29 (2007) - List of Contents

Urban History, 2015

2012

Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 2020

This article explores the tithe system in eighteenth-century Northamptonshire. At enclosure, many clergy exchanged their right to take tithe for a portion of the newly enclosed land in the parish. The article argues that while the clergy made financial gains from this, more important was the removal of a recurrent source of dissension with parishioners. As such the article tempers the dominant narrative that emphasizes only the material enrichment of the clergy at enclosure, and sees the social and cultural gulf this opened up between the clergy and their parishioners as a potent source of rural anticlericalism.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Nottingham Trent University, 1999.

The Scottish Historical Review, 2002

of personal sinfulness, salvation might result. Samuel Rutherford spoke of 'my desires of saving souls' (p. 87). Personal assurance was deemed to be essential and those who denied it were accused of Arminianism, yet preachers strove to undermine it, for fear of laxity creeping in. Robert Baillie prescribed 'a diligent effort "to make our personall Election sure" ' (p. 99). On the one hand, divine grace is irresistible, but on the other the preacher demands effort from the believer-salvation by works? Most believed that the invisible church was tiny, but 'only rarely did divines take seriously the possibility that one's own offspring might not be of the elect' (p. 67), and the inherent contradiction of masssubscription of the National Covenant was lost on them. The first eight chapters almost serve as a preparation for the last, on the Covenant itself, embodying the centrality of paradox to Scottish puritanism and to this book. How could a religious view emphasising personal liberty in relation to God and against an oppressive Kirk and State seek to impose unity through subscription to the Covenant? At the heart of the Covenant were notions of conformity and obedience, yet at the heart of puritan piety was the individual covenant of grace. For the nobility, puritan individualism was politically dangerous. The constitutional revolution began with religious change at the gerrymandered General Assembly at Glasgow in 1638. To maintain that victory, the leadership of the Kirk had to make a 'Mephistophelean bargain' (p. 301) with the nobility in the creation of new political structures. The gathering pace of the last few chapters takes the reader into a powerful 'Epilogue'. Some may find unpalatable the view that the ministers betrayed their puritan beliefs in return for political power. Yet this careful and sympathetic book does make one inclined to agree that Scottish puritanism was dealt a severe blow by the Covenant. Oppressed dissident Christians with a faith focused on a personal relationship with God and defiance of the establishment at the heart of their self-image became an essential component of an oppressive regime. Whereas their English counterparts developed theories of personal liberty, these 'religious cranks' (p. 312) were 'lusting after power to the extent of perverting their own theology and prostituting their religion' to 'an untrustworthy nobility pursuing its own goals' (p. 319). Samuel Rutherford, for one, lived to regret it. Mullan has produced an absorbing account of early modern religious belief which also adds a fascinating twist to how the National Covenant, its background and aftermath are to be understood.

Sussex Archaeological Collections, 1999

The 11th century was a crucial period for the formation of the parochial system in England. The old minster parochiae were being broken up and their rights encroached upon by an increasing number of new churches, which can be recognized as the parish churches of the later Middle Ages. A study of Anglo- Saxon law-codes, Domesday Book, charters, confirmations, and other documentary sources from Sussex is used to recreate the chronology of parochialization in the county and allow for an assessment of the effect of the Norman Conquest and the subsequent changing patterns of patronage on the parish system. The patronage of magnates, particularly Robert of Eu and William de Braose, is used as an example of how a change of aristocracy did, and did not, come into conflict with the previously established jurisdictional areas of the minsters. An interdisciplinary approach is vital: archaeological and architectural evidence is assessed in order to gain as full an understanding as possible about the extent to which the parochial system was changing in the 11th century. The topographical and socio-religious peculiarities of Sussex are taken into consideration; especially the Wealden coverage of large parts of the uplands and the relatively late conversion of the South Saxons to Christianity which may have stifled the development of the minster parochiae in the first place. Although the county is treated as a discrete example of parochialization, the interpretations are applied to the rest of the country in order to make some useful generalizations.

Religion and the Arts, 2007

This book review is on the following two studies: Betteridge, Tom. _Literature and Politics in the English Reformation_. Politics, Culture and Society in Early Modern Britain Series, eds. Ann Hughes et al. Manchester, England and New York: Manchester University Press and Palgrave Macmillan, 2004. Pp. viii + 253. $74.95 cloth. Marotti, Arthur F. _Religious Ideology and Cultural Fantasy: Catholic and Anti- Catholic Discourses in Early Modern England_. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2005. Pp. xii + 308 + 6 illustrations. $55.00 cloth, $25.00 paper.

Church History, 1994