The Art of Hearing
English Preachers and their Audiences, 1590–1640

This groundbreaking study of early modern English preaching was the first to take full account of the sermon as heard by the listener as well as uttered by the preacher. It draws on a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, but also seeks to read behind the texts in order to reconstruct what was actually delivered from the pulpit, with due attention to the differences between oral, written and printed versions. In showing how sermons were interpreted and appropriated by their hearers, often in ways that their authors never intended, it poses wider questions about the transmission of religious and political ideas in the post-Reformation period. Offering a richer understanding of sermons as complex and ambiguous texts, and opening up new avenues for their interpretation, it will be essential reading for all students of the religious and cultural history of early modern England.

Introduction; 1. The theory of preaching; 2. The art of hearing; 3. From pulpit to print; 4. Reconstructing the audience; 5. Preaching and the people; 6. Reading sermons politically: criticism and controversy; 7. Reading sermons theologically: predestination and the pulpit; Conclusion.

Arnold Hunt is Curator of Manuscripts at The British Library. He was the co-editor of The Book Trade and its Customers 1450–1900: Historical Essays (1997).