Reformation as Continuity: Objects of Dining and Devotion in Early Modern England

Abstract

This article traces the remarkable physical transformations that Catholic objects experienced during the Protestant Reformation in England. It identifies a previously undiscovered trend in which medieval reliquaries were systematically emptied of their relics, dismantled, and re-formed as new tableware vessels between the mid-sixteenth and mid-seventeenth centuries. Through a sustained interrogation of the surviving physical evidence—alongside analysis of contemporary conduct literature, household manuals, wills, and sermons—the article argues that the spiritual power of these divine objects was not diminished once they were refashioned and recontextualized within the early modern home but rather was revived and adapted to new uses. In doing so, the article not only offers a framework for approaching a neglected body of historical artifacts, but also argues that the wider processes of England’s Reformation incorporated modes of both transformation and continuity