The Laudians and the Elizabethan Church: Conformity and Religious Identity in Post-Reformation England, by Calvin Lane

Abstract

This is an exhaustive investigation of how Laudian clergy in the 1630s and beyond used their particular rendering of the past to define the nature of their Church, thus laying down markers for the Restoration and the creation of ‘Anglicanism’. It operates in the ‘history of ideas’ genre, for the publications of divines form the key evidence throughout. To set up his argument, Calvin Lane starts with Peter Smart, the Durham prebendary whose experiences fed debates in parliament and led to his incarceration for eleven years before his release in 1640. Smart is presented as the epitome of ‘old-style conformity’, who was obviously horrified to find himself witnessing ‘superstitious innovations’ at Durham after 1617, and notably the arrival of Bishop Neile. Smart’s sermon of 1628 drew attention to the ceremonial changes that had been occurring at Durham Cathedral under Neile, Dean Hunt and John Cosin: the reappearance of a stone altar, excessive use of candles, bowing, a new organ, choral singing and use of lavish vestments.