Fantastic essay; your writing is always so comprehensive and lucid, your treatment of a subject hitting the mark between rigorous and accessible for your readers. This is a substack blog with real polish. Thank you so much for spoiling us as ever. I had no idea that Prynne's work had been subject to such unceremonious treatment!
Thanks so much Alice! That's very kind of you and greatly appreciated.
As for Prynne, more was to come. I'll quote directly from Willie Lamont's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
In 1637 Prynne "came for a second time before Star Chamber. Once more he was accused (and found guilty) of sedition, along with a divine (Henry Burton) and a doctor (John Bastwick). His ears, lightly cropped in 1633, now received the full treatment, his nose was slit, and the initials ‘S. L.’ burnt into his cheeks. They stood for 'Seditious Libeller'; to Prynne they stood for 'Stigma of Laud'. He described his sufferings in a pamphlet in 1641. The executioner had heated the iron very hot, and burnt one of his cheeks twice. After this he cut one of Prynne's ears so close that he cut off a piece of cheek, and cut him deep in the neck near the jugular vein. Then, hacking the other ear until it was almost off, he left it hanging and went down from the scaffold. He was called back by the surgeon, who made him perform a complete amputation. Smiling up to heaven, said Prynne, he responded with 'this heavenly sentence' (his own evaluation): 'The more I am beat down, the more am I lift up'"
Great piece, I really liked the sweep. Tried to post a question, it does not show up here, not sure you can see it--still learning how to work this site. In any case: thanks for sharing it here. Will check out the original asap.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful and generous comments Andras. It’s very much appreciated. I'll add your fuller response from the note here so that our conversation will be easier to find for those interested in this topic:
"One fascinating detail I would love to know more about—burning books for secular offenses. The essay uses that distinction for the 1640s. How does it emerge?
When Paul converts the Ephesians, who eagerly bring their own books of magic to be burnt, he creates the legitimating template for Christian book burning on the model of religious offering or sacrifice. And if you can’t bring yourself to do it, the Church will be eager to oblige, although they will want to burn you with your books.
Prynne’s book is the first one mentioned here where the offense was, as I recall, not religious but arguably secular-political: lèse-majesté; he said some unpleasant things about the Queen. Having the book burnt by the public hangman seems reflective of this, I suppose? So Prynne’s text was “strange and heinous,” but not deemed heretic—hence the public hangman? (If it was not the hangman, who administered the burning?)
I think this may not have been the first time. The Florentine ambassador to the court of James I angrily protested Robert Dallington’s 1605 Survey of Tuscany for its harsh criticism of the Grand Duke’s rule. In response, Robert Cecil had the book burnt by the public hangman in Paul’s Churchyard. The act was symbolic: they could only discover three copies. (Doing a quick search, the only authority I have for the agent being the public hangman is Fritz Levy. Fritz Levy is pretty good authority, but I would need to check further.)
In any case, and whether Dallington or Prynne: book burning for heresy seems to go with the threat of burning the author when available through the early 17th century—unless of course the author follow the example of Ephesians.
Could it be that book burning for civil, political offenses, at royal or parliamentary order separated author from work? How far back do examples of book burning for non-religious offenses go?"
Burning books for secular offences; it's a great question. Here we can make a distinction between developments in continental Europe and in England. For the former, there is Paul Grendler, ‘The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605’, The Journal of Modern History, 47 (1975), p. 57. He notes that between 1569-71 the Holy Office seized texts from Venetian bookstores and burned them. Among the works were Italian books by Machiavelli and Aretino, as well as non-religious titles by northern Protestants. For the latter, my sense is Elizabethan England. Charles Gillett's 'Burned books' (2 vols, New York, 1932) has an extensive list and most of these can be substantiated (but not all, while there are also a few omissions). Here examples include:
John Stubbs, The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed
(ordered to be burned by proclamation, September 1579)
George Buchanan, De Jure Regni Apud Scotos (1579) [not checked]
Anthony Gilby, A Pleasunt Dialogue, Between a Souldier of Barwick and an English Chaplaine (1581) [not checked]
The Marprelate tracts [not checked]
Peter Wentworth, A Pithie Exhortation to her Maiestie For Establishing Her Successor To the Crowne (1598) [not checked]
You ask how the distinction emerges and it's a really perceptive question. In Elizabethan England my sense would be as part of moves to protect the authority of the Crown and Church; consequently that this reveals something about the anxieties of those in power.
