Margaret Aston: Historian who illuminated the study of religious life in England

She was an authority on the role played by images and printing in changes to religious belief

Martin Sheppard
Sunday 14 December 2014

Margaret Aston was an historian whose work illuminated the study of English religious life between the late Middle Ages and the Civil War. Although she was from the most establishment of backgrounds her chosen field was that of popular belief, and her main subjects were heretics and iconoclasts.

An independent historian of the highest calibre, Aston combined exact scholarship with wide-ranging ideas and interpretation, bringing out the crucial part played by images and printing in changes to religious belief. Her beautifully written work has had a profound impact on all subsequent interpretations of the English Reformation.

Born in 1932, Margaret Evelyn Bridges was the youngest of four children. Her father, Edward Bridges, the first Lord Bridges, was the son of the poet Robert Bridges and his wife Monica, the daughter of the architect Alfred Waterhouse. Edward Bridges, Cabinet Secretary during the Second World War, has been described as the greatest civil servant of the 20th century. His wife, Katherine, was the granddaughter of Lord Farrer, the Permanent Secretary of the Board of Trade from 1867-86.

Part of a close-knit family, to whom she was known as Martha, Margaret grew up at Goodman’s Furze in Surrey before going to Downe House, where she had an inspiring history teacher in Isabella Bewick. With a huge appetite for ideas she became head girl and won a scholarship to Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford. She made her intellectual mark even as an undergraduate, but also found time to paint watercolours and to play piano and clarinet to a high standard, studying the latter with Jack Brymer.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/history-of-the-first-world-war-in-100-moments/margaret-aston-historian-who-illuminated-the-study-of-religious-life-in-england-between-the-late-middle-ages-and-the-civil-war-9924131.html