The Oxford Movement in Practice: The Tractarian Parochial World from the 1830s to the 1870s by George Herring

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Oxford Movement in Practice: The Tractarian Parochial World from the 1830s to the 1870s by George Herring DR. Dan Handschy (bio) The Oxford Movement in Practice: The Tractarian Parochial World from the 1830s to the 1870s. By George Herring. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Pages: xii + 368; includes extensive appendix of Tractarian clergy with education, curacy, and incumbency. Cloth, $120. ISBN 9780198769330. In his preface, Herring suggests that the reader might well ask about the wisdom of another book about the Oxford Movement. He gives two reasons for the publication of this work. First, he claims, most publications so far have focused on theory at the expense of practice; we know what the leaders of the movement thought, but we know less about how they and those influenced by them put those ideas into practice in the real world of parochial ministry. Second, many histories of the Oxford Movement perpetuate the mythology (most obvious in R. W. Church's Twelve Years) that the Movement ended with Newman's conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. Herring sets out to correct both deficiencies as he sees them in Oxford Movement scholarship. In order to investigate how clergy put the teachings of the Oxford Movement into practice in parochial settings, Herring first faces the problem of defining the Movement in practical terms. He begins with a list of core doctrines taken from Peter Nockles: "the apostolical succession, divine-right episcopacy, the authority of the Church as the keeper of Holy Writ, the priesthood and the ministerial commission, apostolic tradition and a Catholic consent of the fathers as interpretative of Scripture according to the rule of St Vincent of Lerins, the real presence in the Eucharist, the Eucharistic sacrifice, baptismal regeneration, the power of the keys." In terms of practice, Nockles identified "the necessity of fasting, frequent communion, observance of saints days and festivals, almsgiving and celibacy."1 Herring looks for evidence of these doctrines and practices in parochial manuals or handbooks written by second-generation leaders as evidence of Tractarian influence. He also identifies the use of reserve and economy in the teaching of the incumbent as a mark of Tractarian influence and practice as particularly important in the parochial setting. [End Page 86] Herring then sets out to identify clergy and parishes that came under Tractarian influence. He does this by looking at a cleric's education, his curacy, and the likelihood that he is under the influence of a mentor of Tractarian leanings. He uses The Clergy List, Crockford's Clerical Directory and alumni lists from the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge where a student might have encountered Tractarian influence. He claims to identify 958 clergy influenced by the Oxford Movement. These he lists in an appendix that runs to just over a hundred pages. In tracing out the impact such clergy had on their parishes, however, he necessarily confines himself to very few of these 958 clergy, relying most heavily upon William Butler in Wantage, W.J.E. Bennett, John Mason Neale, George Anthony Dennison, the clergy of the Church of St. Saviour, Leeds, and a few others. The long appendix, the bar graphs, charts, and maps of parishes have an almost apologetic feel. Having identified a set of clergy influenced by the Oxford Movement, Herring then sets out to discover their distinctive practices under neat headings. In successive chapters, he investigates the doctrine of ministerial priesthood put in practice, the inculcation of reverence in Prayer Book worship, the restoration of Church fabric and ceremonial, the improvement of music and congregational singing, the emphasis on the sacraments (especially the eucharist), and the introduction of confession in the parishes. In the chapter on church fabric, Herring records the efforts of Tractarian clergy to restore the dignity of the altar and choir (the chancel coming under the direct authority of the incumbent) and the removal of box pews. Here, Tractarians made their theology of the Church particularly evident. The removal of pews broke down the social stratification so evident in the parishes, and portrayed the Church as the people of God at prayer for the world. Herring adduces some of his most convincing statistics in his chapter on sacraments...