RELIGION IN SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENURTY ENGLAND

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England, introduction by Hilary Mantel (London: The Folio Society, 2012) ("We do not know enough about the religious beliefs and practice of our remote ancestors to be certain of the extent to which religious faith and practice have actually declined. Not enough justice has been done to the volume of apathy, heterodoxy and agnosticism which existed long before the onset of industrialism. Even the most primitive societies have their religious skeptics. It may be that social changes increased the volume of scepticism in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. What is clear is that the hold of organized religion upon the people was never so complete as to leave no room for rival systems of beliefs." Id. at 168.).