Reformation Heritage Books

'Puritan' was originally a term of contempt, and 'Puritanism' has often been stereotyped by critics and admirers alike. As a distinctive and particularly intense variety of early modern Reformed Protestantism, it was a product of acute tensions within the post-Reformation Church of England. But it was never monolithic or purely oppositional, and its impact reverberated far beyond seventeenth-century England and New England. This companion broadens our understanding of Puritanism, showing how students and scholars might engage with it from new angles and uncover the surprising diversity that fermented beneath its surface. The book explores issues of gender, literature, politics, and popular culture in addition to addressing the Puritans’ core concerns such as theology and devotional praxis, and coverage extends to Irish, Welsh, Scottish, and European versions of Puritanism as well as to English and American practice. It challenges readers to re-evaluate this crucial tradition within its wider social, cultural, political, and religious contexts.

Author

John Coffey is an English historian. He has written monographs on Samuel Rutherford and John Goodwin, and is Professor of early modern history at the University of Leicester. His Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 is the first overview work on the topic since W.K.Jordan's 4-volume work The Development of Religious Toleration in England (1932-1940).

Endorsements

"… no recent survey has done justice to the recent flowering of scholarship. This book now fills that gap admirably. It brings together essays from 20 authors, who focus their remarkable expertise in short but scholarly chapters." - Church Times