Nicholas Tyacke
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- March 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780198803621
- eISBN:
- 9780191842023
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198803621.003.0012
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History, Cultural History
This chapter looks at Joshua Rodda’ Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626. It discusses how the book separates material relating to public disputations from the literature of religious ...
More
This chapter looks at Joshua Rodda’ Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626. It discusses how the book separates material relating to public disputations from the literature of religious controversy more generally. In so doing the book has served to raise further important questions that relate to the larger context of public religious disputation, which had found its heyday in the 150 years or so following the Reformation of the mid-sixteenth century. The chapter goes on to discuss the historical context by which Rodda sets his arguments. Moreover, it considers the significance of this volume and the issues raised by Rodda in the book, and how many of these continue to be relevant for the present.Less
This chapter looks at Joshua Rodda’ Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626. It discusses how the book separates material relating to public disputations from the literature of religious controversy more generally. In so doing the book has served to raise further important questions that relate to the larger context of public religious disputation, which had found its heyday in the 150 years or so following the Reformation of the mid-sixteenth century. The chapter goes on to discuss the historical context by which Rodda sets his arguments. Moreover, it considers the significance of this volume and the issues raised by Rodda in the book, and how many of these continue to be relevant for the present.
Jason Peacey, Robert G. Ingram, and Alex W. Barber
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781526147103
- eISBN:
- 9781526155566
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7765/9781526147110.00006
- Subject:
- History, European Early Modern History
Amid considerable debate within modern societies about whether or not there ought to be limits to freedom of speech, this introductory chapter argues that historical perspectives have been all too ...
More
Amid considerable debate within modern societies about whether or not there ought to be limits to freedom of speech, this introductory chapter argues that historical perspectives have been all too lacking, and all too simplistic. This chapter sets the book in its modern context – in terms of the challenges that have emerged to Western liberalism as a result of religious pluralism and the challenge of hate speech – and highlights the rather simplistic ways in which freedom of speech has conventionally been anchored in ideas and developments that emerged in early modern Britain. It surveys the historiographical debates that have seen this ‘Whiggish’ narrative subjected to critical scrutiny, and sets up the volume by demonstrating both continuity and change across the early modern world. This means recognising the centrality of religious issues as well as secular concerns, and the complex ways in which contemporaries grappled with the theory and practice of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It means acknowledging the complex relationship that existed between regulation, restraint and liberty, and the dynamic interplay that can be observed between rights and duties, truth and error, genre and audience.Less
Amid considerable debate within modern societies about whether or not there ought to be limits to freedom of speech, this introductory chapter argues that historical perspectives have been all too lacking, and all too simplistic. This chapter sets the book in its modern context – in terms of the challenges that have emerged to Western liberalism as a result of religious pluralism and the challenge of hate speech – and highlights the rather simplistic ways in which freedom of speech has conventionally been anchored in ideas and developments that emerged in early modern Britain. It surveys the historiographical debates that have seen this ‘Whiggish’ narrative subjected to critical scrutiny, and sets up the volume by demonstrating both continuity and change across the early modern world. This means recognising the centrality of religious issues as well as secular concerns, and the complex ways in which contemporaries grappled with the theory and practice of freedom of speech and freedom of the press. It means acknowledging the complex relationship that existed between regulation, restraint and liberty, and the dynamic interplay that can be observed between rights and duties, truth and error, genre and audience.
