Summary
CaPer is an ambitious interdisciplinary project exploring how forms of play and recreation helped shape and sustain the Catholic minority in Protestant England. In faith-divided early modern Europe, the English state persecuted Catholics for their religious allegiance, excluding them from political life. How did the marginalized Catholic minority, navigating between opposition and loyalty to their Protestant monarchs, survive in such a hostile environment? Exploring issues of religious intolerance, inequality, and social exclusion, CaPer adresses one of the main challenges for the future of Europe. Studying the English Catholic community from an innovative perspective, it examines sources and practices which historians have hitherto rarely considered. It breaks new ground by comprehensively investigating how Catholics built communal bonds and negotiated their place in English society through theatre, dance, music, sports, and ceremonies throughout the period of the most vigorous religious persecution, from the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Tapping into underexplored archives in order to collect and analyse a vast quantity of neglected records of performance, and paying attention to both microcosms within provincial Britain and international networks of global Catholicism, CaPer will: a) produce a new cultural history of the English Catholic community, demonstrating how performance played a crucial role in education, sociability, missionary activity, private devotion, and in maintaining Catholic social standing; b) introduce to historiography previously neglected practices and actors, including women players, dancing masters, music teachers, and itinerant entertainers; c) expand our knowledge of practical religious coexistence in the early modern period, providing a blueprint for future studies of play and leisure among religious minorities, and inform contemporary European policies aimed at reducing social exclusion.
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More information & hyperlinks
| Web resources: | https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/101028507 |
| Start date: | 01-03-2022 |
| End date: | 31-08-2024 |
| Total budget - Public funding: | 235 490,40 Euro - 235 490,00 Euro |
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Original description
CaPer is an ambitious interdisciplinary project exploring how forms of play and recreation helped shape and sustain the Catholic minority in Protestant England. In faith-divided early modern Europe, the English state persecuted Catholics for their religious allegiance, excluding them from political life. How did the marginalized Catholic minority, navigating between opposition and loyalty to their Protestant monarchs, survive in such a hostile environment? Exploring issues of religious intolerance, inequality, and social exclusion, CaPer adresses one of the main challenges for the future of Europe. Studying the English Catholic community from an innovative perspective, it examines sources and practices which historians have hitherto rarely considered. It breaks new ground by comprehensively investigating how Catholics built communal bonds and negotiated their place in English society through theatre, dance, music, sports, and ceremonies throughout the period of the most vigorous religious persecution, from the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558 to the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Tapping into underexplored archives in order to collect and analyse a vast quantity of neglected records of performance, and paying attention to both microcosms within provincial Britain and international networks of global Catholicism, CaPer will: a) produce a new cultural history of the English Catholic community, demonstrating how performance played a crucial role in education, sociability, missionary activity, private devotion, and in maintaining Catholic social standing; b) introduce to historiography previously neglected practices and actors, including women players, dancing masters, music teachers, and itinerant entertainers; c) expand our knowledge of practical religious coexistence in the early modern period, providing a blueprint for future studies of play and leisure among religious minorities, and inform contemporary European policies aimed at reducing social exclusion.Status
SIGNEDCall topic
MSCA-IF-2020Update Date
28-04-2024
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