The evangelical or Methodist revival had a major impact on Welsh religion, society and culture, leading to the unprecedented growth of Nonconformity by the nineteenth century, which established a very clear difference between Wales and England in religious terms. Since the Welsh Calvinistic Methodist movement did not split from the Church to form a separate denomination until 1811, it existed in its early years solely as a collection of local society meetings. By focusing on the early societies in south-west Wales, this study examines the grass roots of the eighteenth-century Methodist movement, identifying the features that led to its subsequent remarkable success. At the heart of the book lie the experiences of the men and women who were members of the societies, along with their social and economic background and the factors that attracted them to the Methodist cause.

· A comprehensive scholarly synthesis of the history of Welsh theology between the eighteenth- and the twentieth century. · An even-handed and meticulous assessment of the impact of the Evangelical Revival on both the Anglican Church and Protestant Nonconformity up to and beyond the Victorian era. · A fresh interpretation based on a wide range of texts, both well-known and obscure, in the light of the latest scholarly consensus

Collecting and promoting art was at the heart of John Gibbs' life although his friends and colleagues knew little of the extent of his activities, and the wider art world knew even less. He and his wife Sheila challenged our concept of collecting, acquiring works for public and educational institutions as well as for their own family, including the youngest children. This book reveals for the first time how they created one of the first confident collections of contemporary Welsh art, and demonstrated the value of modern art in Christian faith. The collections they created include works by Ceri Richards, Lucian Freud and Paul Nash, all acquired to help us appreciate the power of art.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1856.

The first edition of this volume, published in 1981 under the title Into Another Mould, contemplated three aspects of the interregnum 1642-60: the suggested or even attempted reforms of local government; the politics of the New Model Army; the strains, new and old, between and within the constituent kingdoms. In this new edition, the original essays have been revised and joined by three new essays: 'Wales and the British Dimension'; 'Oliver Cromwell and his Protectorate Parliaments'; and a commentary by the editor, Ivan Roots, on procedure, legislation and constitutional change in the second of these parliaments.

Geoffrey F. Nuttall establishes the primacy of the doctrines of the Holy Spirit in seventeenth-century English Puritanism and demonstrates the continuity of the Reformation tradition from the more conservative views of Luther to the more radical interpretations of the Quakers. Nuttall illuminates prominent spokesmen, including Richard Sibbes, Richard Baxter, John Owen, Walter Cradock, Morgan Llwyd, and George Fox. In a new Introduction, Peter Lake discusses the relevance of Nuttall's book to, and its influence on, major works in seventeenth-century English history written since 1946.

Ranging from the works of Shakespeare, Spenser, Jonson and Milton to those of Robert Southwell and Anna Trapnel, this groundbreaking study explores the conscious use of archaic style by the poets and dramatists between 1590 and 1674. It focuses on the wide-ranging, complex and self-conscious uses of archaic linguistic and poetic style, analysing the uses to which writers put literary style in order to re-embody and reshape the past. Munro brings together scholarly conversations on temporality, memory and historiography, on the relationships between medieval and early modern literary cultures, on the workings of dramatic and poetic style, and on national history and identity. Neither pure anachronism nor pure nostalgia, the attempts of writers to reconstruct outmoded styles within their own works reveal a largely untold story about the workings of literary influence and tradition, the interactions between past and present, and the uncertain contours of English nationhood.

A cunning and successful literary forger, Iolo Morganwg has been a controversial figure within Welsh literary tradition and history ever since his death in 1826. During his lifetime, however, he was largely a figure on the margins of Welsh literary society, who found the task of getting his work into the coveted sphere of print culture a gargantuan one. This book examines how he dealt with the frustrations of his marginality – writing sardonic remarks in the margins of books published by his contemporaries, and submerging himself in a mound of scrap paper on which he wrote numerous drafts of poems and conducted original work on the Welsh language.