The Rise and Fall of Merry England : The Ritual Year 1400-1700

The Rise and Fall of Merry England is both an entertaining and pioneering history of the religious and secular rituals which marked the passage of the year in late medieval and early modern England. Telling the story of how they altered over time in response to political, religious, and social changes, Ronald Hutton throws light on a host of important and often controversial issues: the character and pace of the English Reformation, the nature of the early Stuart `Reformation of Manners', the origins of the `science' of folklore, the cultural divisions which spawned the English Civil War, the impact of the English Revolution, and the economic implications of social change. Never before has such a rich, innovative, and thoroughly enjoyable study of the subject been undertaken.