The pastor in print: Genre, audience, and religious change in early modern England

By Amy G. Tan

The pastor in print explores the phenomenon of early modern pastors who chose to become print authors, addressing ways authorship could enhance, limit or change clerical ministry and ways pastor-authors conceived of their work in parish and print. It identifies strategies through which pastor-authors established authorial identities, targeted different sorts of audiences and strategically selected genre and content as intentional parts of their clerical vocation. The first study to provide a book-length analysis of the phenomenon of early modern pastors writing for print, it uses a case study of prolific pastor-author Richard Bernard to offer a new lens through which to view religious change in this pivotal period. By bringing together questions of print, genre, religio-politics and theology, the book will interest scholars and postgraduate students in history, literature and theological studies, and its readability will appeal to undergraduates and non-specialists.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Release date: Jun 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781526152190

Book preview

The pastor in print

Politics, culture and society in early modern Britain

General Editors

Professor Alastair Bellany, Dr Alexandra Gajda, Professor Peter Lake, Professor Anthony Milton, and Professor Jason Peacey

This important series publishes monographs that take a fresh and challenging look at the interactions between politics, culture and society in Britain between 1500 and the mid-eighteenth century. It counteracts the fragmentation of current historiography through encouraging a variety of approaches which attempt to redefine the political, social and cultural worlds, and to explore their interconnection in a flexible and creative fashion. All the volumes in the series question and transcend traditional interdisciplinary boundaries, such as those between political history and literary studies, social history and divinity, urban history and anthropology. They thus contribute to a broader understanding of crucial developments in early modern Britain.

Recently published in the series

Chaplains in early modern England: Patronage, literature and religion

Hugh Adlington, Tom Lockwood and Gillian Wright (eds)

The Cooke sisters: Education, piety and patronage in early modern England

Gemma Allen

Black Bartholomew’s Day: Preaching, polemic and Restoration nonconformity David J. Appleby

Insular Christianity: Alternative models of the Church in Britain and Ireland, c.1570–c.1700 Robert Armstrong and Tadhg Ó Hannrachain (eds)

Reading and politics in early modern England: The mental world of a seventeenth-century Catholic gentleman Geoff Baker

‘No historie so meete’ Jan Broadway

Writing the history of parliament in Tudor and early Stuart England Paul Cavill and Alexandra Gajda (eds)

Republican learning: John Toland and the crisis of Christian culture, 1696–1722 Justin Champion

News and rumour in Jacobean England: Information, court politics and diplomacy, 1618–25 David Coast

This England: Essays on the English nation and Commonwealth in the sixteenth century Patrick Collinson

Gentry culture and the politics of religion: Cheshire on the eve of civil war Richard Cust and Peter Lake

Sir Robert Filmer (1588–1653) and the patriotic monarch Cesare Cuttica

Doubtful and dangerous: The question of succession in late Elizabethan England Susan Doran and Paulina Kewes (eds)

Civil war London: Mobilising for parliament, 1641–5 Jordan S. Downs

Brave community John Gurney

Revolutionizing politics: Culture and conflict in England, 1620–60 Paul D. Halliday, Eleanor Hubbard and Scott Sowerby (eds)

‘Black Tom’ Andrew Hopper

Reformation without end: Religion, politics and the past in post-revolutionary England Robert G. Ingram

Freedom of speech, 1500–1850 Robert G. Ingram, Jason Peacey and Alex W. Barber (eds)

Connecting centre and locality: Political communication in early modern England Chris R. Kyle and Jason Peacey (eds)

Insolent proceedings: Rethinking public politics in the English Revolution Peter Lake and Jason Peacey (eds)

Revolution remembered: Seditious memories after the British Civil Wars Edward James Legon

Royalists and Royalism during the Interregnum Jason Mcelligott and David L. Smith

Laudian and Royalist polemic in Stuart England Anthony Milton

The crisis of British Protestantism: Church power in the Puritan Revolution, 1638–44 Hunter Powell

