The Renaissance Conscience

• Represents one of the few modern studies exploring developments in scholastic and Renaissance notions of conscience
• Synthesizes literary, theological and historical approaches
• Presents case studies from England and the Hispanic World that reveal shared traditions, strategies, and conclusions regarding moral uncertainty
• Sheds new light on the crises of conscience of ordinary people, as well as prominent individuals such as Thomas More
• Offers new research on the ways practical theologians in England, Spain, and France participated in political debate and interacted with secular counsellors and princes

Edward Vallance is Reader in Early Modern History at London's Roehampton University. His most recent publication is A Radical History of Britain: Visionaries, Rebels and Revolutionaries, the Men and Women Who Fought for Our Freedoms (2009).

1. Jean Gerson, moral certainty and the Renaissance of ancient Scepticism (Rudolf Schüssler).

2. Conscience and the law in Thomas More (Brian Cummings).

3. Guided By God' beyond the Chilean frontier: the travelling early modern European conscience (Andrew Redden).

4. Shakespeare's open consciences (Christopher Tilmouth).

5. Women's letters, literature and conscience in sixteenth-century England (James Daybell).

6. The dangers of prudence: salus populi suprema lex, Robert Sanderson, and the 'Case of the Liturgy' (Edward Vallance).

7. The Bible, reason of state, and the royal conscience: Juan Márquez's El governador christiano (Harald E. Braun).

8. Spin doctor of conscience? The royal confessor and the Christian prince (Nicole Reinhardt).

Notes on contributors.

Index.