Reviews

Agnes Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England by David Cressy

farahmendlesohn's review

5.0

I really enjoyed this book, not just because it showed the weirder side of life but because Cressy (with one exception) did a fantastic job of exploring what we can tell from these local and often bizarre conflicts. One chapter that changed my understanding was the one on the burial of Mrs Horseman (at night, in secret and inside the church)/; I had not realised that Catholics of this period still thought themselves part of the body of the church and the churches as part of their own faith. This helps explain a lot about the choices made by English Catholics to fight for Charles.

I also really appreciated the chapter on Altars which supports my understanding that it is Laud who is the radical and Charles the religious fanatic bent on enforcing his own preferences for ritual and reverence on a population with a wide range of beliefs. We really need to stop using the term fanatic for Puritans. Many of them simply reflect the religious practice of their area.

The one chapter that fails is the one on Seduction, Deception and Distress. Bluntly, this is a man's take which utterly fails to see the clear signalling of rape, abuse and co-ercion (even the word seduction is a problem).