Lollards in the English Reformation: History, radicalism, and John Foxe Susan Royal

The gentlewoman’s remembrance: Patriarchy, piety, and singlehood in early Stuart England Isaac Stephens

Exploring Russia in the Elizabethan Commonwealth: The Muscovy Company and Giles Fletcher, the elder (1546–1611) Felicity Jane Stout

Loyalty, memory and public opinion in England, 1658–1727 Dward Vallance

London presbyterians and the British revolutions, 1638–64 Elliot Vernon

Church polity and politics in the British Atlantic world, c. 1635–66 Elliot Vernon and Hunter Powell (eds)

Full details of the series are available at www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk.

The pastor in print

Genre, audience, and religious change in early modern England

Amy G. Tan

MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Copyright © Amy G. Tan 2022

The right of Amy G. Tan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Published by Manchester University Press

Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL

www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978 1 5261 5220 6 hardback

First published 2022

The publisher has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for any external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

Typeset by

Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

To Irvin and Betty Holmes

and in loving memory of Virgil and Laura Gant

Contents

List of figures

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

Select chronology: Richard Bernard’s life and career

Introduction: Ministers and media

Part I: Religious goals: pastoral approaches to devotion, vocation, and print

1 The ubiquity of ‘the devotional’

2 The making of a pastor-author

3 The call to preach and the question of printed sermons

Part II: Audiences: imagining and fostering relationships with readers

4 If you learn nothing else: catechisms and the question of the fundamentals of the faith

5 Different audiences, different messages: explication and implication in anti-Catholic publications

6 A bit of parish trouble and a manual on giving: self-representation to insiders and outsiders

Part III: Innovation: adapting content, genre, and format

7 A trial, a guide for jurors, and an allegory: one experience inspiring generically divergent publications

8 A puritan pastor-author in the 1630s: tailoring the presentation of theological content

9 ‘That all the Lord’s people could prophesy’: innovating in the reference genre (and turning against episcopacy?)

10 The paradigm of the ‘pastor-author’ beyond Bernard

Bibliography

Index

Figures

Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to thank those who have enabled the completion of this book. I want first to acknowledge Peter Lake. His generous and enlightening conversations over many years, his vast knowledge of early modern religion and politics, and his keenly perceptive readings of my work-in-progress have shaped this study in large and small ways too numerous to recount. I am further grateful to Kenneth Fincham, Joel Harrington, Ann Hughes, Jane Landers, and Paul Lim – each of whom substantively influenced my thinking on key issues, pointed me to important sources, and generously took time to read and discuss my work. I am further grateful to Carole Levin, under whose influence I first developed an interest in the early modern period, and who remains an invaluable mentor and friend.

Others who, formally or informally, heard or read portions of this work and provided valuable input include Alex Ayris, Michael Bess, Sean Bortz, Bill Bulman, Dean Bruno, Jessica Burch, Amy Burnett, Bill Caferro, John Coffey, David Como, Lisa Diller, Jenifer Dodd, Freddy Domínguez, Jordan Downs, Jim Epstein, Noah Frens, Lauren Griffin, Matt Growhoski, Karl Gunther, David Hall, Rebecca Hayes, Sarah Igo, Robert Ingram, the late John King, Kate Lazo, Tamara Lewis, David Magliocco, Jennifer Maguire, Drew Martin, Julia Merritt, Anthony Milton, Susannah Monta, Sonya Mutchnick, Jason Peacey, Dani Picard, Michael Questier, Ansley Quiros, Mark Rankin, Greg Salazar, Kara Schultz, Sandy Solomon, Isaac Stephens, Frances Kolb Turnbell, Michael Winship, Chance Woods, Jayme Yeo, and also each of the 2017 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Summer Seminar participants at the Huntington Library, as well as each of the 2014–15 Graduate Fellows at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. I wish further to acknowledge those in attentive audiences providing thoughtful comments on portions of this material presented at the Institute for Historical Research, the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference, the North American Conference on British Studies, the Southern Conference on British Studies, the South Central Renaissance Conference, the University of Nebraska, and Vanderbilt University.

