Public Religious Disputation in England, 1558–1626

With a focus on England from the accession of Elizabeth I to the mid-1620s, this book examines the practice of public, academic religious disputation between opposing Catholic, Protestant and nonconformist puritan divines. Introducing a form of discourse hitherto neglected, the volume works to rehabilitate a body of material only previously examined as part of the mass of polemic produced in the wake of the Reformation. In so doing, it argues that public religious disputation can offer insights into contemporary beliefs and conceptions of religious identity, as well as an accessible window into the major theological controversies of the age.