IAS Fellow's Seminar

Fellow: Stephen Taylor

Chair: Tony Wilkinson

In the first seminar of this term, I would like to take advantage of the discursive format encouraged by the IAS to do three things. First, I shall briefly outline the parameters of the larger project on which I am working at present: fasts, thanksgivings and state prayers in Britain between the Reformation and the present. Second, I shall talk about some of the questions on which I shall be working in the course of this term. Focusing on the fasts and thanksgivings that punctuated the political and religious calendar of early modern England at moments of especial national crisis and celebration, I intend to explore some of the meanings of prayer - and, in particular, national prayer - for early modern Englishmen and women. For what were they praying? To what extent, and in what ways, did they believe that they could guard against, or even influence, the future? Why did they keep on praying? Third, if time permits, I shall make a few observations about the ways in which changing religious beliefs and practices between the Reformation and the present might illuminate the ways in which people conceptualize the future has changed over the last five centuries and whether this has any implications for our understanding of attitudes in other societies today.