The project received funding and support from many sources. The NEH and the Huntington Library provided key resources during a Summer Seminar: a fruitful period of research. A year at the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, facilitated by Mona Frederick and Ed Friedman, offered an invaluable opportunity to refine my ideas and complete key sections of my work. The Vanderbilt University College of Arts and Science, Graduate School, and Department of History each provided significant support for research and writing, and the collegiality of Vanderbilt’s faculty, students, and staff made it an ideal setting in which to hone the ideas at the heart of this book.

Several institutions generously provided access to archival materials, in person and/or via digital images: the American Antiquarian Society, the Batcombe Heritage Centre, the Beinecke Library, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University Library, Dr Williams’s Library, the Huntington Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pilgrim Hall Museum, the Somerset Heritage Centre, the National Archives, the Wells Cathedral Chained Library, and the York Minster Library. Donald Sage provided a fascinating tour of the Batcombe church. The Vanderbilt Libraries and Nashville Public Library provided numerous essential resources.

The series editors and anonymous readers provided perceptive input which helped me refine my ideas; Meredith Carroll’s expert guidance strengthened the manuscript; and everyone who contributed to the editorial and production processes made the experience smooth and enjoyable.

I am grateful to Kristin Butterfield for unfailing friendship, Nina Wolford for first stoking my interest in writing, and many more friends and colleagues whom space does not permit me to mention individually. My son and my extended family have provided cheer and encouragement innumerable times during my work on this project. Finally, and especially, I want to acknowledge the immeasurable kindness and generosity of my husband and parents, without whom this book would not have reached completion: I cannot thank them enough.

Abbreviations

Author’s note: In quotations from primary sources, I modernise spelling, capitalisation, and shifts in typeface except when there is no commonly used modern equivalent, or as needed for clarity. However, when quoting from edited versions of primary sources, I follow the editors’ conventions.

In publication titles, I follow the English Short-Title Catalogue to facilitate identification of cited works.

Select chronology: Richard Bernard’s life and career

*On attribution of Wisely Considerate, Praelaticall Church, and Certaine Positions, see Chapter 9.

Introduction

Ministers and media

[This book] was penned at the first for the benefit of this parish:

and published by authority, for the good of the Church.

The parish of S. Martin moved me to pen it:

and that late Reverend Bishop of London allowed me to print it.

In regard of both these, I doubt not but your Honor will afford it your patronage.

This portion of a dedicatory epistle to Thomas, Lord Ellesmere appeared in pastor Robert Hill’s 1609 The Path-way to Prayer and Pietie; it addressed several points of attention common among early modern clerics making forays into print. Hill portrayed himself as attentive first to his own parishioners, but desirous for his efforts to resonate more broadly; as under authority in general, yet responding particularly to a local bishop; and as being in need of certain types of assistance in order for his work to prosper – here requesting the Lord Chancellor’s patronage for this book and, as he went on, grateful for other types of support as well.¹ In an article considering Hill’s work, Julia Merritt has demonstrated the importance of considering clerical publications in historical context and across generic boundaries. She describes Hill’s publications as responsive to the needs and desires of different intended audiences while remaining within a coherent theological framework, and she observes that ‘the nature, timing and quality of the printed publications by Hill and other pastors that survive may often reflect their changing personal circumstances as well as their pastoral initiatives’.² Although Merritt’s work on Hill is brief, it flags several key aspects of clerical authorship in this period which are ready for further examination. The present study is concerned to provide just that sort of analysis, offering a full-orbed consideration of the phenomenon of early modern pastors dedicating time and effort to print authorship.

