Undergraduate Course: Religion, Covenants and Revolution in Britain and Ireland c. 1600-1660 (DIVI10080)
Course Outline
| School | School of Divinity |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | n exploration of the religious cultures of the three kingdoms - England, Scotland, and Ireland - and the theological issues that preoccupied Protestants across early- and mid-seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland. |
| Course description |
A. Academic Description
This course explores the religious cultures of the three kingdoms and the theological developments in the early- to mid-seventeenth century. Students will examine religious issues and theological debates in the historical context of events such as the union of the crowns, the Scottish revolution, the Irish rebellion, the English civil war, the regicide, the interregnum, and the restoration. The course will enable students to understand both the religious causes and dynamics of the British revolution.
B. Syllabus / Outline Content:
The course begins by examining the Protestant cultures in the kingdoms of England (which included Wales), Scotland, and Ireland in the early decades of the seventeenth century, focusing on issues such as polemics, exegesis, sermons, and piety. The course then examines key debates surrounding issues such as ecclesiology, worship, and soteriology that became prevalent in the lead up to the introduction of the National Covenant in 1638. Finally, the course examines the religious dynamics during the turbulent years of the mid-seventeenth century. Attention is given to the character of religious change in the three kingdoms between 1638 and 1660. The final session discusses whether the mid-seventeenth century should be considered a 'world turned upside down'.
After the first week, the pattern of teaching will typically be a one-hour seminar discussion of pre-assigned texts, followed by a one-hour lecture that provides background for the following week's texts and discussion.
Sample syllabus (precise topics may be subject to change):
Week 1: Religion in Britain & Ireland c.1600; Print & Polemics
Week 2: Scripture & Exegesis
Week 3: Preaching & Sermons
Week 4: Conversion & Piety
Week 5: Ministry & Worship
Week 6: Calvinism & Arminianism
Week 7: Covenants & Covenanting
Week 8: Rebellion & Resistance
Week 9: Orthodoxy & Reform
Week 10: Radicals & Toleration
Week 11: World Turned Upside Down?
C. Student Learning Experience Information
The class meets for two hours per week, typically for a seminar discussion of primary texts, followed by a lecture that provides background for the following week's seminar discussion. Students will be expected to post a comment of around 150 words on seminar texts on Learn in advance of the tutorial. Each student will be allocated a seminar to lead and facilitate, with a presentation of no more than 10 minutes. Students will be given the opportunity to receive formative feedback on a short essay plan.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students interested in early modern religious history would benefit from this course. Visiting students should have at least 3 Divinity/Religious Studies courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). We will only consider University / College level courses. |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
| Not being delivered |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Recognise how religion, especially Protestantism, played a vital role in shaping early modern politics and society in Britain and Ireland.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the similarities and variations in religious belief and practice across seventeenth-century Britain and Ireland.
- Construct historical explanations and arguments showing awareness of different social, political, intellectual, and religious factors.
- Analyse and assess primary sources and develop arguments based on primary sources.
- Critique historiography to show understanding of different scholarly perspectives.
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Reading List
Indicative Bibliography
Barnard, T. C. Cromwellian Ireland: English Government and Reform in Ireland 1649 ¿ 1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Bennett, Martyn. The Civil Wars Experienced: Britain and Ireland, 1638 ¿ 1661. London: Routledge, 2000.
Braddick, Michael J. God¿s Fury, England¿s Fire: A New History of the English Civil Wars. London: Allen Lane, 2008.
Braddick, Michael J. (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.
Braddick, Michael J. & David L. Smith (eds.) The Experience of Revolution in Stuart Britain and Ireland: Essays for John Morrill. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
Brady, Ciaran & Jane Ohlmeyer (eds.) British Interventions in Early Modern Ireland, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Clarke, Elizabeth. Politics, Religion, and the Song of Songs in Seventeenth-Century England. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Coffey, John & Paul C. H. Lim (eds.) The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Coffey, John. Politics, Religion and the British Revolutions: The Mind of Samuel Rutherford. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Como, David R. Radical Parliamentarians and the English Civil War. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Cust, Richard & Ann Hughes (eds.) Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics 1603-1642. London: Longman, 1989.
Denlinger, Aaron Clay (ed.) Reformed Orthodoxy in Scotland: Essays on Scottish Theology, 1560 - 1775. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Durston, Christopher & Judith Maltby (eds.) Religion in Revolutionary England. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007.
Fincham, Kenneth (ed.) The Early Stuart Church, 1603 ¿ 1642. Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993.
