%A J. Spraggon
%D 2000
%O Thesis digitised by British Library EThOS
%T Puritan iconoclasm in England 1640-1660
%I University of London
%L discovery1349283
%X A study of Puritan iconoclasm in England during the period of the civil wars and
Interregnum, this thesis looks at the reasons for the resurgence of large-scale
iconoclasm a hundred years after the break with Rome. Initially a reaction to the
emphasis on ceremony and the 'beauty of holiness' under Archbishop Laud, the attack
on recent 'innovations' introduced into the church (such as images, stained glass
windows and communion rails) developed into a drive for further reformation led by the
Long Parliament. Increasingly radical legislation targeted not just 'new popery', but
pre-reformation survivals and a wide range of objects including some which had been
acceptable to the Elizabethan and Jacobean church (for instance organs and vestments).
Parallel to this official movement was an unofficial one, undertaken by Parliamentary
soldiers during the war, whose iconoclastic violence, particularly against cathedral
churches, became notorious. The significance of this spontaneous action and the
importance of the anti-Catholic and anti-Episcopal feelings that it represented is
examined. So too is the promotion of such feeling and of the cause of the reformation of
images through printed literature (both popular and learned).
A detailed survey is made of parliament's legislation against images, and the work of its
Committee for the Demolition of Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry, headed by
Sir Robert Harley. The question of how and how far this legislation was enforced
generally is considered, with specific case studies looking at the impact of the
iconoclastic reformation in London, the cathedral churches and at the universities.