In Travesties and Transgressions, David Cressy examines how the orderly, Protestant, and hierarchical society of post-Reformation England coped with the cultural challenges posed by beliefs and events outside the social norm.
He uses a series of linked stories and close readings of local texts and narratives to investigate unorthodox happenings such as bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, excommunication and irregular burial, nakedness and cross-dressing. Each story, and the reaction it generated, exposes the strains and stresses of its local time and circumstances. The reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I were witness to endless religious disputes, tussles for power within the aristocracy, and arguments galore about the behaviour and beliefs of common people. Questions raised by 'unnatural' episodes were debated throughout society at local and national levels, and engaged the attention of the magistrates, the bishops, the crown, and the court. The resolution of such questions was not taken lightly in a world in which God and the devil still fought for people's souls.
List of illustrations ; Introduction ; 1. Agnes Bowker's Cat: Childbirth, Seduction, Bestiality and Lies ; 2. Monstrous Births and Credible Reports: Portents, Texts and Testimonies ; 3. Mercy Gould and the Vicar of Cuckfield: Domestic and Clerical Pleading ; 4. Rose Arnold's Confession: Seduction, Deception and Distress in the Heart of England ; 5. The Essex Abortionist: Depravity, Sex and Violence ; 6. Another Midwife's Tale: Alcohol, Patriarchy and Childbirth in Early Modern London ; 7. Cross-Dressing in the Birth Room: Gender Trouble and Cultural Boundaries ; 8. Who Buried Mrs Horseman? Excommunication, Accommodation, and Silence ; 9. Mocking the Clergy: Wars of Words in Parish and Pulpit ; 10. The Atheists Sermon: Belief, Unbelief and Traditionalism in the Elizabethan North ; 11. Baptised Beasts and Other Travesties: Affronts to Rites of Passage ; 12. The Battle of the Altars: Turning the Tables and Breaking the Rails ; 13. The Portraiture of Prynne's Pictures: Performances on the Public Stage ; 14. The Downfall of Cheapside Cross: Vandalism, Ridicule and Iconoclasm ; 15. The Adamites Exposed: Naked Radicals in the English Revolution ; Conclusion ; Index
