Reforming the Holy Name: The Afterlife of the IHS in Early Modern England
Abstract
This article challenges the prevailing understanding of the Holy Name of Jesus as largely a Roman Catholic representation in early modern England. Although the Holy Name was attacked intermittently by Protestant iconoclasts, the article uses both visual and literary texts to set out a more nuanced relationship between the symbol and the broader religious culture of the period. As a symbol, the IHS served as a polysemous representation in a period of religious turmoil, creating not only multiple meanings but also multiple contexts in which the symbol could be found. The article both addresses the reasons why scholars tend to see the IHS as a particularly Catholic symbol and demonstrates the continued importance of the Holy Name in Protestant devotion.
Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the anonymous readers at the Journal of Early Modern Christianity, whose comments elevated key aspects of my analysis. Also, the research for this article was only possible thanks to a Hardenberg Fellowship at the Johannes à Lasco Bibliotek and a RSA-Huntington Library Fellowship.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Sebastian Münster and his Sources: The Messiah in Rome and the Convergence of Christian-Jewish Polemic and Intra-Christian Conflict
- Von Rossen und Wagen: Das Verhältnis von Stadt und Land in der Ulmer Reformation
- The Doctrine of Justification in the Neo-Latin Biblical Poetry of Silesian Reformation Poets and their Interpretation of the Biblical Theme of the Fall of the First Parents
- Teaching Romans 7 after Trent: Michael Baius and his Lecture Hall on Concupiscence and Original Sin in Early Modern Louvain (1552–1589)
- Maintaining the Common Peace: Security and the Religious Peace of 1578 during the Dutch Revolt
- Conciliar Infallibility and Error in the Thomistic Ecclesiology of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J.
- Reforming the Holy Name: The Afterlife of the IHS in Early Modern England
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Sebastian Münster and his Sources: The Messiah in Rome and the Convergence of Christian-Jewish Polemic and Intra-Christian Conflict
- Von Rossen und Wagen: Das Verhältnis von Stadt und Land in der Ulmer Reformation
- The Doctrine of Justification in the Neo-Latin Biblical Poetry of Silesian Reformation Poets and their Interpretation of the Biblical Theme of the Fall of the First Parents
- Teaching Romans 7 after Trent: Michael Baius and his Lecture Hall on Concupiscence and Original Sin in Early Modern Louvain (1552–1589)
- Maintaining the Common Peace: Security and the Religious Peace of 1578 during the Dutch Revolt
- Conciliar Infallibility and Error in the Thomistic Ecclesiology of St. Robert Bellarmine, S.J.
- Reforming the Holy Name: The Afterlife of the IHS in Early Modern England
