Gender, Culture and Politics in England, 1560-1640 integrates social history, politics and literary culture as part of a ground-breaking study that provides revealing insights into early modern English society.

Susan D. Amussen and David E. Underdown examine political scandals and familiar characters-including scolds, cuckolds and witches-to show how their behaviour turned the ordered world around them upside down in very specific, gendered ways. Using case studies from theatre, civic ritual and witchcraft, the book demonstrates how ideas of gendered inversion, failed...