Dr Anna French, a new member of staff in our Department of History, has recently published a book on early modern childhood. The work, Children of Wrath: Possession, Prophecy and the Young in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2015), explores the involvement of children in published cases of possession and prophecy during the 16th- and 17th-centuries.
The book considers the ways in which children became embroiled in events in which they were seen to be receptive both to godly and demonic spiritual forces, and asks what such cases can tell us about early modern perceptions of the relationship between spirituality and childhood. The accounts of possession and prophecy also reveal to us moments, however rare, in which children were depicted in positions of spiritual authority. More widely, Children of Wrath seeks to explore the spiritual status of children in the early modern world, and to unpick some of the contemporary ideas and assumptions which shaped the lives of the young.
Anna French joined the Department in October 2015. Her current research considers early modern perceptions of infancy and childhood, the ceremony of baptism, as well as the complicated and ever-changing relationship between Church and child in the Reformation world. Anna brings to Liverpool teaching interests in 16th- and 17th-century cultural and religious history.
Links
- Dr Anna French
- Children of Wrath: Possession, Prophecy and the Young in Early Modern England (Ashgate, 2015)