BIRTH
1: Childbed Mysteries: God's Babies: The Spiritual Construction of
Childbirth; Comforts for Childbearing Women; Suffering and Death;
The Archers: A Family History
2: The Management of Childbirth: Books for the Birth of Mankind;
Signs of Conception; Care of the Expectant Mother; Abortion;
Preparations for the Birth Room
3: Childbed Attendants: Reputable Midwives; Midwives and Ministers;
Midwives in Action; Bastard Births
4: Mother and Child: The Woman in the Straw; Childbed Gossips; The
Blessings of the Breast; The Wetnurse and the Martyr
BAPTISM
5: Baptism as Sacrament and Drama: Questions of Contention; Timing,
Refusal and Neglect; Liturgy; Theology; Lost Souls; Baptism by
Women
6: Crosses in Baptism: The Sign of the Cross; Elements and
Substances; Dipping and Sprinkling; Fonts and Basins
7: The People with the Children: Parents and Godparents; Naming the
Child; Chrisom Cloths and Christening Sheets; Christening Cheer
8: Changes and Challenges: Baptism in Times of Distraction,
1642-1660; Baptism after the Restoration; The Rise of Private
Baptism
CHURCHING
9: Purification, Thanksgiving, and the Churching of Women:
Viewpoints; Gossippings; Green Women; Blessing and Cleansing;
Complaints and Objections; Rates and Fees; Cases and Collisions;
Decent Veils; "Julia's Churching"; Churching continued, 1645-1700;
Multiple Meanings
COURTSHIP
10: Courtship and the Making of Marriage: Courtship Narratives;
Making a Match; Choice and Consent; Mutual Love and Good Liking;
Gifts and Tokens
11: Espousals, Betrothals and Contracts: Cementing an Engagement;
Carnal Knowledge
MARRIAGE
12: Holy Matrimony: Transformations; Problems and Questions; God's
Weddings
13: Prohibitions and Impediments: Forbidden Seasons; Banns and
Licences; Impediments; Prohibited Degrees; Religious
Restrictions
14: Clandestine and Irregular Marriages: Canonical Hours;
Clandestine Weddings; "Living together as man and wife"; After the
Restoration
15: Nuptial Vows: The Solemnization of Matrimony; Giving the Bride;
The Ring in Marriage; The Accustomed Duty
16: Wedding Celebrations: Festive Excess; Hymen's Revels; Wedding
Gear; Bridal Flowers; Giving and Bidding; Bridal Processions; Acts
of Piety and Mirth; Possets and Stockings
DEATH
17: Death Comes for All: Body and Soul; Ars Moriendi; Grief
18: Ritual and Reformation: The Order for Burial of the Dead;
Persistent Tradition; Puritan Criticism; Ceremonial Discipline; The
War on Pomp; Revolution and Restoration
19: Funerals and Burials: For Whom the Bell Tolls; Winding and
Watching; Furnishings and Equipment; Funeral Processions; Mourning
Black; Doles and Dinners; The Triumph of Pomp
20: The Geography of Interment: Fees and Dues; Places of Honour;
The Dormitory of Christians; Markers and Memorials
Conclusion: Centres and Peripheries; Public and Private; Social and
Spiritual; Stories within Stories; Men and women; Problems and
changes; Reformation, Revolution and Restoration
Index
Winner of the John Ben Snow Prize of the North American Conference on British Studies, for best book on British history published in 1997
David Cressy is Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach.
`the volume will remain the essential beginning point for all
future study of life-cycle rituals. It is useful for undergraduates
and fundamental for all serious students and scholars.'
Michael J. Galgano, Religious Studies Review, Vol 27, No 2, April
2001
`In this richly detailed and beautifully written study, Cressy
examines the life-cycle religious rituals against the backdrop of
the broader social and cultural tensions transforming England in
early modern times ... The work soars in its thorough explanation
of each ritual, unique cases, and changing practice over time.'
Michael J. Galgano, Religious Studies Review, Vol 27, No 2, April
2001
`an engaging and scholarly study ... although this book claims to
be social history (of which it is a fine example), it is so much
more besides. The political, religious, cultural, and intellectual
historian will be able to take a great deal away from this book,
almost as much as his social colleague.'
Andrew Chibi, Reformation.
`By taking as his parameters the late-Tudorbethan Reformation
period and the aftermath of the glorious revolution, Cressy has
provided the context that a lot of social history lacks. And what
action-packed context it is!'
Andrew Chibi, Reformation.
`A good book? Certainly. An edifying read? Without doubt. To be
recommended? Highly and enthusiastically.'
Andrew Chibi, Reformation.
`the great service that Cressy has done us by collecting this
material and mapping the ritual of early modern England in such
fascinating detail.'
John Spurr, Besprechungen.