The hangman: yes, it was the hangman who performed the burning. This can be seen in the illustration to my essay, which is taken from John Vicars, 'A Sight of ye Trans-actions of these latter yeares Emblemized' (1646), p. 21
I wasn't aware that Robert Dallington’s 1605 Survey of Tuscany was apparently burned by the hangman. If this was the case, that would make it the earliest known example. Could you let me know which work by Fritz Levy please, and I'll follow up.
Thanks, Ariel, for getting back to me--Levy writes about Dallington's book in Levy, F.J. (1987), 'Hayward, Daniel, and the beginnings of politic history in England', Huntington Library Quarterly, 50, 1-34, but looking through it could not find the hangman. He cites State Papers Venetian and Anna Maria Crinò, Fatti e figure del Seicento anglo-toscano: documenti inediti sui rapporti letterari, diplomatici, culturali fra Toscana e Inghilterra. Firenze: Olschki, 1957. No mention of the hangman, though.
In 'Staging the news', in Arthur Marotti and Michael Bristol (eds.), Print, manuscript and performance (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press), 252-278, he mentions Dallington, and says "the Tuscan ambassador's complaint about the depiction of his master in Robert Dallington's A Survey of the Great Dukes State of Tuscany led to the book's being burned by the public hangman." (p. 255). Here he cites Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts... Existing in... Venice, ed. Horatio Brown, vol. 10 [1603-1607] (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1900), 240, 245; Anna Maria Crino, Fatti e Figure del Seicento Anglo-Toscano (Florence: L. Olschki, 1957), 41-48.
If you find an actual mention of the hangman, please let me know--it may also just be that Levy added "by the public hangman" because that is what is expected?
And a question--sorry to be so dense and obstinate, and also unclear--I understood your piece as saying that books being burned by the hangman was a novelty in the case of Prynne. But whether it was Dallington or Prynne--if this was a continental innovation, who was in charge of burning books in England before it became the hangman's job? Or am I misunderstanding what the novelty was in the case of Prynne? Thanks again for your generous reply!
Thanks for this Andras, which is very helpful. I followed up the sources you kindly provided and there's no mention of a hangman. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. 10, pp. 240, 245 has:
Nicolo Molin, Venetian Ambassador in England, to the Doge and Senate.
“An English gentleman, who has been for some years resident in Italy, has recently published a book in English, in which he discussed the Italian Princes and their government. It is full of lies and vanity, and he must have been very badly informed. In specially he says all the ill he can of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, declares he is hated and predicts a revolution. When the Tuscan Secretary heard it he complained to Cecil. Cecil sent for the printer and made him surrender all the copies, and all those that are already sold have been called in, so that the book will be suppressed.” (London, 18 May 1605)
Nicolo Molin, Venetian Ambassador in England, to the Doge and Senate.
“The Council has ordered all copies of that book on the Italian States to be burned, and this was publicly carried out at St. Paul’s. The author has been confined to his house till the Grand Duke’s pleasure be known.” (London, 1 June 1605)
So, in you answer to your question who burned the books before Prynne? It's a very good question and I don't actually know. For this period we have far more evidence concerning complaints about books & concerning the orders issued to have them burned than we do eye-witness accounts of the actual burnings.
Checking my notes, the earliest mention I have of the hangman in continental Europe is Paris, summer 1614; "The burning of Suarez book at Paris by the hangman is a notable affront to all the Jesuits in Christendom".
That said, I haven't done any extensive research on continental book burnings and there could be several earlier examples.
In England, my guess - and it is only a guess - is that it depends where the burning was carried out. At the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps the university beadles. At London, perhaps a member of the Stationers' Company if the burning was done on their premises at Stationers' Hall; e.g. the burnings on 4 June 1599. At London outdoors at the locations I mentioned in the essay I don't know. But it's certainly worth following up. And your questions together with the encouraging comments in this thread have certainly made me want to return to this topic at some point in the future. So thank you once again.
Thanks, Ariel, and apologies for having bothered you with what turned to be a mistake... But I think this is a great topic, so I look forward to reading you on this sometime in the future.
