From the late 1300s to the Reformation, alabaster carving was a major activity in the English Midlands, in an area centred on Nottingham. Altarpieces and panels were produced for the home market, but also for export; the sculptures have a distinctive style, dictated by the religious subjects and by the material, and were usually painted and gilded. At the Reformation, such items were hidden or destroyed, and it is the survival of numerous continental examples, particularly in France, together with the remaining examples from England, that enables the history of alabaster carving to be documented.
The Intellectual Origins of the European Reformation, 2nd ed.
It is widely recognized that the sixteenth-century Reformation remains one of the most fascinating and exciting areas of scholarship. A central and important question, raised by intensive modern research on the Renaissance and late medieval scholasticism, concerns the intellectual origins of the Reformation.
This is the first comprehensive study of one of the most important aspects of the Reformation in England: its impact on the status of the dead. Protestant reformers insisted vehemently that between heaven and hell there was no 'middle place' of purgatory where the souls of the departed could be assisted by the prayers of those still living on earth. This was no remote theological proposition, but a revolutionary doctrine affecting the lives of all sixteenth-century English people, and the ways in which their Church and society were organized.
This study of popular responses to the English Reformation analyzes how ordinary people received, interpreted, debated, and responded to religious change. It differs from other studies by arguing that the subject cannot be understood simply by asking theological questions about people's beliefs, but must be understood by asking political questions about how they negotiated with state power. Therefore, it concerns political as well as religious history, since it asserts that, even at the popular level, political and theological processes were inseparable in the sixteenth century.
Dr. Will Durant and his wife Ariel have created the twentieth century's classic masterwork of history for the general reader. The Story of Civilization is brought to life in eleven volumes: (1) Our Oriental Heritage; (2) The Life of Greece; (3) Caesar and Christ; (4) The Age of Faith; (5) The Renaissance; (6) The Reformation; (7) The Age of Reason Begins; (8) The Age of Louis XIV; (9) The Age of Voltaire; (10) Rousseau & Revolution; and (11) The Age of Napoleon.