Ford, Alan. James Ussher: Theology, History, and Politics in Early-Modern Ireland and England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Gillespie, Raymond. Reading Ireland: Print, Reading and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
Gribben, Crawford. God's Irishmen: Theological Debates in Cromwellian Ireland. Oxford: University Press, 2007.
Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas During the English Revolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1975.
Hughes, Ann. The Causes of the English Civil War. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 1998.
Hunt, Arnold. The Art of Hearing: English Preachers and Their Audiences, 1590 ¿ 1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
James, Leonie. ¿This Great Firebrand¿: William Laud and Scotland, 1617 ¿ 1645. Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2017.
Killeen, Kevin, Helen Smith & Rachel Willie (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Bible in Early Modern England, c.1530 ¿ 1700. Oxford: University Press, 2015.
Langley, Chris R. Worship, Civil War and Community, 1638 ¿ 1660. Abingdon: Routledge, 2016.
Lehner, Ulrich L., Richard A. Muller & A. G. Roeber (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Theology, 1600 ¿ 1800. New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Macinnes, Allan I. The British Revolution, 1629 ¿ 1660. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
McAnnally-Linz, Ryan. ¿Resistance and Romans 13 in Samuel Rutherford¿s Lex, Rex¿. Scottish Journal of Theology, Vol. 66, No. 2 (2013), pp. 140¿58.
McCullough, Peter, Hugh Adlington & Emma Rhatigan (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Early Modern Sermon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
McGregor, J. F. & B. Reay (eds.) Radical Religion in the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
Morrill, John. The Nature of the English Revolution. London: Longman, 1993.
Morrill, John S. (ed.) The Scottish National Covenant in its British Context. Edinburgh: University Press, 1990.
Mortimer, Sarah. Reason and Religion in the English Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Mullan, David George. Episcopacy in Scotland: The History of an Idea, 1560-1638. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1986.
Mullan, David George. Narratives of the Religious Self in Early-Modern Scotland. Farnham: Ashgate, 2010.
Mullan, David George. Scottish Puritanism, 1590 ¿ 1638. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Mullan, David George. ¿Theology in the Church of Scotland 1618¿c. 1640: A Calvinist Consensus?¿ The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 26, No. 3 (1995), pp. 595¿617.
Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. 4 Volumes. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2003.
Powell, Hunter. The Crisis of British Protestantism: Church Power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638¿44. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015.
Prior, Charles W.A. & Glen Burgess (eds.) England¿s Wars of Religion, Revisited. Farnham: Ashgate, 2011.
Ryrie, Alec & Tom Schwanda (eds.) Puritanism and Emotion in the Early Modern World. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
Spurlock, R. Scott. Cromwell and Scotland: Conquest and Religion, 1650 ¿ 1660. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2007.
Spurr, John. The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain 1603 ¿ 1714. Harlow: Pearson Longman, 2006.
Stevenson, David. Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Scotland, 1644-1651. Edinburgh: John Donald, 2003.
Stevenson, David. The Scottish Revolution 1637-1644: The Triumph of the Covenanters. Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1973.
Stewart, Laura A. M. Rethinking the Scottish Revolution: Covenanted Scotland, 1637-1651. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
Todd, Margo. The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Tyacke, Nicholas. Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism c. 1590¿1640. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987.
Van Dixhoorn, Chad (ed.) The Minutes and Papers of the Westminster Assembly 1643 ¿ 1652. 5 volumes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Walsham, Alexandra. Charitable Hatred: Tolerance in England 1500-1700. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008.
Walsham, Alexandra. ¿¿The Fatall Vesper¿: Providentialism and Anti-Popery in Late Jacobean London¿. Past & Present, Vol. 144, Issue 1 (1994), pp. 36¿87.
Watts, Michael R. The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
Webster, Tom. Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c.1620¿1643. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Williams, Glanmor. Renewal and Reformation: Wales, c. 1415-1642. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Woolrych, Austin. Britain in Revolution 1625 ¿ 1660. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Young, John R. (ed.) Celtic Dimensions of the British Civil Wars. Edinburgh: John Donald, 1997. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
1. Critical thinking and reflection (developed through lectures, seminars, coursework essay)
2. Historical analysis and comparative evaluation (developed through seminars, presentations, blogs, coursework essay)
3. Oral communication skills (developed through seminar presentations and discussion)
4. Working in a team (developed through small group work in seminars) |
| Keywords | Early Modern,Seventeenth Century,Britain,England,Scotland,Ireland,Religion,Church,Christian |
Contacts
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Course secretary | |
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