ABSTRACT
There was an evident social distinction in pre-industrial society between the diversions of the elite, based on property and privilege, and the diversions of the people, based on communal tradition. But both formed part of a common culture. Both occupied a crucial role in daily life, and were intimately tied to the everyday framework of religious belief, which seemed to govern most aspects of existence. Religion in pre-industrial society was less a matter of strict creeds than of social rituals and symbols. Christianity was not simply the list of beliefs and practices laid down by the Church; it was also the sum of inherited attitudes and rituals relating both to the invisible and to the visible world.1 All sections of society, in both town and country, participated in these rituals, which on one hand determined leisure and work activity, and on the other hand assigned people roles and status within the community. On this view, there was no separate entity that we might refer to as ‘popular’ culture; traditional culture was shared in, to a greater or lesser degree, by all sections of the community. Moreover, there was no formal separation between the sacred and the secular in early modern Europe; the sacred was always part of the profane world, on which it drew for its symbols and functioning. Religious leaders, both Protestant and Catholic, subsequently spent much effort in claiming a special and privileged place for the ‘sacred’, but were less successful than they might have hoped.2
