ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the themes of hypocrisy and dissimulation in late-sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century England and to endeavour to place them in their cultural and intellectual, educational, and civic contexts. It argues that the characteristics of hypocrisy and dissimulation had a specific role in attempts to grapple with the intricacies of social and civic life in the early modern period. The values and practices of hypocrisy and dissimulation are said to have been central to key social and religious, political, and cultural processes of the early modern period. In the field of politics, the ubiquity of dissimulation and hypocrisy in early modern Europe has been associated with absolutism and state formation. Both dissimulation and hypocrisy denoted the characteristic of appearing to be something else than one really is and they were often described as mask-wearing. John Robinson's account points to an important fact about early modern discussions of hypocrisy and dissimulation.
