Writing habits. Historicism, philosophy and English Benedictine convents, 1600–1800. By Jaime Goodrich. (Strode Studies in Early Modern Literature and Culture.) Pp. xvi + 222 incl. 3 tables. Tuscaloosa, Al: University of Alabama Press, 2021. 59.95. 978 0 8173 2103 1

Abstract

system’ (p. ) based on a minimalist set of doctrines. His dismissal of the incarnation perhaps receives less attention than it might, but his beliefs are duly defined in relation to other writers and thinkers including John Selden, Arminius, Socinus and Grotius. However, the characterisation of English Calvinism and of Herbert’s relation to it are not always convincing. His ‘strict Calvinist’ upbringing is often invoked but never fully traced, while the associated disinclination for dancing or gambling which is inferred did not apply to all among the pious gentry. ‘Austere Calvinism imposed by the state’ (p. ) is questionable as a generalisation about the Elizabethan Church, while to say that James I’s ecclesiastical inheritance ‘retained its Catholic liturgy’ (p. ) or that Laud planned to reverse ‘the stealthy Puritan reformation of the English church’ (p. ) does not quite capture the situation either. Notwithstanding such reservations, this study of Herbert represents a valuable addition to scholarship. The writer who stepped out of his aristocratic ‘comfort zone’ (p. ) to publish his work, and who expressed views so much at variance with those appearing in the contemporary press, is worth a close look. Yet the man who embraced both traditional military values and multifarious Renaissance accomplishments, who moved in many different spheres, who advanced inconsistent arguments and whose behaviour could be unappealing and self-destructive, defies easy categorisation.