2024/05/03 by H. O. D. Patton · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #Historical Influence and Diplomacy #Reformation and Early Modern Christianity #Scottish History and National Identity
paper · pdf · doi:10.1080/14629712.2024.2367336
openalex publication_date 2024/05/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
The Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal worked at the ecclesiastical heart of the English court. Their religious beliefs, when discussed by historians and musicologists, are usually characterised as ranging from crypto-Catholic conformity to the a-confessionalism of individuals keen to survive seismic religious change. This article revises orthodox images of the Gentlemen of the Elizabethan Chapel Royal as religious ‘conservatives’ drawn to royal employment by the ceremonialism of services, and instead emphasises their energetic theological interests and the strength of Protestant doctrinal opinion among their ranks. Their striking construction of public identities in printed religious works also illustrates the ways in which a group of ‘middling’ courtly churchmen and singing-men negotiated their own identities alongside and against that of their place of employment.