The Cross cult, King Oswald, and Elizabethan historiography
In Thomas Stapleton's The History of the Church of Englande (1565), the first modern English translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the cross cult is promoted as a definitive element of English religious and national identity, via the legend of the Saxon king Oswald....
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
|
| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
[2016]
|
| In: |
British Catholic history
Year: 2016, Volume: 33, Issue: 1, Pages: 32-57 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CB Christian life; spirituality CD Christianity and Culture KAH Church history 1648-1913; modern history KBF British Isles |
| Further subjects: | B
John Foxe
B Bede B Iconoclasm B The Faerie Queene B Thomas Stapleton |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | In Thomas Stapleton's The History of the Church of Englande (1565), the first modern English translation of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, the cross cult is promoted as a definitive element of English religious and national identity, via the legend of the Saxon king Oswald. The version of the legend in Stapleton's narrative, which includes textual supplements like illustrations, appears to be intended as a corrective in light of attacks upon the cross cult made in works of religious controversy by the reformists William Turner, John Jewel, and James Calfhill, but also in works of historiography such as the 1559 edition of Robert Fabyan's Chronicle. In response to Stapleton's expanded presentation of the Oswald legend, John Foxe reconfigures the narrative in the 1570 Acts and Monuments or Book of Martyrs, but in a bifurcated manner, perhaps to appease members of Matthew Parker's circle of Saxon scholars. Surprisingly, in Book Three of The Faerie Queene (1590), Edmund Spenser carries on Stapleton's iconodule understanding of Oswald's cross in contrast to his reformist Protestant precursors. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2055-7981 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: British Catholic history
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/bch.2016.4 |