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IMC 2007: Sessions

Session 1320: Urban Religion in Pre-Reformation England

Wednesday 11 July 2007, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol
Organiser:James G. Clark, Department of History, University of Exeter
Moderator/Chair:Pamela M. King, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Bristol
Paper 1320-aCivic Religion in Pre-Reformation England: Bristol and London
(Language: English)
Clive Burgess, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Economics - Urban, Religious Life, Social History
Paper 1320-bRethinking the Monastic Borough in Pre-Reformation England
(Language: English)
James G. Clark, Department of History, University of Exeter
Index terms: Ecclesiastical History, Economics - Urban, Monasticism, Religious Life
Paper 1320-cReligion and Provincial Urban Society in the Last Decades of Catholicism
(Language: English)
Dave Postles, School of English, University of Leicester
Index terms: Economics - General, Education, Religious Life, Social History
Abstract

The aim of this session is to re-assess the character of religious life in England in a cross-section of urban contexts – city, monastic borough, provincial town – in the century before 1540. There is a general assumption that aspirant urban elites were progressive, perhaps even radical, in religion, and, when it came, welcomed, and were complicit in, the challenge to the old clerical order. The papers presented here, which examine the issue from a variety of urban perspectives, suggest the religious and political dynamics of the period were more complex, and the response to reformation in each case was hardly predictable.