The Age of Reformation: The Tudor and Stewart Realms 1485-1603

by Alec Ryrie

The sixteenth century was an age of Reformation. There was religious reformation, as Protestantism came to England, Scotland and even Ireland, bringing liberation, chaos and bloodshed in its wake. And there was political reformation, as the Tudor and Stewart (later 'Stuart') monarchs made their authority felt within and beyond their kingdoms more than any of their predecessors. Together, these two reformations produced not only a new religion, but a new politics -absolutist yet pluralist, populist yet law-bound - and a new society - controlled, fractured, yet more widely engaged and empowered than ever before. In this book, Alec Ryrie provides an authoritative overview of these momentous events, showing how religion, politics and social change were always intimately interlinked, from the murderous politics of the Tudor court to the building and fragmentation of new religious and social identities in the parishes. Drawing on the most recent research, he explains why events took the course they did - and why that course was so often an unexpected and an unlikely one.

Genres: History, Religion, Nonfiction, School

360 pages, Paperback

First published June 27, 2009

About the author

Alec Ryrie is a prize-winning historian of the Reformation and Protestantism. He is the author of Unbelievers: An Emotional History of Doubt and Protestants: The Faith That Made the Modern World. Ryrie is Professor of the History of Christianity at Durham University and Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London.

Reviews

[Chad D · Rating 5 out of 5]

funny, thrilling

[Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ultimately a concise introduction to the politics and religious turmoil of Tudor Britain and Scotland under the Stewarts (From Bosworth to the accession of James I/James VI).

What Ryrie achieves in 292 pages is deliver an effective summary on how the continental Reformation affected British (and Irish) politics, with due diligence given to the slow mutation from Elective Monarchy to Hereditary Monarchy, which seems to be one of the book's main lines of analysis. British (England + Wales) affairs are thankfully not treated separately from those of Scotland or Ireland, but as an ensemble, which points towards the more 'unified' nature of the British Isles in the 17th century.

There is worthy praise for the treatment given to Scottish politics, highlighting the principal cultural differences, as well as shared history, with its southern neighbour. However, it would have been nice if Wales and Ireland had received this same level of attention (although this is acknowledged by Ryrie in the preface of this second edition).

On a personal note, the use of endnotes instead of footnotes is frustrating, as it is sometimes difficult to know which work from the bibliography is being referenced.

[reagan schwartz]

read in: sophomore year