The Church of England, the Law of Nations, and the Leghorn Chaplaincy Affair, 1703–1713

Abstract

Leghorn [Livorno] in Tuscany in the early eighteenth century reveals an established Church of England attempting to accommodate itself, both ideologically and institutionally, to an increasingly dynamic and expansive British commercial empire. Against the prevailing political and ecclesiastical historiography that considers the Anglican establishment primarily in relationship to the state, this article will situate the Leghorn chaplaincy affair in the context of a subsidiary set of relationships between the Church and civil society. This article shows how the Church’s imbrication in commercial society not only drove Anglican ecclesiastical expansion in this period, but also comprised a religious lobby powerful enough to dictate policy to the British state.