1st Edition

Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England 1558-1689

By John Coffey Copyright 2000
    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    256 Pages
    by Routledge

    This fascinating work is the first overview of its subject to be published in over half a century. The issues it deals with are key to early modern political, religious and cultural history.

    The seventeenth century is traditionally regarded as a period of expanding and extended liberalism, when superstition and received truth were overthrown. The book questions how far England moved towards becoming a liberal society at that time and whether or not the end of the century crowned a period of progress, or if one set of intolerant orthodoxies had simply been replaced by another.

    The book examines what toleration means now and meant then, explaining why some early modern thinkers supported persecution and how a growing number came to advocate toleration. Introduced with a survey of concepts and theory, the book then studies the practice of toleration at the time of Elizabeth I and the Stuarts, the Puritan Revolution and the Restoration. The seventeenth century emerges as a turning point after which, for the first time, a good Christian society also had to be a tolerant one.

    Persecution and Toleration is a critical addition to the study of early modern Britain and to religious and political history.

    List of tables Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Protestant Theory o f Persecution 3. The Protestant Theory of Toleration 4. Elizabeth I and Protestant Unform ity, 1 5 5 8 —1 6 0 3 5. The Early Stuarts, 1 6 0 3 - 4 0 6. The Puritan Revolution, 1 6 4 0 - 6 0 7. The Restoration, 1 6 6 0 —8 8 8. 1 6 8 9 and the R ise o f Toleration Glossary Select Bibliography Index

    Biography

    John Coffey is Lecturer in History at the University of Leicester.

    "a fine book with a fresh and bracing momentum...enhances our understanding of early modern persecution and tolerance" – William Gibson, H-Net Reviews

    "This very well-written book also includes some nice topical allusions" – English Historical Review

    "admirably lucid and compact...a text with much on offer to students of denominational history" – Albion