Persuasion and Conversion: Essays on Religion, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Early Modern England

The early modern ‘public sphere’ emerges out of a popular ‘culture of persuasion’ fostered by the Protestant Reformation. By 1600, religious identity could no longer be assumed as ‘given’ within the hierarchical institutions and elaborate apparatus of late-medieval ‘sacramental culture’. Reformers insisted on a sharp demarcation between the inner, subjective space of the individual and the external, public space of institutional life. Gradual displacement of sacramental culture was achieved...