With attention to clerical authors Richard Bernard, George Gifford, Thomas Wilson, and Samuel Hieron, alongside briefer references to many others, this study considers ways that print could enhance, extend, limit, or change pastoral ministry. It also considers ways ministers conceived of potential audiences, tailoring content and genre to meet audience needs and achieve certain religious goals. Altogether, it posits that we can more fully understand post-Reformation English religion by coupling analysis of the nature of clerical ministry with analysis of developments in print publications – including format, genre, timing, and content.

For good reason, scholars of early modern religious history have maintained a persistent interest in the Protestant clergy and a wide range of topics related to ministers’ education, theology, pastoral goals, opportunities for advancement, and engagement with national and international concerns. Among many studies, one might mention Rosemary O’Day’s The English Clergy, Patrick Collinson’s The Elizabethan Puritan Movement and seminal article ‘Shepherds, sheepdogs and hirelings’, Peter Lake’s Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church, Francis Bremer’s Congregational Communion, Kenneth Parker and Eric Carlson’s study of Richard Greenham, Kenneth Fincham’s Prelate as Pastor, Arnold Hunt’s The Art of Hearing, and Tom Webster’s Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England.

Meanwhile, there has been a good deal of work on aspects of religious print. Much of this has tended to examinations of particular genres, topics, or debates; or to analysis of the contemporary valences of various works. Ian Green has surveyed print through the lenses of a particular genre (catechism) or type (steady sellers) of publication; Antoinina Bevan Zlatar has provided a theologically engaged literary and historicist reading of Elizabethan polemical dialogues; and Alec Ryrie has surveyed a large number of works related to prayer and personal piety.³ Numerous scholars have examined the ways early modern print affected, and was affected by, popular culture, religion, and/or politics, including the influence and popularity of printed texts; of note in relation to the present study are works by Ann Hughes, Peter Lake, Jesse Lander, Jason Peacey, Alexandra Walsham, Tessa Watt, and more – as footnotes in subsequent chapters will show.⁴ Certain other studies have addressed control of printing and censorship – often with insightful analysis of the religious issues at stake, including larger studies by Cyndia Susan Clegg and Suellen Mutchow Towers, as well as shorter studies by Anthony Milton and Arnold Hunt, among others.⁵

Yet while many studies of pastors have discussed print (often in relation to sermon publication), and likewise many studies of religious print have given attention to publications by clerical authors, there has not been sustained attention to the emerging phenomenon of ministers who actively cultivated a publishing career: their long- and short-term goals related to authorship; their approach to pursuing religious change among various audiences; and the ways they saw clerical and authorial work interweaving. This book takes that approach, and by doing so offers new insight into the way that certain post-Reformation clerics envisioned and enacted a type of ministry that allowed writing to complement parish work and that reached far beyond parish borders.

Although there has been no full-fledged study of this kind, several scholars (in addition to Merritt, above) have demonstrated that this is an area ready for further research. For example, Timothy Scott McGinnis has considered how George Gifford’s pastoral goals were reflected both in his parish work and in his publications, demonstrating the utility of placing a minister’s print and parish work in close conversation. Yet because it focuses upon pastoral and devotional issues, this study does not consider Gifford’s full range of publications, nor what Gifford intended to do through his career-long pursuit of authorship more generally. Andrew Crome and Kathleen Curtin have each addressed some aspects of the work of Thomas Wilson, with the latter importantly highlighting Christian Dictionarie’s overlap between catechetical, polemical, and lexicographical issues for a broad audience. Leif Dixon’s work on predestinarian writing has highlighted connections between pastoral and theological goals among a number of clerics. Peter Lake’s Boxmaker’s Revenge gives significant attention to what the clerical author Stephen Denison was attempting to accomplish with certain print works, but it does not address what Denison thought he was doing in terms of using texts to cultivate an authorial career. Anthony Milton’s study of Laudian propagandist Peter Heylyn has provided key insights into the relevance of polemic-writing to a certain sort of clerical career; however, the study does not address a broad range of genres or types of writing. Diane Willen has demonstrated key changes in Thomas Gataker’s engagement with print over time, and in doing so highlights a number of convergences between authorship, clerical work, and the godly community; yet the brevity of her study leaves many of these connections as gestures rather than full explorations.⁶

Altogether, to date no study has directly addressed in what ways, and to what ends, certain ministers intentionally fostered publishing careers along with, and as part of, a clerical vocation. No study has taken up the question of how these ministers conceived of their authorial work across the chronological length and the vocational breadth of their clerical careers. And no study has examined how pastors’ participation in the print marketplace – including careful selection of topic, timing, genre and writing style – could be used throughout a career to pursue various religious goals among multiple audiences. A new approach is needed to systematically consider such issues.

