Elizabeth Atkinson (KCL) - 2015-16 Students
elizabeth.atkinson@kcl.ac.uk

Bloodlines and belief: family identity, relationships and confessional identity in Early Modern England

This thesis will investigate the development of confessional identities in England between 1520 and 1680, focusing particularly on their application to the family and relations between parent and child. Through a close reading of the individual accounts and correspondence, as well as devotional and educational materials of several key English families and figures, this thesis offers an insight into how families constructed their confessional identity but also, crucially, how this understanding of religion and religious identity was negotiated and often challenged within the family; crossing traditional generational and confessional lines.