Humanism and the Reform of Sacred Music in Early Modern England

Humanism and the Reform of Sacred Music in Early Modern England PDF Author: Hyun-Ah Kim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317119584
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 298

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Book Description
John Merbecke (c.1505-c.1585) is most famous as the composer of the first musical setting of the English liturgy, The Booke of Common Praier Noted (BCPN), published in 1550. Not only was Merbecke a pioneer in setting English prose to music but also the compiler of the first Concordance of the whole English Bible (1550) and of the first English encyclopaedia of biblical and theological studies, A Booke of Notes and Common Places (1581). By situating Merbecke and his work within a broader intellectual and religio-cultural context of Tudor England, this book challenges the existing studies of Merbecke based on the narrow theological approach to the Reformation. Furthermore, it suggests a re-thinking of the prevailing interpretative framework of Reformation musical history. On the basis of the new contextual study of Merbecke, this book seeks to re-interpret his work, particularly BCPN, in the light of humanist rhetoric. It sees Merbecke as embodying the ideal of the 'Christian-musical orator', demonstrating that BCPN is an Anglican epitome of the Erasmian synthesis of eloquence, theology and music. The book thus depicts Merbecke as a humanist reformer, through re-evaluation of his contributions to the developments of vernacular music and literature in early modern England. As such it will be of interest, not only to church musicians, but also to historians of the Reformation and students of wider Tudor culture.

Humanism and the Reform of Sacred Music in Early Modern England

Humanism and the Reform of Sacred Music in Early Modern England PDF Author: Hyun-Ah Kim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317119592
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
John Merbecke (c.1505-c.1585) is most famous as the composer of the first musical setting of the English liturgy, The Booke of Common Praier Noted (BCPN), published in 1550. Not only was Merbecke a pioneer in setting English prose to music but also the compiler of the first Concordance of the whole English Bible (1550) and of the first English encyclopaedia of biblical and theological studies, A Booke of Notes and Common Places (1581). By situating Merbecke and his work within a broader intellectual and religio-cultural context of Tudor England, this book challenges the existing studies of Merbecke based on the narrow theological approach to the Reformation. Furthermore, it suggests a re-thinking of the prevailing interpretative framework of Reformation musical history. On the basis of the new contextual study of Merbecke, this book seeks to re-interpret his work, particularly BCPN, in the light of humanist rhetoric. It sees Merbecke as embodying the ideal of the 'Christian-musical orator', demonstrating that BCPN is an Anglican epitome of the Erasmian synthesis of eloquence, theology and music. The book thus depicts Merbecke as a humanist reformer, through re-evaluation of his contributions to the developments of vernacular music and literature in early modern England. As such it will be of interest, not only to church musicians, but also to historians of the Reformation and students of wider Tudor culture.

Music and Religious Education in Early Modern Europe

Music and Religious Education in Early Modern Europe PDF Author:
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004470395
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Exploring the nexus of music and religious education involves fundamental questions regarding music itself, its nature, its interpretation, and its importance in relation to both education and the religious practices into which it is integrated. This cross-disciplinary volume of essays offers the first comprehensive set of studies to examine the role of music in educational and religious reform and the underlying notions of music in early modern Europe. It elucidates the context and manner in which music served as a means of religious teaching and learning during that time, thereby identifying the religio-cultural and intellectual foundations of early modern European musical phenomena and their significance for exploring the interplay of music and religious education today.

The Praise of Musicke, 1586

The Praise of Musicke, 1586 PDF Author: Hyun-Ah Kim
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317019385
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This volume provides the first printed critical edition of The Praise of Musicke (1586), keeping the original text intact and accompanied by an analytical commentary. Against the Puritan attacks on liturgical music, The Praise of Musicke, the first apologetic treatise on music in English, epitomizes the Renaissance defence of music in civil and religious life. While existing studies of The Praise of Musicke are limited to the question of authorship, the present volume scrutinizes its musical discourse, which recapitulates major issues in the ancient philosophy and theology of music, considering the contemporary practice of sacred and secular music. Through an interdisciplinary analysis of The Praise of Musicke, combining historical musicology with philosophical theology, this study situates the treatise and its author within the wider historical, intellectual and religious context of musical polemics and apologetics of the English Reformation, thereby appraising its significance in the history of musical theory and literature. The book throws fresh light on this substantial but neglected treatise that presents, with critical insights, the most learned discussion of music from classical antiquity to the Renaissance and Reformation era. In doing so it offers a new interpretation of the treatise, which marks a milestone in the history of musical apologetics.

Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare

Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare PDF Author: Chahra Beloufa
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040016537
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 211

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Book Description
Speech Act Theory and Shakespeare delves deeper than linguistic ornamentation to illuminate the complex dynamics of thanking as a significant speech act in Shakespearean plays. The word “thanks” appears nearly 400 times in 37 Shakespearean plays, calling for a careful investigation of its veracity as a speech act in the 16th-century setting. This volume combines linguistic analysis to explore the various uses of thanks, focusing on key thanking scenes across a spectrum of plays, including All’s Well That Ends Well, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, The Winter’s Tale, and the Henriad. Shakespeare’s works indicate the act of thanking to be more than a normal part of dialogue; it is an artistic expression fraught with pitfalls similar to those of negative speech acts. The study aims to determine what compels the characters in Shakespeare to offer thanks and evaluates Shakespeare’s accomplishment in imbuing the word “thanks” with performance quality in the theatrical sphere. This work adds to our comprehension of Shakespearean plays and larger conversations on the challenges of language usage in theatrical and cultural settings by examining the convergence of gratitude with power dynamics, political intrigue, and interpersonal relationships, drawing on a multidisciplinary approach that includes pragmatics, philosophy, religion, and psychology.

Gender and Song in Early Modern England

Gender and Song in Early Modern England PDF Author: Leslie C. Dunn
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317130480
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 236

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Book Description
Song offers a vital case study for examining the rich interplay of music, gender, and representation in the early modern period. This collection engages with the question of how gender informed song within particular textual, social, and spatial contexts in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Bringing together ongoing work in musicology, literary studies, and film studies, it elaborates an interdisciplinary consideration of the embodied and gendered facets of song, and of song’s capacity to function as a powerful-and flexible-gendered signifier. The essays in this collection draw vivid attention to song as a situated textual and musical practice, and to the gendered processes and spaces of song's circulation and reception. In so doing, they interrogate the literary and cultural significance of song for early modern readers, performers, and audiences.

Sin and Salvation in Reformation England

Sin and Salvation in Reformation England PDF Author: Jonathan Willis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317054938
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Notions of which behaviours comprised sin, and what actions might lead to salvation, sat at the heart of Christian belief and practice in early modern England, but both of these vitally important concepts were fundamentally reconfigured by the reformation. Remarkably little work has been undertaken exploring the ways in which these essential ideas were transformed by the religious changes of the sixteenth-century. In the field of reformation studies, revisionist scholarship has underlined the vitality of late-medieval English Christianity and the degree to which people remained committed to the practices of the Catholic Church up to the eve of the reformation, including those dealing with the mortification of sin and the promise of salvation. Such popular commitment to late-medieval lay piety has in turn raised questions about how the reformation itself was able to take root. Whilst post-revisionist scholars have explored a wide range of religious beliefs and practices - such as death, providence, angels, and music - there has been a surprising lack of engagement with the two central religious preoccupations of the vast majority of people. To address this omission, this collection focusses upon the history and theology of sin and salvation in reformation and post-reformation England. Exploring their complex social and cultural constructions, it underlines how sin and salvation were not only great religious constants, but also constantly evolving in order to survive in the rapidly transforming religious landscape of the reformation. Drawing upon a range of disciplinary perspectives - historical, theological, literary, and material/art-historical - to both reveal and explain the complexity of the concepts of sin and salvation, the volume further illuminates a subject central to the nature and success of the Reformation itself. Divided into four sections, Part I explores reformers’ attempts to define and re-define the theological concepts of sin and salvation, while Part II looks at some of the ways in which sin and salvation were contested: through confessional conflict, polemic, poetry and martyrology. Part III focuses on the practical attempts of English divines to reform sin with respect to key religious practices, while Part IV explores the significance of sin and salvation in the lived experience of both clergy and laity. Evenly balancing contributions by established academics in the field with cutting-edge contributions from junior researchers, this collection breaks new ground, in what one historian of the period has referred to as the ‘social history of theology’.

Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626

Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626 PDF Author: Joshua Rodda
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131707338X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
With a focus on England from the accession of Elizabeth I to the mid-1620s, this book examines the practice of direct, scholarly disputation between fundamentally opposing and oftentimes antagonistic Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist puritan divines. Introducing a form of discourse hitherto neglected in studies of religious controversy, the volume works to rehabilitate a body of material only previously examined as part of the great, subjective mass of polemic produced in the wake of the Reformation. In so doing, it argues that public religious disputation - debate between opposing clergymen, arranged according to strict academic formulae - can offer new insights into contemporary beliefs, thought processes and conceptions of religious identity, as well as an accessible and dramatic window into the major theological controversies of the age. Formal disputation crossed confessional lines, and here provides an opportunity for a broad, comparative analysis. More than any other type of interaction or material, these encounters - and the dialogic accounts they produced - displayed the shared methods underpinning religious divisions, allowing Catholic and reformed clergymen to meet on the same field. The present volume asserts the significance of public religious disputation (and accounts thereof) in this regard, and explores their use of formal logic, academic procedure and recorded dialogue form to bolster religious controversy. In this, it further demonstrates how we might begin to move from the surviving source material for these encounters to the events themselves, and how the disputations then offer a remarkable new glimpse into the construction, rationalization and expression of post-Reformation religious argument.