Methodology

The present study thus turns to examine early modern English clerics who chose to incorporate print authorship as a significant aspect of their religious vocation. It is concerned to deeply analyse the interrelationship of these activities during the late Elizabethan and early Stuart periods. To do this requires addressing the circumstances surrounding a career and a corpus with a good degree of detail: to illustrate trends across multiple genres and subjects, and across multiple years of work. A broad survey would be insufficient to provide such detail; thus, the central portion of the book adopts the methodology of a case study.

For this case study, I selected the career of moderate puritan minister Richard Bernard.⁷ He was not unique in his pastoral goals, nor in his uses of print: however, certain features of his career provide an ideal window through which to examine the connections between pastoral ministry and print authorship. His corpus and his pastoral experiences were remarkably wide-ranging, encompassing a broad variety of topics and genres that were key concerns for many pastor-authors: religious education (e.g. catechisms), devotional practices, Christian behaviour, theology, controversies, current events, and more. And given the timing and content of these works, we can trace differences in his attention to or treatment of different topics through his career. For this reason, a study of Bernard’s works can touch on a markedly wide range of issues while remaining coherent and contextualised, grounded in substantive evidence. Moreover, his publications often included explanations of his purposes for writing and references to relevant situations in his own career, or more broadly. Coupled with key manuscript sources including correspondence and parish records, these allow us to reconstruct a robust picture of his intentions and practices in both print and parish.

Nevertheless, the book is not ‘about’ Bernard. Its use of his career is episodic, focusing on ways in which he made choices about his ministry in print and parish, rather than on the man himself. I underscore this throughout the book by gesturing toward other pastor-authors and their works, representing a number of different career paths and approaches to print that nevertheless fell within the scope of pastors intentionally leveraging print media for specific religious ends. Chapter 10 further broadens this view by applying the paradigm of the pastor-author within analyses of works by George Gifford, Thomas Wilson, and Samuel Hieron. Along with highlighting different models that pastoral-authorial careers could take, this chapter provides the opportunity to address additional aspects of the challenges facing pastor-authors, especially those of a more or less moderate puritan sort, across a period marked by ecclesiastical and political change.

Pastor-authorship: an emerging phenomenon

As the study progresses, the emerging significance of the phenomenon of pastors-as-print-authors becomes clear. The ability to spread one’s ideas relatively quickly to a broad public audience was an option unavailable to most ministers of preceding generations: through print, this now became possible for many. Certainly, many early modern pastors had no, or limited, involvement with print. Even those with printed sermons might have minor investment in the process, with third parties adapting oral material and seeing it through publication. Yet there was a growing group of ministers who developed a self-conscious, multi-faceted involvement with print.

This group includes the aforementioned Bernard, Gifford, Wilson, and Hieron, as well as diverse others who embraced and experimented with this emerging technology. I call this group ‘pastor-authors’, defined as those who exercised a personal religious ministry in a parish or other locality, while also devoting time to careful, intentional, attempts to achieve religious goals among a wider audience through print.

