This book looks at how popular religious belief was reflected in the cheapest printed wares available in England in the century after the Reformation: the broadside ballad, the woodcut picture and the chapbook (a small pamphlet, usually of 24 pages). Dr. Watt's study is illustrated throughout by extracts from these wares, many of which are being reproduced for the first time. The production of this "cheap print" is an important chapter in book trade history, showing the increasing specialization of the ballad trade, and tracing for the first time the beginnings of the chapbook trade in the early seventeenth century. But much of this print was not only read; it was also to be sung or pasted as decoration on the wall. The ballad is placed in the context of contemporary musical culture, and the woodcut is related to the decorative arts--wall painting and painted cloth--which have been neglected by mainstream historians.
At the same time, the book challenges the picture drawn by recent historians of a great gulf between Protestantism and "popular culture," showing the continuity of many aspects of traditional pre-Reformation piety--modified by Protestant doctrine--well into the seventeenth century.
This book looks at how popular religious belief was reflected in the cheapest printed wares available in England in the century after the Reformation: the broadside ballad, the woodcut picture and the chapbook (a small pamphlet, usually of 24 pages). Dr. Watt's study is illustrated throughout by extracts from these wares, many of which are being reproduced for the first time. The production of this "cheap print" is an important chapter in book trade history, showing the increasing specialization of the ballad trade, and tracing for the first time the beginnings of the chapbook trade in the early seventeenth century. But much of this print was not only read; it was also to be sung or pasted as decoration on the wall. The ballad is placed in the context of contemporary musical culture, and the woodcut is related to the decorative arts--wall painting and painted cloth--which have been neglected by mainstream historians.
At the same time, the book challenges the picture drawn by recent historians of a great gulf between Protestantism and "popular culture," showing the continuity of many aspects of traditional pre-Reformation piety--modified by Protestant doctrine--well into the seventeenth century.
Introduction; Part I. The Broadside Ballad: 1. Small and popular music; 2. A Godly ballad to a Godly tune; 3. The 1642 Stock; Part II. The Broadside Picture: 4. Idols in the frontispiece; 5. Stories for walls; 6. Godly tables for good householders; Part III. The Chapbook: 7. The development of the chapbook trade; 8. Penny books and marketplace theology; Conclusion.
This book looks at popular belief through a detailed study of the cheapest printed wares in London in the century after the Reformation.
'This is a fascinating study of the impact of print and Protestanism on the popular culture of early modern England ... Tessa Watt makes an important contribution to our knowledge of how popular culture functioned in early modern society.' Journal of Ecclesiastical History '(Tessa Watt's) serious respectful study ... avoids both the value-judgements of the iconoclast and an unselective conceptual confusion, and allows her subject cognitive form and richness.' The Times Higher Education Supplement 'This is a pioneering book ... (which) will start historians thinking in a new way about the social and intellectual life of ordinary people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.' Christopher Hill
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
