Violence in the History of England's Christianity: A Study on the Basis of Religious and Literary Discourse

Abstract

The current article is concerned with the dialectics between power, society and religion at a most dramatic period of the English history – the Tudor Reformation, a time when prevalent Catholic ideas were challenged by the new faith creating a conflict which could not be reconciled for centuries. The transition to a new social order took a strongly religious character. The schism triggered a tsunami of violence that permeated and shaped all aspects of life, polity, and culture. In the current article, politico-theological foundations of violence are viewed in historical perspective including both ideology and practice. Making violence a focal point of the research, we study all the means mobilized to justify it as well as mechanisms and venues of propaganda whose aim was to exert influence on people's mind-set.