Abstract
Raymond Gillespie’s chapter attempts to measure the effects of peripherality in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by comparing two peripheral regions, Ireland and Norway, using the strategies for religious change in both regions as a point of comparison. The diffusion and use of print provide a measurable approach to this problem. While there are similarities in approach between the two regions, there are also significance differences. While print was important in some regions, oral literacy was an equally important strategy for religious reform in, for instance, Gaelic Scotland, sixteenth-century Norway and Ireland. Those continuities allowed the absorption of new ideas but often left pre-reform religious customs untouched. In regions where continuity was less marked, for example in colonised areas of Ireland, new ideas could be introduced, but were usually not adopted, leading ultimately to a failure of religious change.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Bibliography
Manuscript Sources
Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Rawlinson C439.
The National Archives, London, SP63/108/13.
Trinity College, Dublin, MS 817.
Trinity College, Dublin, MS 820.
Trinity College, Dublin, MS 830.
Trinity College, Dublin, MS 831.
Primary Sources
Calendar of State Papers, Ireland, 1611–1614, edited by C. W. Russell and John P. Prendergast. London: Longman and Co., 1877.
The Soldiers Best Exercise. Dublin, 1696.
Secondary Sources
Barnard, T. C. “Protestants and the Irish Language 1675–1725.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 44 (1993): 243–72.
Bowen, Lloyd. “Information, Language and Political Culture in Early Modern Wales.” Past & Present 228 (2015): 125–58.
Clark, Peter (ed.). Small Towns in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Crowley, Tony. Wars of Words: The Politics of Language in Ireland, 1537–2004. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Cunningham, Bernadette. “Loss and Gain: Attitudes Towards the English Language in Early Modern Ireland.” In Reshaping Ireland, 1550–1700: Colonisation and Its Consequences, edited by Brian Mac Cuarta, 163–84. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2011.
Dahl, Gina. Books in Early Modern Norway. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Dawson, Jane. “Calvinism and the Gaidhealtachd in Scotland.” In Calvinism in Europe, 1540–1640, edited by Andrew Pettegree, Alistair Duke and Gillian Lewis, 231–53. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth. Divine Art, Infernal Machine: The Reception of Print in the West. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
Eliassen, Finn-Eniar. “Profit, Power and Private Planning: Landowners and Small Towns in Early Modern Norway.” In Power, Profit and Urban Land: Landownership in Medieval and Early Modern Northern European Towns, edited by Finn-Eniar Eliassen and Geir Atle Ersland, 194–217. London: Scolar Press, 1996.
Gaffney, Declan. “The Practice of Religious Controversy in Dublin.” In The Churches, Ireland and the Irish, edited by W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, 145–58. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989.
Gillespie, Raymond. Devoted People: Belief and Religion in Early Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1997.
Gillespie, Raymond. “‘A Good and Godly Exercise’: Singing the Word in Irish Dissent, 1660–1701.” In Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, edited by Kevin Herlihy, 24–45. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
Gillespie, Raymond. “Catholic Religious Cultures in the Diocese of Dublin, 1614–97.” In History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin, edited by James Kelly and Daire Keogh, 127–43. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000.
Gillespie, Raymond. “Irish Print and Protestant Identity: William King’s Pamphlet Wars, 1687–1697.” In Taking Sides: Colonial and Confessional Mentalities in Early Modern Ireland, edited by Vincent Carey and Ute Lotz-Heumann, 231–50. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2003.
Gillespie, Raymond. Reading Ireland: Print, Reading and Social Change in Early Modern Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2005.
Gillespie, Raymond. “Devotional Landscapes: God, Saints and the Natural World in Early Modern Ireland.” In God’s Bounty? The Churches and the Natural World, edited by Peter Clarke and Tony Claydon, 217–36. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010.
Gillespie, Raymond. “Early Modern Ireland as a Multi-confessional State.” In A Companion to Multiconfessionalism in the Early Modern World, edited by Thomas Max Safley, 318–40. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Gillespie, Raymond. “Music and Song in Early Eighteenth-Century Belfast.” In Irish Provincial Cultures in the Long Eighteenth Century: Essays for Toby Barnard, edited by Raymond Gillespie and R. F. Foster, 157–62. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012.
Gillespie, Raymond. “The Louvain Franciscans and the Culture of Print.” In Irish Europe, 1600–1650: Writing and Learning, edited by Raymond Gillespie and Ruairí Ó hUiginn, 102–20. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2013.
Gillespie, Raymond and Andrew Hadfield (eds.). The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. 3: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Grell, Ole Peter. “Scandinavia.” In The Reformation World, edited by Andrew Pettegree, 257–76. London: Routledge, 2000.
Gruffydd, R. Geraint. “The First Printed Books, 1546–1604.” In A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, edited by Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 55–65. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988.
Hoyne, Mícheál. “Brief Rules for Reading Irish Found in Printed Books, 1571–1863.” Celtica 31 (2019): 213–97.
Jones, Francis. The Holy Wells of Wales. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1992.
Jones, Philip Henry and Eiluned Rees (eds.). A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988.
Karlson, Gunnar. Iceland’s 1100 Years: History of a Marginal Society. London: Gardners Books, 2000.
Lennon, Colm. “The Print Trade 1550–1700.” In The Oxford History of the Irish Book: Vol. 3: The Irish Book in English, 1550–1800, edited by Raymond Gillespie and Andrew Hadfield, 61–73. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Llwyd, Rheinallt. “Printing and Publishing in the Seventeenth Century.” In A Nation and Its Books: A History of the Book in Wales, edited by Philip Henry Jones and Eiluned Rees, 93–119. Aberystwyth: National Library of Wales, 1988.
MacCulloch, Diarmaid. Reformation: Europe’s House Divided. London: Penguin, 2004.
MacDonald, Fiona. Missions to the Gaels: Reformation and Counter Reformation in Ulster and the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, 1560–1760. Edinburgh: John Donald Publishers, 2006.
McCaughey, Terence. “General Synod of Ulster’s Policy on the Use of the Irish Language in the Early Eighteenth Century.” In Propagating the Word of Irish Dissent, 1650–1800, edited by Kevin Herlihy, 46–62. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 1998.
Milward, Peter. Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age and Religious Controversies of the Jacobean Age. London: Scolar Press, 1978.
Pettegree, Andrew. Brand Luther. London: Penguin, 2015.
Pollard, Mary. “Control of the Press Through the King’s Printers Patent, 1600–1800.” Irish Booklore 4 (1980): 79–95.
Sneddon, A. “Folkloric Hagiography in Gaelic Scotland: Saint Columba in Oral Tradition.” Scottish Gaelic Studies 31 (2018): 206–27.
Walsham, Alexandra. “‘Domme Preachers’? Post-Reformation Catholicism and the Culture of Print.” Past & Present 168 (2000): 72–123.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gillespie, R. (2020). Seventeenth-Century Ireland and Norway: Peripheral Reformations in Print?. In: Kelly, J.E., Laugerud, H., Ryan, S. (eds) Northern European Reformations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_12
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54458-4_12
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-54457-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-54458-4
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)