The World of Rural Dissenters, 1520}}}1725 [Paperback]

A 1995 study of religious belief and practice in England in the early modern period.A 1995 study of religious belief and practice in England in the early modern period. Using evidence from an extensive survey of the taxation records of church wardens and groups of dissenters, this study challenges the view that only the prosperous classes were concerned with religious practice.A 1995 study of religious belief and practice in England in the early modern period. Using evidence from an extensive survey of the taxation records of church wardens and groups of dissenters, this study challenges the view that only the prosperous classes were concerned with religious practice.There has been dispute among social historians about whether only the more prosperous in village society were involved in religious practice. By examining the taxation records of sufficiently large groups of dissenters and church wardens, this book presents a factual solution. It also uses economic sources, and information on communications and population mobility, in essays that are not normally grouped with ecclesiastical material. This is a book that breaks new ground, offering fresh material for ecclesiastical, cultural, demographic and economic historians of the early modern period.Preface; 1. The importance of religion in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries Margaret Spufford; 2. The social and economic status of the later Lollards Derek Plumb; 3. A gathered church? Lollards and their society Derek Plumb; 4. The origins, function, and status of the office of churchwarden, with particular reference to the diocese of Ely Eric Carlson; 5. The gravestone of Thomas Lawrence revisited, or the Family of Love and the local community in Balsham, 15601630 Christopher Marsh; 6. Piety in the pedlar's pack: continuity and change, 15781630 Tessa Watt; 7. The mobility and descent of dissenters in the Chiltern Hundreds Michael Frearson, Nesta Evans and Peter Spufford; 8. The social and economic status of pol£-