The pastor in print : genre, audience, and religious change in early modern England / Amy G. Tan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Tan, Amy Gant, author.

Series:

Politics, culture, and society in early modern Britain.

Politics, culture and society in early modern Britain

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Religion and literature--England--History--16th century.

Religion and literature.

Clergy--Books and reading--England--History--16th century.

Clergy.

England--Religion--16th century.

England.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 268 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Manchester : Manchester University Press, 2022.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

This study analyses the career choices and religious contexts of early modern pastors who chose to become print authors, addressing ways that the ability to publish could enhance, limit, or change pastoral ministry. It demonstrates ways ministers strategically tailored content and genre to achieve certain religious goals among both clerical and lay audiences, and considers ways in which authorship was interconnected with parish work as well as one's position within the national church. The book features an extended case study of Richard Bernard, a particularly prolific pastor-author whose career provides a coherent framework through which to analyse key features of early modern pastoral-authorial work. It further gives attention to George Gifford, Thomas Wilson, and Samuel Hieron, each of whose career circumstances and authorial choices broaden our view of different ways clerics might incorporate print as an intentional part of their religious vocation. As the first book-length analysis of the phenomenon of early modern pastors writing for print, this study provides a paradigm for understanding these clerics' efforts in print and parish as an integral part of their careers and their overarching religious goals. By addressing pastoral-authorial work across the span of a career, and by considering how pastor-authors engaged a wide range of topics and genres, the study engages with multiple areas of current scholarly interest: censorship, private religious devotion, polemic, witchcraft, religious education, reference works, and more. The study provides a remarkably comprehensive picture of pastoral publishing and offers a new lens through which to view the intersection of emerging print technologies and religious work in this pivotal period.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: pt. I Religious goals: pastoral approaches to devotion, vocation, and print

1. The ubiquity of `the devotional'

2. The making of a pastor-author

3. The call to preach and the question of printed sermons

pt. II Audiences: imagining and fostering relationships with readers

4. If you learn nothing else: catechisms and the question of the fundamentals of the faith

5. Different audiences, different messages: explication and implication in anti-Catholic publications

6. A bit of parish trouble and a manual on giving: self-representation to insiders and outsiders

pt. III Innovation: adapting content, genre, and format

7. A trial, a guide for jurors, and an allegory: one experience inspiring generically divergent publications

8. A puritan pastor-author in the 1630s: tailoring the presentation of theological content

9. `That all the Lord's people could prophesy': innovating in the reference genre (and turning against episcopacy?)

10. The paradigm of the `pastor-author' beyond Bernard.

Notes:

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Feb 2026).

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9781526152190

1526152193

9781526169914

1526169916

9781526152213

1526152215

OCLC:

1346820334