And if you don't mind, two more thoughts.
One about the ecclesiastical vs secular distinction. I am thinking that whatever the Holy See or the Inquisition etc. condemn to burning falls under the former category, no matter how we would understand the nature of the book: it was a decision made under ecclesiastical rather than civil jurisdiction, if that distinction can be applied. (?)
I suspect the arguments they used would have been along those lines, too. In the case of Machiavelli, e.g., there was ample reason to object to it on religious grounds, or so they could argue in any case. There would have been a wide range of possibilities to consider a book as un-christian, as attacking church doctrine, etc., and I suspect that in a lot of cases, whatever the book was about, the decision to have it burnt would have been made on grounds within the remit of ecclesiastical courts.
There may very well have been cases where the English sovereign could also simply have acted as the head of church I suppose.
What I am wondering about is this: when did book burning start to be used as a sentence in a secular legal framework? Our secular vs religious distinction may often be a back-projection, but the cases you cite when during the Civil war years, when Parliament ordered political pamphlets to be burnt, that may have been an innovation, books being subject to a form of spectacular punishment that was familiar from ecclesiastical contexts--the big point here would be to argue that what we are seeing here is the state emerging as a new, secular object for quasi-religious protection?
I am thinking about all this because of your concluding thoughts about burning books, not people--there is a shift there which may be linked to the shift from ecclesiastical to civil jurisdiction? Obviously, the English vs continental legal system complicated this further. And then of course, as your essay is suggesting, the Nazis are engaging in a practice that is radically anti-modern even in this sense.
Related, in case you will be looking for an image for this, and also as a good reminder of how henry VIII viewed Paul as a model:
Many thanks for your further thoughts on this Andras. In terms of a split between ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction, that distinction can be applied in England. Star Chamber, for example, was a secular court; High Commission was an ecclesiastical court.
Both courts were abolished in 1641. Beforehand, however, Star Chamber had condemned Prynne (amongst others) while High Commission had authorised the burning of some books (e.g. by Edwin Sandys, John Bastwick, etc.). Also, to complicate matters, there was legislation in 1637 - here I'm quoting myself from something else:
"According to a decree issued in July 1637 by the court of Star Chamber concerning printing, all books imported from abroad had to be brought by ship to London where the cargo would be inspected. Moreover, merchants had to provide a catalogue of their stock to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, while only freemen of the Stationers’ Company or those ‘brought up in that profession’ were permitted to import or vend books ‘printed beyond the Seas in any Language whatsoeuer".
In terms of your major point, about the possiblity of a new, secular object for quasi-religious protection - here we have to factor in a further development: namely the abolition of church courts (along with bishops) during the English Revolution. So jurisdiction during this period was in the hands of the magistrate rather than the church. There would be ecclesiastical bodies such as the Westminster Assembly of Divines. But regarding the implementation of legislation about blasphemy (following Ordinances of 1648 and 1650), that became the decision of the magistrate and - on appeal - lawyers; not theologians.
So that's a long-winded way of saying that there is evidence to support your suggestion. Although it can also be read in other terms, e.g. Erastianism. And of course the Restoration meant that bishops came back along with the monarchy.
A final point on this, as you rightly note, is the English use of common law (although some secular courts did use civil law; e.g. Constable and Marshal; Admiralty).
To wrap up on your main points, I think they're extremely helpful and I'll give them a great deal of thought. Thank you. Likewise, thanks for the links to the image, which I didn't know about.
Thanks so much Diego. That's very kind and greatly appreciated! Perhaps at some point a brief essay summarising our co-written article on the non-burning of the Racovian Catechism in 1614?
Fantastic essay; your writing is always so comprehensive and lucid, your treatment of a subject hitting the mark between rigorous and accessible for your readers. This is a substack blog with real polish. Thank you so much for spoiling us as ever. I had no idea that Prynne's work had been subject to such unceremonious treatment!
Thanks so much Alice! That's very kind of you and greatly appreciated.
