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1. 1 2017-06-14T20:16:51+00:00 Subtle Religious Resistance 14 plain 2018-01-03T19:42:19+00:00
   Defying a prince was dangerous business in the early modern period, especially when it came to religion. Disagreeing with a prince’s religious choices could now be considered an act of treason, punishable by death. Many people were willing to accept this consequence, but others found subtle ways to resist princes’ religious decrees, to which their books testify.
   
   A wonderful illustration comes from this English Book of Hours, a late medieval prayer book.  By the 16th century, it belonged to the family of Thomas Mildmay, who had connections to the English royal court, and its contents had become quite controversial. Once Henry VIII broke from the Roman church, traditional (and still very popular) practices like devotion to the saints quickly became taboo, and royal decrees in 1538 and 1548 insisted that images of saints be put away or destroyed. The Mildmays, it seems, tried to find a middle ground between following the king’s orders and preserving their traditional devotional practices. They dutifully crossed out the name of the English saint Thomas Becket, but left the miniature portrait untouched and drew only a single line over the prayer, which allowed them to continue using Becket’s image and prayer for their devotions if they wished. (Find more details on this prayer book here.)
   
   
   
   
   Even under the most repressive regimes, people could still acquire publications supporting different religious beliefs. A thriving trade in illegal books, in which religious materials were printed in friendly territory and smuggled in to hostile ones, made this possible. Size mattered a great deal in this trade, and illegal religious books were often designed to be small so that they could be pocketed or easily hidden from the authorities when necessary. This copy of the Dathenus Catechism is a typical example; it contained all of the material Reformed Christians in the Catholic-controlled Netherlands would need to perform their private devotions, but was small enough to keep out of sight from the Spanish authorities. 
2. 1 2018-01-03T20:01:44+00:00 Video gallery 4 plain 2018-01-03T22:58:14+00:00 On this page you will find a series of videos recorded in the exhibit gallery featuring the Major Projects Fellow for Religious Change and Print, Chris Fletcher. In the videos, Fletcher describes the stories behind some of the items featured in the exhibit gallery as well as in this digital exhibit.
   
   The Religious Work of the Books
   Subtle Religious Resistance
   The Thirty Years' War