This interdisciplinary volume of essays brings together a team of leading early modern historians and literary scholars in order to examine the changing conceptions, character, and condemnation
of 'heresy' in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Definitions of 'heresy' and 'heretics' were the subject of heated controversies in England from the English Reformation to the end of
the seventeenth century. These essays illuminate the significant literary issues involved in both defending and demonizing heretical beliefs, including the contested hermeneutic strategies
applied to the interpretation of the Bible, and they examine how debates over heresy stimulated the increasing articulation of arguments for religious toleration in England. Offering new
perspectives on John Milton, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and others, this volume should be of interest to all literary, religious, and political historians working on early modern English
culture.