Dying, Death, Burial and Commemoration in Reformation Europe

Dying, Death, Burial and Commemoration in Reformation Europe PDF Author: Elizabeth C. Tingle
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317147499
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
In recent years, the rituals and beliefs associated with the end of life and the commemoration of the dead have increasingly been identified as of critical importance in understanding the social and cultural impact of the Reformation. The associated processes of dying, death and burial inevitably generated heightened emotion and a strong concern for religious propriety: the ways in which funerary customs were accepted, rejected, modified and contested can therefore grant us a powerful insight into the religious and social mindset of individuals, communities, Churches and even nation states in the post-reformation period. This collection provides an historiographical overview of recent work on dying, death and burial in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe and draws together ten essays from historians, literary scholars, musicologists and others working at the cutting edge of research in this area. As well as an interdisciplinary perspective, it also offers a broad geographical and confessional context, ranging across Catholic and Protestant Europe, from Scotland, England and the Holy Roman Empire to France, Spain and Ireland. The essays update and augment the body of literature on dying, death and disposal with recent case studies, pointing to future directions in the field. The volume is organised so that its contents move dynamically across the rites of passage, from dying to death, burial and the afterlife. The importance of spiritual care and preparation of the dying is one theme that emerges from this work, extending our knowledge of Catholic ars moriendi into Protestant Britain. Mourning and commemoration; the fate of the soul and its post-mortem management; the political uses of the dead and their resting places, emerge as further prominent themes in this new research. Providing contrasts and comparisons across different European regions and across Catholic and Protestant regions, the collection contributes to and extends the existing literature on this important historiographical theme.

The Early Reformation in Germany

The Early Reformation in Germany PDF Author: Tom Scott
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317034864
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 311

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Book Description
Over the last twenty years research on the Reformation in Germany has shifted both chronologically and thematically toward an interest in the ’long’ or ’delayed’ Reformations, and the structure and operation of the Holy Roman Empire. Whilst this focus has resulted in many fascinating new insights, it has also led to the relative neglect of the early Reformation movement. Put together with the explicit purpose of encouraging scholars to reengage with the early ’storm years’ of the German Reformation, this collection of eleven essays by Tom Scott, explores several issues in the historiography of the early Reformation which have not been adequately addressed. The debate over the nature and function of anticlericalism remains unresolved; the mainsprings of iconoclasm are still imperfectly understood; the ideological role of evangelical doctrines in stimulating and legitimising popular rebellion - above all in the German Peasants’ War - remains contentious, while the once uniform view of Anabaptism has given way to a recognition of the plurality and diversity of religious radicalism. Equally, there are questions which, initially broached, have then been sidelined with undue haste: the failure of Reforming movements in certain German cities, or the perception of what constituted heresy in the eyes of the Reformers themselves, and not least, the part played by women in the spread of evangelical doctrines. Consisting of seven essays previously published in scholarly journals and edited volumes, together with three new chapters and an historical afterword, Scott’s volume serves as a timely reminder of the importance of the early decades of the sixteenth century. By reopening seemingly closed issues and by revisiting neglected topics the volume contributes to a more nuanced understanding of what the Reformation in Germany entailed.

Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England

Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England PDF Author: Jonathan Willis
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317166248
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 315

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Book Description
'Church Music and Protestantism in Post-Reformation England' breaks new ground in the religious history of Elizabethan England, through a closely focused study of the relationship between the practice of religious music and the complex process of Protestant identity formation. Hearing was of vital importance in the early modern period, and music was one of the most prominent, powerful and emotive elements of religious worship. But in large part, traditional historical narratives of the English Reformation have been distinctly tone deaf. Recent scholarship has begun to take increasing notice of some elements of Reformed musical practice, such as the congregational singing of psalms in meter. This book marks a significant advance in that area, combining an understanding of theory as expressed in contemporary religious and musical discourse, with a detailed study of the practice of church music in key sites of religious worship. Divided into three sections - 'Discourses', 'Sites', and 'Identities' - the book begins with an exploration of the classical and religious discourses which underpinned sixteenth-century understandings of music, and its use in religious worship. It then moves on to an investigation of the actual practice of church music in parish and cathedral churches, before shifting its attention to the people of Elizabethan England, and the ways in which music both served and shaped the difficult process of Protestantisation. Through an exploration of these issues, and by reintegrating music back into the Elizabethan church, we gain an expanded and enriched understanding of the complex evolution of religious identities, and of what it actually meant to be Protestant in post-Reformation England.