Grell, Ole Peter

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Grell, Ole Peter

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of History, Faculty of Arts, Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, England.

CAREER:

Open University, Milton Keynes, England, reader in history, and director of the Renaissance and Early Modern Research Group.

WRITINGS:

Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London: The Dutch Church in Austin Friars, 1603-1642, Brill (New York, NY), 1989.

Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, Ashgate (Brookfield, VT), 1996.

(With Andrew Cunningham) The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

EDITOR

(With Jonathan I. Israel and Nicholas Tyacke) From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1991.

(With Andrew Cunningham) Medicine and the Reformation, Routledge (New York, NY), 1993.

The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1995.

(With Bob Scribner) Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 1996.

(With Andrew Cunningham) Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 1996.

(With Andrew Cunningham) Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe, 1500-1700, Routledge (New York, NY), 1997.

Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, Brill (Boston, MA), 1998.

(With Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga) Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, Routledge (New York, NY), 1999.

(With Roy Porter) Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Andrew Cunningham and Robert Jütte) Health Care and Poor Relief in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Northern Europe, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2002.

(With Peter Elmer) Health, Disease, and Society in Europe, 1500-1800: A Source Book, Manchester University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

(With Andrew Cunningham and Bernd Roeck) Health Care and Poor Relief in Eighteenth-and Nineteenth-Century Southern Europe, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2005.

(With Andrew Cunningham) Medicine and Religion in Enlightenment Europe, Ashgate (Burlington, VT), 2007.

General coeditor of book series "History of Medicine in Context," Ashgate Publishing.

SIDELIGHTS:

Historian Ole Peter Grell has specialized in European history during the Reformation era. More specifically, he has written about such areas as medicine and medical ethics of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Calvinism, Anglo-Dutch relations, and the impact of epidemics and climate change in northern Europe. Most active as an editor of scholarly texts, he has also written several of his own books. These include two works on Calvinism, Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London: The Dutch Church in Austin Friars, 1603-1642 and Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, and a study of the effects of war, plague, and famine on Europe from 1490 through 1648 titled The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe.

In Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London, Grell discusses a subject and period little addressed by other historians: the lives of the Dutch in London a generation after the Calvinists first fled to England. The author depicts a wealthy Dutch community that has lost some of its original religious fervor; the English, meanwhile, have noticed the immigrant community's prosperity and has sought to exploit it with such tactics as imposing fines on exports. Andrew Pettegree, writing in the English Historical Review, reported that "Grell demonstrates that by the early seventeenth century the London Dutch church had become a stronghold of orthodox Calvinism" in what is "a fine and scholarly piece of work." The historian returned to the subject of the Dutch in England with his second book, Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England.

More recently, Grell collaborated on the much-reviewed study The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The text is organized around the theme of the title. Four chapters discuss the effects of war, plague, famine, and death—popularly known as the Four Horsemen at the time—the last a very real preoccupation for those at the time who believed the world was about to end. Through this format, Grell and Andrew Cunningham address each of these important threats to sixteenth-and early-seventeenth-century Europe. They put forth the idea that many of the problems were instigated by a warming climate that caused populations to swell, leading to increases in disease and food shortages. The chapter on war, furthermore, offers insights into how modernization of tactics and weaponry, as well as increased recruitment from the peasant classes, had devastating impacts. "One of the many strengths of this fascinating study," remarked R.B. Outhwaite in the English Historical Review, "rests upon the authors' clear demonstration of how such crises were interpreted by contemporaries in apocalyptical terms." The critic added: "Another strength lies in the broad range of Protestant European experiences that are brought into play." Theological Studies contributor William V. Hudon questioned the authors' assertion that this period in European history was any more "fervor-driven" about the apocalypse than other times. Hudon, however, praised their discussion of diseases not only in medical terms but also with regard to public attitudes, concluding that Grell and Cunningham "have provided a rich description of the early modern period." Several critics heaped praise on the book, with Diarmaid MacCulloch asserting in the Journal of Ecclesiastical History that it "is an ingenious and refreshing assessment of the Reformation," and a Publishers Weekly contributor concluding that it is "an enlightening and valuable contribution to the study of the role of eschatology in the early modern world."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Albion, summer, 1998, Michael R. McVaugh, review of Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 298-299.

