The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity, and Memory in Early Modern Britain and Ireland - Hardcover

Walsham, Alexandra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0199243557 ISBN 13: 9780199243556

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2011

Synopsis

The Reformation of the Landscape is a richly detailed and original study of the relationship between the landscape of Britain and Ireland and the tumultuous religious changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It explores how the profound theological and liturgical transformations that marked the era between 1500 and 1750 both shaped, and were in turn shaped by, the places and spaces within the physical environment in which they occurred. Moving beyond churches, cathedrals, and monasteries, it investigates how the Protestant and Catholic Reformations affected perceptions and practices associated with trees, woods, springs, rocks, mountain peaks, prehistoric monuments, and other distinctive topographical features of the British Isles. Drawing on extensive research and embracing insights from a range of disciplines, Alexandra Walsham examines the origins, immediate consequences, and later repercussions of these movements of religious renewal, together with the complex but decisive modifications of belief and behaviour to which they gave rise.

It demonstrates how ecclesiastical developments intersected with other intellectual and cultural trends, including the growth of antiquarianism and the spread of the artistic and architectural Renaissance, the emergence of empirical science and shifting fashions within the spheres of medicine and healing. Set within a chronological framework that stretches backwards towards the early Middle Ages and forwards into the nineteenth century, the book assesses the critical part played by the landscape in forging confessional identities and in reconfiguring collective and social memory. It illuminates the ways in which the visible world was understood and employed by the diverse religious communities that occupied the British Isles, and shows how it became a battleground in which bitter struggles about the significance of the Christian and pagan past were waged.

About this title

About the Author

Alexandra Walsham was educated at the Universities of Melbourne and Cambridge. After completing her doctorate, she held a research fellowship at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, prior to her appointment as Lecturer in History at the University of Exeter in 1996. Until recently she was Professor of Reformation History and Head of Department at Exeter. In September 2010 she took up the post of Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. She is a fellow of Trinity College and of the British Academy.

Review

"This book makes a convincing argument for emphasizing 'the necessity of integrating religion into the heart of landscape history.' Its impressive detail and documentation make clear that this often overlooked aspect of landscape is central to its evolving social and political development and physical character, particularly in the period between 1500-1750...By bringing to light the importance of integrating religion into landscape history, this book provides rich material for such integrative, bridge-building work."--Renaissance Quarterly

"A very rich and provocative study well supported by references (some 1,741 referential and discursive footnotes!) and appropriate images...Highly recommended."--CHOICE

"Alexandra Walsham's The Reformation of the Landscape presents a thorough, well-written analysis of evolving attitudes towards natural and humanly-created environmental features in early-modern Britain...Overall, The Reformation of the Landscape contributes strongly to the understanding of religion, identity, and memory."--Journal of Folklore Research

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0199243557
• ISBN 13: 9780199243556
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 656