Product Description

In this text a Reformation historian takes us inside the mind and heart of Morebath, a remote and tiny sheep-farming village where 33 families worked the difficult land on the southern edge of Exmoor. The bulk of Morebath's conventional archives have long since vanished. But from 1520 to 1574, through nearly all the drama of the English Reformation, Morebath's only priest, Sir Christopher Trychay, kept the parish accounts on behalf of the churchwardens. Opinionated, eccentric and talkative, Sir Christopher filled these vivid scripts for parish meetings with the names and doings of his parishioners. Through his eyes we catch a rare glimpse of the life and pre-reformation piety of a 16th-century English village. The work also offers a window into a rural world in crisis as the Reformation progressed. Sir Christopher Trychay's accounts provide direct evidence of the motives which drove hitherto law-abiding West-Country communities to participate in the doomed Prayer-Book Rebellion of 1549 - culminating in the siege of Exeter which ended in bloody defeat and a wave of executions. Its church bells confiscated and silenced, Morebath shared in the punishment imposed on all the towns and villages of Devon and Cornwall. Sir Christopher documents the changes in the community: reluctantly Protestant, no longer focused on the religious life of the parish church, and increasingly preoccupied with the secular demands of the Elizabethan state, the equipping of armies, and the payment of taxes. Morebath's priest, garrulous to the end of his days, describes a rural world irrevocably altered, and enables us to hear the voices of his villagers after 400 years of silence.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #37052 in Books
• Published on: 2003-03-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 260 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Eamon Duffy's monumental The Stripping of the Altars provided a new slant on the English Reformation. Duffy has now dug deeper into the same fascinating period. The Voices of Morebath is the story of a hamlet buried deep in the heart of Devon. The parish priest, Sir Christopher Trychay remained in office through the troubled times of the mid-16th century. During his long tenure he carefully recorded the impact of national events in his ordinary rural community.

Trychay's account is unique because it is not a personal diary but a record of the parish accounts. Sir Christopher, however, was talkative and opinionated so the accounts are laden with the minutiae of parish life. Duffy weaves these otherwise cryptic details into the wider tapestry of events of the time, and by analysing the result shows the devastating revolution that took place in ordinary people's lives. As the drama unfolds we see the folk of Morebath forced from their secure Catholicism into the new religion of King Henry. After Edward's brief reign the villagers breathe a sigh of relief and haul out all their Catholic paraphernalia, grateful that Mary Tudor has restored the Catholic faith. Then it all goes for good once Elizabeth takes the throne.

Duffy has given us history that is absorbing, readable and complete. His own enthusiasm for his topic gives the book a zest that takes it beyond the usual academic tome. Anyone the least bit interested in English history must not neglect this important book. --Dwight Longenecker

Review
"a book of exceptional quality" John Adamson, The Sunday Telegraph "This great book is a monument not only to scholarship but also to the numinous spirituality of our past." Daniel Johnson, The Daily Telegraph "a book to be read by enthusiasts and general readers alike... significant and striking." Peter Ackroyd, The Times

Daniel Johnson, The Daily Telegraph
"This great book is a monument not only to scholarship but also to the numinous spirituality of our past."

Customer Reviews

A moving account of a Reformation village.
An instructive and at times deeply moving account of the effects of the Tudor Reformation on village life. Although the first half of the book may seem a little tedious in its introduction to the village, people and institutions of Morebath, it is ultimately necessary in understanding the remainder which moves historically through the Reformation period. The book gives a detailed insight into how bewildering it must have been for a conservative rural village to undergo the changes from Catholic to Protestant, back to Catholic under Queen Mary and finally to Protestant again under Elizabeth.

Why DID we all go protestant?
The long awaited sequel and parallel text to The Stripping of the Altars - an intimate examination of the Reformation in a single Devon parish.

Duffy explores the period 1530-1580 through the churchwardens accounts, minute books, journals and bequests of the remote Devon village of Morebath. If you've already read his "The Stripping of the Altars", this book is like a detective story, trying to answer a single, biting question: if the Reformation in England was so unpopular with the common people, why did it succeed? He comes up with what looks like it might be the answer.

The opening chapters may be heavy going if you haven't already read "The Stripping of the Altars".

Thank you for visiting Morebath - Please drive carefully
Eamon Duffy brings the village of Morebath in the sixteenth century to life with this excellent piece of research. Using original churchwarden's records and relevant historiography, he reconstructs the life of a community as it's belief system comes increasingly under threat. Duffy's work not only gives us a glipmse into the past, but also shows us the historian's craft in action. So Duffy may become a little wrapped up in his subject matter - his enthusiasm shines out of his work and adds to its appeal, in this case anyway. His love of the period is obvious and is infectious, and he reconstructs the minutiae of village life with gusto, to the point where you too may be sucked into the world of Morebath under the Tudors. No bad thing. It happened to me and I for one was sorry to leave.

This is very much a companion volume to "The Stripping of the Altars", the earlier work grand in scope, while "The Voices of Morebath" focusses on one community and narrows that scope, bringing it under the microscope and revealing it with skill and crystal clarity. Anyone with anything more than a passing interest in early modern history should have this book. What the hell... everyone else should have it too.