but for me, it was decisively important in forming my prizewinning book 'Being Protestant in Early Modern Britain' (OUP 2013), which argued for early modern English Protestantism having a distinctively dynamic, intense and broad-based emotional and pious culture. |
| Exploitation Route | Since the objective of the grant was to open up the field, it is encouraging to see so many others now working in this broad area. I note, for example, a heavily-attended roundtable on devotional literature at the 2014 Sixteenth Century Studies Conference, at which few of the participants (aside from myself) had had any contact with the Network during its existence. |
| Sectors | Other |
| Description | This grant was not 'impact' facing. It has advanced scholarly conversations within the academy significantly and fed into my own and others' subsequent work. There was some minor involvement of clergy and other church workers in the Network which had the potential to inform their practice. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2008 |
| Sector | Other |
| Impact Types | Cultural |
| Description | Research Development Awards |
| Amount | £84,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | The British Academy |
| Sector | Academic/University |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 08/2009 |
| End | 08/2010 |