American Historical Review, December, 2001, Ann G. Carmichael, review of Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, pp. 1864-1865.

Booklist, January 1, 2001, Steven Schroeder, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine, and Death in Reformation Europe, p. 906.

Catholic Historical Review, April, 2004, Jacques M. Gres-Gayer, review of Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 326.

Choice, October, 1995, M.A. Granquist, review of The Scandinavian Reformation: From Evangelical Movement to Institutionalisation of Reform, p. 313; September, 1997, D.R. Bisson, review of Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, p. 202.

Church History, December, 1999, Eric Lund, review of Paracelsus: The Man and His Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, pp. 997-999; June, 2002, Susan C. Karant-Nunn, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 411; September, 2002, Paul S. Spalding, review of Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 664.

English Historical Review, April, 1993, Andrew Pettegree, review of Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London, p. 459; November, 1994, Christopher Hill, review of From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England, p. 1274; April, 1997, Stewart P. Oakley, review of The Scandinavian Reformation, p. 462; June, 1998, Henry Kamen, review of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p. 727; November, 1998, R.A. Houlbrooke, review of Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, p. 1300; February, 1999, Lisa Smith, review of Religio Medici, p. 190; February, 2001, T.J. Hochstrasser, review of Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 235; November, 2001, R.B. Outhwaite, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 1262.

Historian, fall, 1998, Robin B. Barnes, review of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p. 195.

Historical Journal, June, 1994, Stephen Taylor, review of From Persecution to Toleration, pp. 457-470.

History: Journal of the Historical Association, January, 1999, Laurence Brockliss, review of Medicine and the Reformation, pp. 153-154.

History: Review of New Books, fall, 2001, Timothy Fehler, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 26.

History Today, June, 1992, W.A. Speck, review of From Persecution to Toleration, pp. 57-58.

Isis, September, 1994, Bruce T. Moran, review of Medicine and the Restoration, pp. 510-511.

Journal of Church and State, winter, 1997, Jonas Alwall, review of The Scandinavian Reformation, pp. 154-156; spring, 1998, Ann W. Ramsey, review of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, pp. 480-482.

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, January, 1991, Alastair Hamilton, review of Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London: The Dutch Church in Austin Friars, 1603-1642, pp. 130-131; April, 1998, Roy Porter, review of Religio Medici, p. 371; July, 1998, Theodore K. Rabb, review of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p. 561; October, 2001, Thomas Munck, review of Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 760; July, 2002, Diarmaid MacCulloch, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 604.

Journal of Historical Geography, January, 1999, Steven King, review of Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe, 1500-1700, pp. 113-115.

Journal of Interdisciplinary History, spring, 2001, Jeffrey S. Ravel, review of Toleration in Enlightenment Europe, p. 615.

Publishers Weekly, February 12, 2001, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 196.

Renaissance Quarterly, summer, 1998, Mack P. Holt, review of Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation, p. 659; autumn, 2000, Sheila J. Rabin, review of Paracelsus, pp. 903-906.

SciTech Book News, December, 2005, review of Health, Disease, and Society in Europe, 1500-1800.

Sixteenth Century Journal, winter, 1991, Michael Monheit, review of Dutch Calvinists in Early Stuart London, pp. 881-882; spring, 1996, Grethe Jacobsen, review of The Scandinavian Reformation, pp. 189-190; spring, 1998, Albert J. Koinm, review of Religio Medici, pp. 275-278, and Dan G. Danner, review of Calvinist Exiles in Tudor and Stuart England, pp. 278-279; winter, 1999, Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr., review of Paracelsus, pp. 1085-1087; summer, 2001, Thomas Max Safley, review of Health Care and Poor Relief in Counter-Reformation Europe, pp. 571-573.

Theological Studies, March, 2002, William V. Hudon, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 174.

Times Literary Supplement, February 28, 1992, J.P. Kenyon, review of From Persecution to Toleration, p. 14; August 3, 2001, Euan Cameron, review of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, p. 24.