The Blounts of the West Midlands: Reformation Religion

I gave a paper at the European Reformation Research Group Conference at Murray Edwards College, Cambridge on Tuesday 9th September 2014. It was a great experience and my paper 'The Blounts of the West Midlands: A Gentry Family's Religion in the Reformation Period', which opened the conference got great feedback.

My paper looked at the religious activities and views of the Blounts of the West Midlands (Bessie Blount's family) during the Reformation period. This included an analysis of their interaction with the traditional church, their response to the dissolution of the monasteries and their links to Christian Humanism.

There were some fascinating papers during the two days of the conference, including studies of tolerance in the Elizabethan Catholic community, the material culture of the sixteenth century Catholics in the Netherlands and early modern English murder pamphlets. There were also studies of the works and theology of Martin Luther, Erasmus and John Frith. I was also able to catch the first day of the Reformation Studies Coloquium which opened on 10 September and will run until tomorrow. This is one of the most important conferences for scholars of the Reformation in England and the speakers and their papers were both highly innovative and thought provoking.