As for Prynne, more was to come. I'll quote directly from Willie Lamont's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
In 1637 Prynne "came for a second time before Star Chamber. Once more he was accused (and found guilty) of sedition, along with a divine (Henry Burton) and a doctor (John Bastwick). His ears, lightly cropped in 1633, now received the full treatment, his nose was slit, and the initials ‘S. L.’ burnt into his cheeks. They stood for 'Seditious Libeller'; to Prynne they stood for 'Stigma of Laud'. He described his sufferings in a pamphlet in 1641. The executioner had heated the iron very hot, and burnt one of his cheeks twice. After this he cut one of Prynne's ears so close that he cut off a piece of cheek, and cut him deep in the neck near the jugular vein. Then, hacking the other ear until it was almost off, he left it hanging and went down from the scaffold. He was called back by the surgeon, who made him perform a complete amputation. Smiling up to heaven, said Prynne, he responded with 'this heavenly sentence' (his own evaluation): 'The more I am beat down, the more am I lift up'"
Great piece, I really liked the sweep. Tried to post a question, it does not show up here, not sure you can see it--still learning how to work this site. In any case: thanks for sharing it here. Will check out the original asap.
Thanks so much for your thoughtful and generous comments Andras. It’s very much appreciated. I'll add your fuller response from the note here so that our conversation will be easier to find for those interested in this topic:
"One fascinating detail I would love to know more about—burning books for secular offenses. The essay uses that distinction for the 1640s. How does it emerge?
When Paul converts the Ephesians, who eagerly bring their own books of magic to be burnt, he creates the legitimating template for Christian book burning on the model of religious offering or sacrifice. And if you can’t bring yourself to do it, the Church will be eager to oblige, although they will want to burn you with your books.
Prynne’s book is the first one mentioned here where the offense was, as I recall, not religious but arguably secular-political: lèse-majesté; he said some unpleasant things about the Queen. Having the book burnt by the public hangman seems reflective of this, I suppose? So Prynne’s text was “strange and heinous,” but not deemed heretic—hence the public hangman? (If it was not the hangman, who administered the burning?)
I think this may not have been the first time. The Florentine ambassador to the court of James I angrily protested Robert Dallington’s 1605 Survey of Tuscany for its harsh criticism of the Grand Duke’s rule. In response, Robert Cecil had the book burnt by the public hangman in Paul’s Churchyard. The act was symbolic: they could only discover three copies. (Doing a quick search, the only authority I have for the agent being the public hangman is Fritz Levy. Fritz Levy is pretty good authority, but I would need to check further.)
In any case, and whether Dallington or Prynne: book burning for heresy seems to go with the threat of burning the author when available through the early 17th century—unless of course the author follow the example of Ephesians.
Could it be that book burning for civil, political offenses, at royal or parliamentary order separated author from work? How far back do examples of book burning for non-religious offenses go?"
Burning books for secular offences; it's a great question. Here we can make a distinction between developments in continental Europe and in England. For the former, there is Paul Grendler, ‘The Roman Inquisition and the Venetian Press, 1540-1605’, The Journal of Modern History, 47 (1975), p. 57. He notes that between 1569-71 the Holy Office seized texts from Venetian bookstores and burned them. Among the works were Italian books by Machiavelli and Aretino, as well as non-religious titles by northern Protestants. For the latter, my sense is Elizabethan England. Charles Gillett's 'Burned books' (2 vols, New York, 1932) has an extensive list and most of these can be substantiated (but not all, while there are also a few omissions). Here examples include:
John Stubbs, The Discoverie of a Gaping Gulf whereinto England is like to be Swallowed
(ordered to be burned by proclamation, September 1579)
George Buchanan, De Jure Regni Apud Scotos (1579) [not checked]
Anthony Gilby, A Pleasunt Dialogue, Between a Souldier of Barwick and an English Chaplaine (1581) [not checked]
The Marprelate tracts [not checked]
Peter Wentworth, A Pithie Exhortation to her Maiestie For Establishing Her Successor To the Crowne (1598) [not checked]
You ask how the distinction emerges and it's a really perceptive question. In Elizabethan England my sense would be as part of moves to protect the authority of the Crown and Church; consequently that this reveals something about the anxieties of those in power.
The hangman: yes, it was the hangman who performed the burning. This can be seen in the illustration to my essay, which is taken from John Vicars, 'A Sight of ye Trans-actions of these latter yeares Emblemized' (1646), p. 21
I wasn't aware that Robert Dallington’s 1605 Survey of Tuscany was apparently burned by the hangman. If this was the case, that would make it the earliest known example. Could you let me know which work by Fritz Levy please, and I'll follow up.
