Glory, Laud and Honour - by Graham Parry (Paperback)

About the Book

A wide-ranging survey of the brief revival of religious art, architecture, music, and literature during the Counter-Reformation.

Book Synopsis

A wide-ranging survey of the brief revival of religious art, architecture, music, and literature during the Counter-Reformation.

This book offers an accessible overview of the achievements of Laudian culture, so much of which was destroyed in the Civil Wars. Some eighty years after the Reformation, the brief span of the Anglican Counter-Reformation in the 1620s and 1630s saw a revival of the arts in the Church. With the rise of a "High Church" movement, initiated by Lancelot Andrewes and propelled by William Laud, John Cosin and Matthew Wren, the arts of religion flourished once again. New churches were built, and cathedrals and parish churches began to install new furnishings that were appropriate to the ceremonial forms of worship now being introduced. Painted glass, religious painting and sculpture, and ornate screens, font-covers and tombs all re-appeared. Sacred music enjoyed a revival too, as cathedral and chapel choirs required an enlarged repertoire for the more complex services that the Laudian movement favoured. The heightened mood of piety also found expression in a remarkable flowering of devotional poetry and prose. All these are discussed in this remarkable book.

First published in 2006 as The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation. GRAHAM PARRY is Professor of English, University of York.

Review Quotes

[An] attractively illustrated, interdisciplinary study.-- "ECCLESIOLOGY TODAY"

[A] thoughtful systematic analysis of the artistic contributions made during this brief, yet fruitful period.-- "VIRGINIA SEMINARY JOURNAL"

A very readable and well-informed new book.--CHRISTOPHER HOWSE "DAILY TELEGRAPH"

Gives us a detailed and perceptive survey of a heretofore overlooked concatenation of religious arts in a seminal period in English church history.-- "CHURCH HISTORY JOURNAL"

Graham Parry's narrative is learned, cogent, and, as we have come to expect of him, characteristically eloquent.-- "SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY NEWS"

Will be warmly welcomed by scholars working on this period.-- "LITERATURE & HISTORY"