One relatively early example of a pastor-authorial career appears in the work of stationer, Marian exile, pastor, and author Robert Crowley, who ‘had the imagination to see the possibilities afforded by the press to mould popular opinion, and the energy and burning compassion to produce a sizeable and varied body of work’.⁸ Others with similar ambitions appeared throughout the period, across a range of ecclesiastical, theological, and geographical locations. While many pastor-authors were parish ministers within the national church, not all were, nor did all have uninterrupted good standing within it. At times, pastor-authors leveraged print in attempts to reestablish a position within the national church. We will see this below with Bernard, Gifford, and to a degree Wilson: but it could appear in a range of different ways. To take just one additional example, pastor-author John Darrell entered into print at the height of controversy about his anti-demonic activities, describing key situations and his intentions; some years later he also composed an anti-separatist publication. Each of these sought, among other purposes, to defend Darrell’s reputation and mend his relationship with the national church.⁹ Of course, pastor-authors could also use print in quite the opposite way: Chapter 2 mentions separatists John Smyth, Henry Ainsworth, and John Robinson, whose publications defended their choice to leave the national church altogether.

Whatever their theological and ecclesiastical positions, and whatever their more specific religious goals for their own work, pastor-authors intentionally designed publications to bring about certain goals for their audiences. Yet this was not always straightforward, given the inherent limitations of print and the ever-shifting religious landscape. Accordingly, thoughtful construction, and sometimes innovation, became key features of pastor-authors’ works. As they attempted to achieve religious goals among audience members who would be persuaded to take up the publication and then use it in particular ways, they needed to consider how genre, length, arrangement of content, typeface, and other factors could affect their message. This does not mean all publications were unprecedented, or even unusual. And it does not mean all pastor-authors agonised over every aspect of a publication. But it does suggest that pastor-authors often considered the interests, abilities, and needs of various print audiences; identified their own circumstances and religious goals; and leveraged format, genre, content, timing, and more as they adapted their ideas for publication in a born-print format.

With this in mind, this study makes two key contributions. First, it pushes us to view publications by pastor-authors as part of a whole-career pursuit of religious change among one or more audiences. This is not merely a call to study publications and authors within appropriate historical contexts (certainly, one should). Rather, it highlights the importance of identifying the strategies through which pastor-authors established authorial identities, targeted certain audiences, strategically developed their corpora, and built networks within the print industry, not as a side project but as an intentional expression of their religious vocation. Secondly, because it combines an investigation of vocational Protestant ministry with issues related to the production of religious print, it provides a new lens through which to view the intersection of emerging print technologies, the printing industry, and clerical work in this pivotal period.

Moderate puritanism and pastor-authorship

This book primarily attends to individuals in England, and occasionally elsewhere in the British Isles and North America, whose general theological bent fitted within, or near, the theological and ecclesiological range of positions one might call (if one is inclined to call it anything) moderate puritanism.¹⁰ Among the theological and practical priorities commonly held by those within this umbrella were a reformed, Calvinistic interpretation of the Bible; an emphasis on the importance of preaching; a pursuit of a disciplined, experimental form of practical divinity; a strict observance of the Sabbath; and a regular antagonism toward Catholicism. There was diversity within this umbrella, and I trust readers will take references to ‘moderate puritans’, ‘puritans’, ‘the godly’, and similar terms not as impermeable categories, but rather as signposts to orient discussions within a historical landscape which will become more nuanced within various chapters’ arguments.

A focus upon moderate puritan pastor-authors provides some coherence for the present study, but it should by no means suggest that pastor-authorship was uniquely knit to puritanism (of any variety). Rather, I quite suspect the opposite, having observed similarities in the approaches of clerical authors from across theological, confessional, and geographic bounds. To flesh out this suspicion would lead far beyond the scope of this study, but suffice it to say that my discussion of moderate puritan pastor-authors is a matter of framing, not a suggestion that either England or puritans had any unique claim to thoughtful, engaged clerical authorship. I hope that further studies might investigate the utility of the pastor-author paradigm for religious workers from a wide range of backgrounds.