Thanks, Ariel, for getting back to me--Levy writes about Dallington's book in Levy, F.J. (1987), 'Hayward, Daniel, and the beginnings of politic history in England', Huntington Library Quarterly, 50, 1-34, but looking through it could not find the hangman. He cites State Papers Venetian and Anna Maria Crinò, Fatti e figure del Seicento anglo-toscano: documenti inediti sui rapporti letterari, diplomatici, culturali fra Toscana e Inghilterra. Firenze: Olschki, 1957. No mention of the hangman, though.
In 'Staging the news', in Arthur Marotti and Michael Bristol (eds.), Print, manuscript and performance (Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press), 252-278, he mentions Dallington, and says "the Tuscan ambassador's complaint about the depiction of his master in Robert Dallington's A Survey of the Great Dukes State of Tuscany led to the book's being burned by the public hangman." (p. 255). Here he cites Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts... Existing in... Venice, ed. Horatio Brown, vol. 10 [1603-1607] (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1900), 240, 245; Anna Maria Crino, Fatti e Figure del Seicento Anglo-Toscano (Florence: L. Olschki, 1957), 41-48.
If you find an actual mention of the hangman, please let me know--it may also just be that Levy added "by the public hangman" because that is what is expected?
And a question--sorry to be so dense and obstinate, and also unclear--I understood your piece as saying that books being burned by the hangman was a novelty in the case of Prynne. But whether it was Dallington or Prynne--if this was a continental innovation, who was in charge of burning books in England before it became the hangman's job? Or am I misunderstanding what the novelty was in the case of Prynne? Thanks again for your generous reply!
Thanks for this Andras, which is very helpful. I followed up the sources you kindly provided and there's no mention of a hangman. Calendar of Venetian State Papers, vol. 10, pp. 240, 245 has:
Nicolo Molin, Venetian Ambassador in England, to the Doge and Senate.
“An English gentleman, who has been for some years resident in Italy, has recently published a book in English, in which he discussed the Italian Princes and their government. It is full of lies and vanity, and he must have been very badly informed. In specially he says all the ill he can of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, declares he is hated and predicts a revolution. When the Tuscan Secretary heard it he complained to Cecil. Cecil sent for the printer and made him surrender all the copies, and all those that are already sold have been called in, so that the book will be suppressed.” (London, 18 May 1605)
Nicolo Molin, Venetian Ambassador in England, to the Doge and Senate.
“The Council has ordered all copies of that book on the Italian States to be burned, and this was publicly carried out at St. Paul’s. The author has been confined to his house till the Grand Duke’s pleasure be known.” (London, 1 June 1605)
So, in you answer to your question who burned the books before Prynne? It's a very good question and I don't actually know. For this period we have far more evidence concerning complaints about books & concerning the orders issued to have them burned than we do eye-witness accounts of the actual burnings.
Checking my notes, the earliest mention I have of the hangman in continental Europe is Paris, summer 1614; "The burning of Suarez book at Paris by the hangman is a notable affront to all the Jesuits in Christendom".
That said, I haven't done any extensive research on continental book burnings and there could be several earlier examples.
In England, my guess - and it is only a guess - is that it depends where the burning was carried out. At the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, perhaps the university beadles. At London, perhaps a member of the Stationers' Company if the burning was done on their premises at Stationers' Hall; e.g. the burnings on 4 June 1599. At London outdoors at the locations I mentioned in the essay I don't know. But it's certainly worth following up. And your questions together with the encouraging comments in this thread have certainly made me want to return to this topic at some point in the future. So thank you once again.
Thanks, Ariel, and apologies for having bothered you with what turned to be a mistake... But I think this is a great topic, so I look forward to reading you on this sometime in the future.
And if you don't mind, two more thoughts.
One about the ecclesiastical vs secular distinction. I am thinking that whatever the Holy See or the Inquisition etc. condemn to burning falls under the former category, no matter how we would understand the nature of the book: it was a decision made under ecclesiastical rather than civil jurisdiction, if that distinction can be applied. (?)
