Torrance Kirby – författare

The open-air pulpit in Paul's Churchyard in the City of London, known as Paul's Cross, is one of the most important vehicles of popular public persuasion employed by government from the outset of the Henrician Reformation in the early 1530s until the opening salvos of the Civil War when the pulpit was demolished. Paul's Cross became especially prominent as the public face of government when Thomas Cromwell orchestrated propaganda for the Henrician reformation in the early 1530s. Here too, after the accession of Edward VI, Hugh Latimer preached his 'Sermon on the Ploughers', one of the most celebrated sermons of the English Reformation. While Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London sat here listening to a sermon in 1553, a riot broke out. In November 1559, John Jewel preached his celebrated 'Challenge Sermon' here, arguably the most influential of all sermons delivered at Paul's Cross throughout the Tudor era. Near the end of Elizabeth's reign William Barlow mounted the pulpit to pronounce the government's response to the abortive rebellion of the Earl of Essex. Barlow preached another sermon at Paul's Cross in the wake of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Throughout the early modern period, Paul's Cross remained continuously at the epicentre of events which radically transformed England's religious and political identities. And throughout this transformation, animated as it was by a popular 'culture of persuasion' which Paul's Cross itself came to exemplify, the pulpit contributed enormously to the emergence of a new public arena of discourse. Many of these sermons preached at Paul's Cross have been lost; yet a considerable number have survived both in manuscript and in early printed editions. This edition makes available a selection of Paul's Cross sermons representative of this rich period in the maturation of England's popular culture of persuasion.

Richard Hooker was a learned philosophical theologian and engaged polemicist of the later sixteenth century who explained and defended the Elizabethan religious and political settlement, and shaped definitively the self-understanding of the English ecclesiastical establishment for centuries to come. This Companion to Richard Hooker brings together a representative body of contributors with a view to offering a summary of the current state of scholarly debate and a synthesis of emerging trends in criticism. Contributions to this volume reflect the major current trends of scholarly opinion on Hooker’s place within the mainstream of Protestant reform. This Companion aims to provide a comprehensive and systematic introduction to Richard Hooker’s life, works, thought, reputation, and influence.Contributors are: Rudolph P. Almasy, Daniel Eppley, Lee W. Gibbs, Egil Grislis, William Harrison, W. Speed Hill, Ranall Ingalls, Dean Kernan, Torrance Kirby, Diarmaid MacCulloch, A. S. McGrade, W. David Neelands, W. Brown Patterson, Debora K. Shuger, Corneliu C. Simuţ, John K. Stafford, Paul Stanwood, James F. Turrell, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Rowan Williams.

The great Florentine Protestant reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli (1499-1562) made a unique contribution to the scriptural hermeneutics of the Renaissance and Reformation, where classical theories of interpretation derived from Patristic and Scholastic sources engaged with new methods drawn from Humanism and Hebraism. Vermigli was one of the pioneers of the sixteenth century in acknowledging and harnessing the biblical scholarship of the medieval Rabbis. His eminence in the Catholic Church in Italy (until 1542) was followed by an equally distinguished career as theologian and exegete in Protestant Europe where he was professor successively in Strasbourg, Oxford, and finally in Zurich. The Companion consists of 24 essays divided among five themes addressing Vermigli’s international career, hermeneutical method, biblical commentaries, major theological topics, and his later influence.Contributors include: Scott Amos, Michael Baumann, Jon Balserak, Luca Baschera, Maurice Boutin, Emidio Campi, John Patrick Donnelly SJ, Max Engammare, Gerald Hobbs, Frank James III, Gary Jenkins, Robert Kingdon, Torrance Kirby, William Klempa, Joseph McLelland, Charlotte Methuen, Christian Moser, David Neelands, Peter Opitz, Herman Selderhuis, Daniel Shute, David Wright, and Jason Zuidema.