Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur-verzeichnis": p. 148-152.

Inaug.-diss.--Leipzig. / Lebenslauf. "Literatur-verzeichnis": p. 148-152.

Thesis--Cornell.

Between 1825 and 1880, the reputation of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English Puritanism underwent dramatic changes. From the Restoration of 1660 through to the 1820s, Puritanism was vilified or ignored by most ‘respected’ commentators. However, there was then a significant change in attitudes, and by 1874, the historian Samuel Rawson Gardiner was providing a highly positive view of the Puritans’ role in English history. This thesis considers the questions of how and why historical writers contributed to a ‘recovery’ of Puritanism during this period. In addressing these questions, this thesis undertakes a detailed analysis of what a number of leading Victorian men of letters wrote about the Puritans and Puritanism. Thomas Babington Macaulay and Thomas Carlyle in particular were instrumental in the new, more positive interpretation of Puritanism, and they in turn were influential upon diverse writers, including John Charles Ryle, John Stoughton, James Anthony Froude, and Charles Kingsley – who all presented Puritanism positively in their historical writing, but who often had strikingly different agendas. The thesis argues that this ‘recovery’ of Puritanism was very broad and was reflected in different intellectual frameworks and ideas. These included, but were not restricted to, the Whig political reforms of the second quarter of the century; the idealisation of hero-worship; the justification and celebration of Imperial Britain; the Evangelical movement, both Dissenting and within the Church of England; social conservatism regarding the role of women; the support of literary censorship and ‘plain’ fashion; and discussions of appropriate and effective literary and rhetorical styles. Our writers presented their interpretations through a range of media, from overtly teleological pamphlets and public lectures, to novels and dramatic presentations of events, to more source-based, objective and analytical writing that would be recognized as ‘serious history’ today. Through investigating these different angles, the thesis shows how the discipline of history was developing during the second two quarters of the nineteenth century, and considers how the new historical methodologies and approaches influenced both ‘amateur’ and ‘professional’ historical writers.

Typescript (photocopy). / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1984. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Bibliography: leaves 222-225.

Discusses the contrasts apparent in the Victorian era British writers Carlyle and Macaulay with reference to history, biography, and literary criticism.

Early modern English Catholic eschatology, the belief that the present was the last age and an associated concern with mankind’s destiny, has been overlooked in the historiography. Historians have established that early modern Protestants had an eschatological understanding of the present. This thesis seeks to balance the picture and the sources indicate that there was an early modern English Catholic counter narrative. This thesis suggests that the Catholic eschatological understanding of contemporary events affected political action. It investigates early modern English Catholic eschatology in the context of proscription and persecution of Catholicism between 1558 and 1603. Devotional eschatology was the corner stone of individual Catholic eschatology and placed earthly life in an apocalyptic time-frame. Catholic devotional works challenged the regime and questioned Protestantism. Devotional eschatology is suggestive of a worldview which expected an impending apocalypse but there was a reluctance to date the End. With an eschatological outlook normalised by daily devotional eschatology the Reformation and contemporary events were interpreted apocalyptically. An apocalyptic understanding of the break with Rome was not exclusively Protestant. Indeed, the identification of Antichrist was not just a Protestant concern but rather the linchpin of Reformation debates between Catholics and Protestants. Some identified Elizabeth as Jezebel, the Whore of Babylon. The Bull of Excommunication of 1570 and its language provided papal authority for identifications of Elizabeth as the Whore. The execution of Mary Queen of Scots was a flashpoint which enabled previously hidden ideas to burst into public discourse. This was dangerous as eschatology and apocalypticism was a language of political action. An eschatological understanding of contemporary events encouraged conspiracy. The divine plan required human agents. Catholic prophecy and conspiracy show that eschatology did not just affect how the future was thought about but also had implications for the present. This thesis raises questions about Catholic loyalism which other scholars have also begun to challenge. Yet attempts to depose or murder the monarch was not the only response which could be adopted. Belief that one was living in the End also supported what this thesis terms ‘militant passivity’. Martyrs understood their suffering as a form of eschatological agency which revealed and confirmed the identities of the Antichrist and the Whore. The Book of the Apocalypse promised that they would be rewarded at God’s approaching Judgement and the debates of the Reformation would be settled by the ultimate Judge. As martyrs came to symbolise the English Catholic community, it came to understand itself eschatologically. This thesis argues that acknowledging the eschatological dimensions of Catholic perception and action helps us to re-think the nature of early modern English Catholicism.