`Well versed in and eloquent about the theological implications of
rituals and the limitations of social theory, Cressy allows neither
to distract him from his primary task of describing these rituals
in all of their rich diversity. His book is a treasure trove of
information about early modern practices ... He is resourceful in
finding ways to take his readers into private spaces like the birth
room; he is innovative in his chapter on churching ... he is
lucid and authoritative on subjects such as 'clandestine marriage'
or puritan objections to Prayer Book ritual. Cressy will recount an
incident - whether a rowdy funeral or a secret marriage - and
then
offer several possible interpretations without imposing a single
definitive view.'
John Spurr, Besprechungen.
`Professor Cressy has woven his marvellous tapestry of the
experience of birth, marriage and death in Tudor and Stuart
England.'
John Spurr, Besprechungen.
`This is a big book on a huge subject ... and all for £25.'
Christopher Haigh and Alison Wall, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, Vol.50, No.3.
`There is a fascination, in the detail - rich, raw,
well-marshalled, sometimes funny, often poignant.'
Christopher Haigh and Alison Wall, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, Vol.50, No.3.
`Ritual will run and run. But David Cressy has brought us a long
way already, and written a valuable book.'
Christopher Haigh and Alison Wall, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, Vol.50, No.3.
`an extremely valuable work, erudite and enthralling.'
Skiles Howard, Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.51.No.2.
`His portrayal of life-cycle customs is cinematic in scope and
style, a vista of elite protocols, secular traditions, and the
contraversies surrounding them illuminated with a profusion of
closely focused and vivid anecdotes from everyday life.'
Skiles Howard, Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.51.No.2.
`an invaluable research companion to Shakespeare studies.'
Skiles Howard, Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.51.No.2.
`an encyclopedic yet captivating compendium of life-cycle customs
... and their social, cultural, and religious history.'
Skiles Howard, Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.51.No.2.
`An impressive study.'
Skiles Howard, Shakespeare Quarterly. Vol.51.No.2.
`huge but highly readable volume ... Cressy's interpretations are
highly judicious ... this book is a masterly survey and a vast fund
of fascinating insight into the conventions governing the world we
have lost.'
Roy Porter, Medical History
`This is a most readable and highly detailed examination of family
life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Taking the
life-cycle as its central theme it is essential reading for anyone
studying the patterns and rituals of family life in the
pre-industrial age. Combining a fascinating exploration of
available source materials it is clearly destined to become a
classic work on the subject.'
Local Population Studies
`imaginative, perceptive, integrated, and beautifully produced ...
Written with clarity, elegance and vivacity, it can stand
confidently alongside Keith Thomas's equally innovative Religion
and the Decline of Magic (1971).'
I. Roots, Cromwelliana 1998
`he has given us a blockbuster, which immediately becomes the
staple work upon its subject ... a massive compendium of
information .,.. It is a book with important ideas but not reliant
on them, for its material is so extensive and often so novel in
itself that it opens a door on a lost world of experience,
dispelling popular myths and removing areas of scholarly
ignorance.'
Times Literary Supplement
`detailed and absorbing book ... Cressy finds the same intensity
and messy variety in relationships that we know now. In a masterly
summary of the ways in which these past people are the same as us
and separated from us, he writes that grief 'was both a natural and
a cultural phenomenon. It was something people felt, but also
something they performed'.'
Diarmid MacCulloch, The Observer
`detailed and absorbing book'
Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Observer Review
`This is an important book that all English social historians will
need to digest. Luckily, given its length, it is digestible. It is
packed with fascinating anecdotes, and it is well written ... the
results are fascinating and tantilizing ... a book to be read for
pleasure and mined for evidence. Anyone working on early modern
social history will have to read it and ask him- or herself whether
Cressy's positivism had defeated the theorists. In Cressy's
world, sweeping generalizations are less important than real life
as he understands it.'
Norman Jones, Journal of Modern History, Vol 71, no 3, September
1999
`David Cressy's new book should be essential reading for anyone who
wants to understand how the religious rituals associated with
birth, marriage and death have managed to survive in the secular
climate of late 20th-century Britain, when the habit of regular
churchgoing has largely disappeared. Cressy has taken pains to make
his book accessible to the common reader. Cressy has a sharp eye
for detail, but he also manages to assemble these details into
a
strong and coherent argument.'
Arnold Hunt, Church Times
`a fascinating read in its own right and an invaluable reference
aid'
Derek Wilson, History Today
`should be essential reading for anyone who wants to understand how
the religious rituals associated with birth, marriage and death
have managed to survive in the secular climate of late 20th-century
Britain, when the habit of regular churchgoing has largely
disappeared. Cressy has a sharp eye for detail, but he also manages
to assemble these details into a strong and coherent argument.'
Arnold Hunt, Church Times
`Cressy ... gives us in Birth, Marriage and Death another, even
more thoroughly researched work, based upon an astounding number of
sources, rich in detail but highly readable.'
Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance
`patchy materials have been tackled by Cressy with impressive care
and sensitivity, and without sentimentality. The arguments are put
forward gently ... There is the fascination, in the detail - rich,
raw, well-marshalled, sometimes funny, often poignant ... a
valuable book.'
Christopher Haigh and Alison Wall, Journal of Ecclesiastical
History, Vol 50, No 3, July 99
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