Persuasion and Conversion

Torrance Kirby, DPhil (1988) in Modern History, Christ Church, University of Oxford, is Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Director of the Centre for Research on Religion at McGill University. He has published extensively on the thought of Richard Hooker and recently edited A Companion to Richard Hooker (Brill, 2008).

“[This book] offers an account of the Reformation that takes new and recent research in challenging directions while reasserting the importance of the period to our understanding of modernity.”Mary Morrissey, University of Reading. In: Renaissance Quarterly, Vol. 67, No. 4 (Winter 2014), pp. 1406-1407.‘’The volume is more than the sum of its parts. It offers an account of the Reformation that takes new and recent research in challenging directions while reasserting the importance of the period to our understanding of modernity’’Mary Morrisey, University of Reading. In: Renaissance Quarterly , Vol. 67, No. 4, Winter 2014, p. 1407.

• Abbreviations and AcronymsIntroduction1Religion and propaganda: Thomas Cromwell’s use of Antoine de Marcourt’s Livre des Marchans in 15342Public forum and forum of the conscience: John Calvin’s theological groundwork of the modern public sphere3Lay Supremacy: Tudor reform of the Canon Law of England4Public preaching: Paul’s Cross and the culture of persuasion5Public conversion: Richard Smyth’s ‘Retractation Sermon’ at Paul’s Cross, 15476Politics of hermeneutics: John Jewel’s ‘Challenge Sermon’ at Paul’s Cross, 15597Politics of religious identity: John Foxe, Richard Hooker and the nascent public sphere8Politics of persuasion: ‘public’ and ‘private’ in Hooker’s apologetics9Public religion and public worship: the hermeneutics of Common PrayerBibliographyIndex