Agnes Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England [Paperback]

David Cressy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0192825305 | ISBN-13: 978-0192825308

Cressy examines how the orderly, Protestant, and hierarchical society of post-Reformation England coped with the cultural challenges posed by beliefs and events outside the social norm. Drawing on local texts and narratives he reveals how a series of troubling and unorthodox happenings--bestiality and monstrous births, seduction and abortion, nakedness and cross-dressing, excommunication and irregular burial, iconoclasm and vandalism--disturbed the margins, cut across the grain, and set the authorities on edge.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Cressy's endnotes are copious and his writing is exemplary, both erudite and fun to read. [This book] deserves the highest praise and placement on the bookshelves of anyone interested in Tudor-Stuart society."--History

About the Author

David Cressy is Professor of History at Ohio State University, USA

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (May 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0192825305
• ISBN-13: 978-0192825308
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #572,275 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars This is supposed to teach us what?, December 8, 2002

By 

Bunny (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Agnes Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Transgressions in Tudor and Stuart England (Paperback)

This entire book is about odd cases that made it to one court of law or another in early 16th Century England. I'm no English History buff but I had to read this book for a class I unfortunately signed up for this past semester.

First of all, the use of old court records and depositions to try and determine how society dealt with the Reformation and religious changes after Henry VIII is not going to get you too far. Especially when said records are missing large portions, lacking in certain key details and for the most part just testimony by persons trying to keep themselves in the favor of the courts so that they don't get themselves beheaded or what ever the Hell they did to people back then.

How much does the testimony of OJ Simpson refelct today's political and religious ideology?

I have yet to find a single part of this book that demonstrates one way or another just how society of that time did deal with the Reformation and religious changes taking place. Now I have to go write a 6 page paper about how it does.

The whole book reads like an Old English tabloid.