Hello Peter,
Not unsurprisingly, historians have been working on England/Israel for some time. Here’s a selection from my reading. I’m sure members of the list can easily deepen it.
J. C. D. Clark, “Protestantism, Nationalism, and National Identity,1660-1832,” Historical Journal, 43 (2000) claims that the idea of England as God’s Israel was a commonplace in the 14th century, notes that this providential framework means that Protestantism wasn’t the formative influence in establishing the connection (270).
For a later period Tony Claydon considers the association in “The Nationalisation of the War,” William III and the Godly Revolution (Cambridge Univ. Press,1996), pp. 134-47.
It’s also worth looking at Pasi Ihalainen, Protestant Nations Redefined: Changing Perceptions of National Identity in the Rhetoric of the English, Dutch, and Swedish Public Churches, 1685-1772 (Leiden: Brill, 2005). This is a masive study that ought to be better known.
And finally Claydon with Ian McBride get behind some of the issues involved in the identification in “The Trials of the Chosen Peoples: Recent Interpretations of Protestantism and National Identity in Britain and Ireland,” Protestantism and National Identity: Britain and Ireland, ca. 1650-1850 (Cambridge, 1998), 3-29, esp. 12f, 25f.
I’m late coming on this thread. Hope some of what I’ve given is helpful. As usual, it’s worth combing the notes.
Best,
Lee
On May 2, 2011, at 11:34 AM, william oram wrote:
I asked a local medievalist (Josh Birk) about the British Isrealite connection. Here's what he said:
As far as I know, there several medieval references that connect various British peoples to Israel. The Scottish declaration of Independence in 1320 connects the Scots to the Scythians, and the Scythians to the lost tribe of Israel. This may be where the idea that the Stone of Scone is Jacob's pillar comes from, though I am unsure if that connection circulates in the 14th century.
We see the theory addressed more specifically by Le Loyer in "his Ten lost tribes of Found" in 1590, and Saddler's "rights of the Kingdom in 1649", bopth of which make specific claims that the Isrealites came to England and became the English people. However, I know next to nothing about these ideas themselves. i know them because they are used by various 18th and 19th century groups that claim an Anglo-Israelite identity, which forms the theological underpinning for various white power groups, specifically Christian Identity, in this country in the twentieth century.
Bill Oram
On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 5:18 PM, Susanne Woods
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Does anyone know whether the Wycliffites made any connection between England and Jerusalem? The Wife of Bath had been there (thrice!), but I don't see anything in the Canterbury Pilgrimage making the connection.
On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 5:09 PM, Barbara Brumbaugh
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Florence Sandler (for example) discusses the use of Exodus typology in
the Henrician era: "Inevitably, Britain's extricating herself from the
papal authority and discovering autonomy within her own land found its
Biblical analogy in Israel's Exodus from Egypt and entry into the
Promised Land" (157). Her essay, "The Faerie Queene: an Elizabethan
Apocalypse," appears in the collection, The Apocalypse in English
Reformation Thought and Literature," which was edited by Patrides and
Wittreich.
>>> Peter Herman <[log in to unmask]> 04/22/11 12:15 PM >>>
Hello,
Does anybody know when the trope of England as Israel (common during the
Elizabethan era, especially after the Armada) began?
Thanks in advance,
Peter C. Herman