I suspect the arguments they used would have been along those lines, too. In the case of Machiavelli, e.g., there was ample reason to object to it on religious grounds, or so they could argue in any case. There would have been a wide range of possibilities to consider a book as un-christian, as attacking church doctrine, etc., and I suspect that in a lot of cases, whatever the book was about, the decision to have it burnt would have been made on grounds within the remit of ecclesiastical courts.
There may very well have been cases where the English sovereign could also simply have acted as the head of church I suppose.
What I am wondering about is this: when did book burning start to be used as a sentence in a secular legal framework? Our secular vs religious distinction may often be a back-projection, but the cases you cite when during the Civil war years, when Parliament ordered political pamphlets to be burnt, that may have been an innovation, books being subject to a form of spectacular punishment that was familiar from ecclesiastical contexts--the big point here would be to argue that what we are seeing here is the state emerging as a new, secular object for quasi-religious protection?
I am thinking about all this because of your concluding thoughts about burning books, not people--there is a shift there which may be linked to the shift from ecclesiastical to civil jurisdiction? Obviously, the English vs continental legal system complicated this further. And then of course, as your essay is suggesting, the Nazis are engaging in a practice that is radically anti-modern even in this sense.
Related, in case you will be looking for an image for this, and also as a good reminder of how henry VIII viewed Paul as a model:
There is a tapestry I have seen at the Met in New York a couple of years ago at their Tudor exhibition: https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/tudors
It is in a private collection, or so it was listed on the wall label then.
There is no longer any trace of it on the museum site for the exhibition, except in the audio guide: https://www.metmuseum.org/audio-guide/585
It is in the printed catalog though, and here is a news article about it:
https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/07/27/portrait-of-omai-what-about-bringing-henry-viiis-epic-tapestry-back-to-the-uk-says-british-businessman
Interestingly, a search on the Met website yields what appears to be a different version based on the same design--as well as the design itself:
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/238935
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/239301
The version in the Tudor exhibit was far superior to the version in Boston.
Many thanks for your further thoughts on this Andras. In terms of a split between ecclesiastical and civil jurisdiction, that distinction can be applied in England. Star Chamber, for example, was a secular court; High Commission was an ecclesiastical court.
Both courts were abolished in 1641. Beforehand, however, Star Chamber had condemned Prynne (amongst others) while High Commission had authorised the burning of some books (e.g. by Edwin Sandys, John Bastwick, etc.). Also, to complicate matters, there was legislation in 1637 - here I'm quoting myself from something else:
"According to a decree issued in July 1637 by the court of Star Chamber concerning printing, all books imported from abroad had to be brought by ship to London where the cargo would be inspected. Moreover, merchants had to provide a catalogue of their stock to the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of London, while only freemen of the Stationers’ Company or those ‘brought up in that profession’ were permitted to import or vend books ‘printed beyond the Seas in any Language whatsoeuer".
In terms of your major point, about the possiblity of a new, secular object for quasi-religious protection - here we have to factor in a further development: namely the abolition of church courts (along with bishops) during the English Revolution. So jurisdiction during this period was in the hands of the magistrate rather than the church. There would be ecclesiastical bodies such as the Westminster Assembly of Divines. But regarding the implementation of legislation about blasphemy (following Ordinances of 1648 and 1650), that became the decision of the magistrate and - on appeal - lawyers; not theologians.
So that's a long-winded way of saying that there is evidence to support your suggestion. Although it can also be read in other terms, e.g. Erastianism. And of course the Restoration meant that bishops came back along with the monarchy.
A final point on this, as you rightly note, is the English use of common law (although some secular courts did use civil law; e.g. Constable and Marshal; Admiralty).
To wrap up on your main points, I think they're extremely helpful and I'll give them a great deal of thought. Thank you. Likewise, thanks for the links to the image, which I didn't know about.
Being cancelled is nothing new!
Too true Michael.
Excellent job! This essay is thorough and clear, and it is easy to read. Thank you very much for making it available to a wide audience!
Thanks so much Diego. That's very kind and greatly appreciated! Perhaps at some point a brief essay summarising our co-written article on the non-burning of the Racovian Catechism in 1614?
Great essay. Thanks for your insight. Very enlightening.
Thanks so much! Glad you found it interesting.