284 Pages
by
Routledge
284 Pages
by
Routledge
Also available as eBook on:
On three successive mornings in February 1652, God spoke to a London tailor by the name of John Reeve. Consequently he and his cousin Lodowicke Muggleton believed that they were the Last Two Witnesses prophesied in the Book of Revelation. Over the next six years the pair attracted a small but dedicated band of followers that, following the death of Reeve, became known as the Muggletonians. In... Read more
Contents: Introduction: the archive discovered; 'Lodowick Muggleton was also included': 1652-58; 'Great Muggleton' declares the truth: 1658-61; The prophet of letters: 1661-98; Witnesses against the beast: 1698-1837; The Victorian crisis: 1837-1901; Last days: 1901-79; Conclusion: Muggletonians - the proper historical context?; Bibliography; Index.
Biography
William Lamont is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Sussex, UK.
'This is the astonishing story of a small sect with a big history written out of a rich and constantly startling archive. Lamont tells the story with huge engagement and with detached passion.' John Morrill, University of Cambridge '... a fascinating study of a group of bizarrely remarkable people, which manages both to make perfect sense of them and to convey the excitement of the business of research.' Ronald Hutton, University of Bristol 'This is a splendid and exceptional work - vibrant, clever and very acute. It opens up the Muggletonian archive and the successive and dynamic religious experience of many individuals in a dramatic and powerful manner. Lamont brings to this endeavour all of his considerable historical understanding: this is a weighty and serious work, but one that is accessible to non-experts. It will certainly be required reading for any historian interested in the religious experience and consequences of the English Revolution. Written in an engaging, learned but crystal clear prose, it is also a very powerful insight into the difficult business of engaging with the sometimes elusive experience of past religion. It is a deeply humble work concerned above all to allow the voices from the past to speak in their own idioms unhindered by jargon or hermeneutic method.' Justin Champion Royal Holloway, University of London ’William Lamont's impeccably researched and lively account may well have flouted his subjects's wishes, but the result has extended the memory of the extraordinary tenacious spiritual hold of Lodowick Muggleton.’ The Times Literary Supplement ’In this definitive study of one of the Protestant sects that emerged in the 1650s, William Lamont has written not only an absorbing piece of history but, more significantly, a book on how to do history.’ Journal of Ecclesiastical History ’This remarkable and delightful book traces the continuous history of the Muggletonian sect from its mid-seventeenth-century origins to 1979