Nevertheless, it is worth observing that among early modern English clerics who published, a considerable number were of a more or less puritan persuasion. One study of Elizabethan religious publishing identified twenty-three English authors who published eleven or more works in the period, of whom fourteen were identified as puritans and all but a few as supporting ‘either moderate or radical ecclesiastical reform’.¹¹ In what follows, we will encounter several ways that authorship fitted well (again, not to say exclusively) with the particular circumstances facing moderate puritan clerics. Authorship could complement the ideal of faithful, reforming pastoral ministry within the national church; and by nature of its being outside one’s local work, might enable pastor-authors to continue pushing forward with certain religious aims amidst pastoral challenges or setbacks. Insofar as moderate puritanism involved a struggle to effect certain theological and practical reforms in individuals, and an institution, not always fully amenable to such changes, publishing might offer a broader or more receptive audience for such efforts; a chance to more fully defend certain beliefs or practices; a way to publicly portray one’s ministry in a positive light; and other outcomes, as subsequent chapters will detail.

Structure of the study

To address how pastor-authors’ writing might relate to various issues across a career, the book is arranged both thematically and (mostly) chronologically.¹² It contains three sections, each addressing a key aspect of work: religious goals, audiences, and innovation. Chapters within each section elucidate numerous ways these concerns could influence publications – and further, how pastoral and authorial vocations could become entangled.

Meanwhile, each chapter makes new contributions to additional, targeted issues that are of current scholarly interest: the nature of anti-Catholic polemic, the existence and effectiveness of Laudian censorship, attitudes toward printed sermons, and more. Although several studies have addressed specific genres and/or topics that appear in early modern religious writing, no study has yet tied these examinations to a consideration of a pastor-author’s broader programme for religious reform in both print and parish. This book does just that, while also providing a new and more complete framework through which to view pastor-authors’ diverse publications.

The first section of the book begins by addressing how publications could function vis-à-vis religious goals that pastor-authors might have for themselves, parishioners, and print audiences. Chapter 1 considers how devotional activities were understood in the early modern period and how meditative thought appeared in a range of early modern publications. It takes the position that devotional practices and publications were inherently interconnected with politics, social concerns, controversy, theology, vocation, and more. To illustrate this principle, the chapter gives specific attention to meditation, one of the most individual and interior of devotional practices. Drawing on descriptions of meditation as well as meditative writings across multiple genres by a number of authors including Bernard, this chapter offers a new way to characterise meditation – a practice that scholars have found difficulty in defining – by identifying its key characteristic as the making of mental links between the spiritual and the natural worlds. This underscores the utility of considering together all of a pastor-author’s works, across genres and topics, and it establishes the principle of avoiding false separation between ‘devotional’ and non-‘devotional’ literature as a foundational aspect of my analysis throughout the rest of the book.

Chapter 2 demonstrates several ways that Bernard’s early-career experiences shaped his long-term relationship with the national church as well as his approach to print authorship. It highlights how returning to conformity actually strengthened Bernard’s commitment (when pressed) to abiding under the strictures of ecclesiastical superiors – something that would later influence his innovative approaches to publishing on controversial topics. More generally, it shows how his early engagement in his personal ministry and in print mutually enabled and influenced one another in the service of complementary goals both before and after his period of nonconformity. As later chapters will show, the approaches to authorship and pastoral ministry which coalesced during this formative period would reverberate through Bernard’s work for decades to come.

Through an examination of the editions of Bernard’s popular clerical manual, Chapter 3 provides new insight into the early modern debate about the nature and uses of religious print. It also helps frame the question of what distinguished a pastor-author, actively pursuing ministry through print and thinking about how readers would respond to different types of material, from the larger number of ministers who had a sermon printed here or there, but did not actively engage with print as part of their pastoral vocation. The chapter begins with an analysis of Bernard’s clerical manual, The Faithfvll Shepheard, and explores shifts in his approach over three editions (1607, 1609, and 1621),¹³ with later editions suggesting Bernard’s increasing awareness of, and willingness to accommodate, his readers’ needs for explanation and demonstration of the principles he espoused. The second portion of the chapter addresses Bernard’s approach to printed sermons. By examining several publications that Bernard based upon sermons, we see that he maintained