Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, 1558–1642

Abstract

Scholars do not contest that English Reformation culture centred on ‘the word preached’; that before the advent of newsbooks, sermons were the primary means available for shaping public opinion; or that the sermons of men like Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne were valued as literary works of the highest order. Throughout the Reformation period, England’s most important public pulpit was Paul’s Cross, which stood in the churchyard of St Paul’s Cathedral in London. This book offers a detailed history of the Paul’s Cross sermons from the reign of Elizabeth I until the destruction of the pulpit under Charles I. It explains the arrangement for the sermons’ delivery and the tensions between the different authorities (the royal government, the bishops of London, and the Corporation of London) who controlled them. The increasing role that the Paul’s Cross sermons played in London’s civic culture after the Reformation is discussed, and an account is given of the narrowing of the sermons’ audience in the years preceding the English Civil War. This book explores early modern English homiletics, so that preachers’ adaptation of sermon genres to suit sermons on religious controversies or on political anniversaries (such as 5 November) can be described. The relationship between the different textual forms in which sermons are preserved is considered. This is an interdisciplinary study of England’s most significant sermon series, and will be of interest to early modern historians and literary critics.

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