J. F. Merritt, ed.. Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-1720. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001. xii + 305 pp. $59.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-77346-1.
Reviewed by Barrett Beer
Published on H-Albion (June, 2002)
London in the Age of Stow and Strype Strype's major revision and enlargement in 1720. Imagining Early Modern London is a collec‐ While C. L. Kingsford studied the two editions pro‐ tion of papers presented at a conference held at duced by John Stow, the subsequent revisions the Institute of Historical Research in 1998. The have received less critical study. The paper con‐ editor contributed the introduction and a paper, centrates on the ways Anthony Munday and "The Reshaping of Stow's Survey: Munday, Strype, Strype revised Stow's text to refect a developing and the Protestant City." Nine other papers--writ‐ city committed to the Protestant religion. Munday ten by Patrick Collinson, Ian Archer, Vanessa could hardly have been more diferent from his Harding, Robert Shoemaker, Tim Hitchcock, Lau‐ friend Stow; a prolifc writer, poet, and play‐ ra Williams, Peter Lake, Tim Harris, and Nigel wright who specialized in vitriolic anti-Catholic Smith--focus on three basic historical questions. polemic, Munday produced new editions of the The frst is the issue of continuity: "to what extent Survey in 1618 and 1633. He added details of Lon‐ did contemporaries perceive a disjunction be‐ doners who were devoted to Protestantism and tween the physical size, culture, and social rela‐ carefully recorded their bequests to divinity stu‐ tionships of London past and present?" The sec‐ dents at Oxford and Cambridge, godly preachers ond question relates to the nature of metropolitan and lecturers, and poor prisoners who were nei‐ experience while the third examines the evalua‐ ther atheists nor papists. Munday's second edition tion of London's urbanization. The editor argues (1633) was further enlarged with accounts of Ja‐ that London's moral impact on its citizens was cobean and pre-Laudian church building, espe‐ embedded in many contemporary assessments of cially new construction, repairs, and recently the city. erected monuments. Although his work never en‐ joyed the prestige of Stow, he "did undertake his One of the most valuable contributions is the own research and sought to set his own personal editor's examination of the reshaping of Stow's stamp on the edition" (p. 55). Survey from its frst publication until John H-Net Reviews
In 1720 Strype produced a substantial edition alone, the authority of the Bible, and transubstan‐ of the Survey in two large folio volumes complete tiation. Stow also lacked the Protestant enthusi‐ with high-quality engravings of London land‐ asm of John Foxe and Munday, and was probably marks, maps, as well as a wealth of new material. a better man for it. Moreover, his attitude toward Priced at more than six guineas, Strype's work Jews and religious radicals compares favorably was available only to the wealthiest readers. He with most of his contemporaries. Other problems sought frst to identify Stow's text and separate it include a failure to note Stow's important manu‐ from the additions of Munday and then bring the script text, British Library, Harl. MS 542, describ‐ work up to date. With broader interests than ing the murder of Thomas Arden of Faversham (p. Stow, Strype added statistics and tables refective 236) and the curious suggestion that a few select‐ of the new political arithmetic as well as discus‐ ed titles in Stow's large collection of books consti‐ sion of overseas trade and the Bank of England. tute "bedside reading" (p. 43) and demonstrate However, as an Anglican clergyman and ecclesias‐ strong sympathy for Roman Catholicism. tical historian, Strype joined Munday in celebrat‐ Several papers touch on spatial issues as the ing the triumph of the English Reformation. rapidly growing city afected the lives of its inhab‐ Strype's support of the Revolution of 1688 led to itants. It is argued that it was virtually impossible his appointment as rural dean of Barking and lec‐ for people to have frst-hand knowledge of the turer in the parish of Hackney. His religious senti‐ whole metropolis at the end of the seventeenth ments, "fercely anti-Jacobite, anti-Catholic, disap‐ century, but little attention is given to the actual proving of Dissenters, and passionately commit‐ geographical size of the city. Harding's valuable ted to the established church," strongly infuenced paper considers the itineraries of Nehemiah his edition of the Survey (p. 77). The Civil War era Wallington, Samuel Pepys, and Richard Smyth, the challenged Strype's fundamental loyalty to the last of whom left an obituary list that allows her crown, and he responded to the contradictions of to trace his path through London. Shoemaker ex‐ the confict of 1640-60 with "as little direct com‐ amines mobility on the basis of class and gender. ment as possible" (p. 81). But Strype's edition was Middle-class wives running businesses as nothing less than a resounding success, and it re- milliners, haberdashers, and drapers, traveled established Stow as "the hero of the metropolis, more than their husbands. Elizabeth Knepp, a and a Londoner for all seasons" (p. 88). friend of Pepys, traveled without her husband to Regrettably Stow, who is presented as little locations from Tower Hill to Chelsea and Kensing‐ more than a nostalgic antiquarian, is less well- ton. The poorest Londoners were forced to travel served in this book than his continuators. Part of extensively in search of employment, poor relief, the problem lies in a misreading of an article that and accommodation. I published in 1985 dealing with Stow's under‐ The arts and acts of memorialization in Lon‐ standing of the Reformation and a failure to con‐ don are studied by Archer in a useful paper, while sider more recent work.[1] As a layman who Hitchcock reminds us that poverty and begging lacked a university education, Stow was an out‐ were fundamental parts of metropolitan culture sider to the Reformation compared with the cler‐ from the era of Stow to Strype and beyond. Taken gy, theologians, and biblical scholars who shaped as a whole, this volume includes papers that will the Church of England. While he carefully noted be invaluable to all students of London history. the destruction of ecclesiastical buildings in Lon‐ Note don and other external aspects of the Reforma‐ tion, he reveals little interest in more complex is‐ [1]. Beer, "John Stow and the English Refor‐ sues such as the doctrine of salvation by faith mation, 1547-1559," Sixteenth Century Journal 16,
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2 (1985): 257-71. More recent works include idem, Tudor England Observed: The World of John Stow (Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 1998) and "John Stow's Historical Notes (1500-1605): The Craft of a Citizen Historian," Manuscripta 41, 1 (1997): 38-52; and D. R. Woolf, Reading History in Early Modern Eng‐ land (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
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Citation: Barrett Beer. Review of Merritt, J. F., ed. Imagining Early Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-1720. H-Albion, H-Net Reviews. June, 2002.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=6417
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