Chapter 7
Godly vocabulary in Early Modern English religious debate
The English Reformation of the mid-sixteenth century was characterised by a vigorous public discourse of controversy, mediated by the still-novel printing press. On the one side were those – the godly – who favoured reformed religion; on the other were those – generally exiles – who held to increasingly embattled Roman Catholicism. This chapter compares the outputs of two communities of practice – one Protestant, one Catholic – from a key period in the Reformation’s history: the 1560s. It demonstrates how both sides developed distinctive, ideologically-charged lexicons of theology and insult. It also shows how reformers in particular deployed a coded English vocabulary, including words not usually seen as part of the semantic field of religion, to mark their distinctive discourse community.
Article outline
- 1.Godly folk in the 1560s
- 2.Materials and methods
- Evangelical texts
- Roman Catholic texts
- 3.Textual analysis
- 3.1Reformed texts
- 3.2Roman Catholic texts
- 3.3Theological differences
- 3.4The vocabulary of insult
- Idolatry*
- Massmonger
- Romish
- Sodomical
- Superbious
- Synagogue*
- 3.5Some further differences
- 4.Conclusions
-
Notes
-
References
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