Bishop Of Worcester Research Articles

Condé’s Trials of the Spirit

In his second edition of the Essay Human on Understanding (1694), John Locke added a section on personal identity caused numerous theological disputes. In what, Locke asked, lies a human a person? He concluded sameness of person is indifferent to sameness of It did not matter, he argued, what the frontispiece was, the shape or structure, for person is a forensic term, and its continuity over time lies in consciousness. Edward Stillingfleet, then Bishop of Worcester, wrote a series of letters condemning Locke's doctrine regarding personality and personal since he argued, was inconsistent with the Christian doctrine of the resurrection of the My idea of personal identity, Locke replied, makes the same body not to be necessary to making the same person, either here or after death; and even in this life the particles of the bodies of the same persons change every moment, and there is no such identity in the body as in the person. Can matter think? If God can add thought to persons, then He can also super-add the thinking principle to inert matter. What would call Locke's thought is a limb argument, his obsession with considering consciousness could as easily be in our little finger as in our mind, helps us to test the connection between the set of practices in the Caribbean associated with the sacred, literal, and metaphorical and what we might call the uses of ritual--not exactly the underside of the sacred, but its haunting. How did rituals of belief redefine matter and spirit, persons and property in the Americas? Locke describes the self as that conscious thinking thing, substance made up of (whether spiritual or material, simple or compounded, matters not). And here's his example. If you allow a piece of body, the little finger, for example, to depart from the whole, carrying consciousness with it, it is evident the little finger would be the person; and then would have nothing to do with the rest of the body. What kind of metamorphoses would this supposition inspire in the Colonies? If a piece of body could carry mind along with it, then we are dealing with a world in which the meaning of mind and matter, once rendered in codes of law, would be reconfigured as the logic of punishment. The stories Conde tells are tied up with such a haunting: whether spiritual or material ... matters not. The vestigial remnants of bodies return to confound the legal categories of persons and property. Her refutation of transcendence, her emphasis on the materiality attaches itself to as well as to body, ordains in the least expected of places the convertibility of the heavenly and the earthly domain. The legal idiom of possession, especially in the case of human chattels could be passed around, damaged, or consumed encouraged novel transactions between physical organisms and animated spirits. This marking of perishables, consumed by use, says something unique about the sober intelligence of ritual. What does the obsession with matter, the disavowal of innate ideas--in contrast with the Cartesian doctrine the soul always thinks--have, you might ask, to do with Conde's work? What would belief be like if were as absolute, as real as a fist to the stomach? If were as natural, as concretely held as the sense of touch? What, then, are the exigencies of spiritual work? Doesn't spirit itself have to be redefined, or rather held in suspension as St. Paul exacts in 2 Corinthians: I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven--whether in the body or out of the body do not know. It seems to me the study of Caribbean literature has been blunted by a too-general approach to the nature of divinity, religious sentiment, and embodiment. How are we to delimit the difference between body and spirit? What is the nature of what--in Haitian ritual, especially--came to be nothing less than a militant consecration? …

From episcopal conception to monastic compilation: Hemming's Cartulary in context

This article examines the structure and the contents of the late eleventh century Worcester cartulary which forms the second part of London, British Library, Cotton Tiberius A. XIII. Its sections are analysed and checked against the explanatory statements on the composition of the libellus provided by Hemming in his Enucleatio. This essay then contextualizes the composition of the cartulary through an analysis of its various components. Particular attention is paid to the development of the monastic community of Worcester in the late eleventh century and the ways in which the manuscript seems to reflect their acquisition of a specific and distinctive identity. The development, therefore, of their relationship with the bishop of Worcester is especially significant. The evidence provided by the cartulary suggests that, by the time the Norman Samson succeeded Bishop Wulfstan II in 1096, the monks’ attitude towards their bishop had noticeably changed from the time when Wulfstan had first suggested the cartulary's composition.

St Oswald of Worcester at Evesham Abbey: Cult and Concealment

In the twelfth or thirteenth century the monks of Evesham Abbey, an ancient Benedictine foundation in Worcester diocese, seem to have altered their domestic chronicle so as to conceal the decisive role of Oswald, bishop of Worcester, in the tenth-century reform of their house; after c. 1100 the abbey was anxious to suppress evidence of Evesham's early dependence on the church of Worcester lest the post-Conquest bishops should use it in the papal courts to refute Evesham's current case for exemption. Privately, however, the monks continued to honour St Oswald and their relic of his arm; he had become a political embarrassment, but in heaven he remained their spiritual friend.

The Oxford Martyrs in Oxford: The Local History of their Confinements and their Keepers

Early in March 1554 the three English reformers and later Oxford martyrs, the archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer, the former bishop of Worcester, Hugh Latimer, and the bishop of London, Nicholas Ridley, were transported to the supposedly safe location of Oxford to expedite their trials. Their stay in Oxford, however, turned out to be a long one, lasting until their execution by burning outside the Northgate there: Latimer and Ridley on 16 October 1555; Cranmer on 21 March 1556. During the time they spent in Oxford – between nineteen and twenty-four months – they were usually confined apart from one another, in a number of locations, by the municipal officials responsible to the crown for their safekeeping: the mayor and the two bailiffs of Oxford. Cranmer, the most important and politically the most sensitive of the prisoners, appears to have spent most of his long confinement in the Bocardo, the local prison over the town's Northgate next to St Michael's church. Latimer and Ridley, on the other hand, spent considerable time privately boarded in the houses of, respectively, the bailiffs and the mayor, and Ridley, in particular, seems to have been able to maintain regular written and personal contact with their supporters and sympathisers. Their confinement must have put the three reformers, all of them Cambridge graduates, into a variety of contacts with local residents, but records for only two of those relationships have survived, and from diametrically opposite sources.

Calendar of the register of Simon de Montacute, bishop of Worcester, 1334–1337. Edited by Roy Martin Haines. (Worcestershire Historical Society, New Ser., 15.) Pp. xxviii+432. Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1996. £35 from Mr Robin Whittaker, Hereford and Worcester County Record Office, County Hall, Spetchley Road, Worcester WR5 2NP. 0141 4577

Calendar of the register of Simon de Montacute, bishop of Worcester, 1334–1337. Edited by Roy Martin Haines. (Worcestershire Historical Society, New Ser., 15.) Pp. xxviii+432. Worcester: Worcestershire Historical Society, 1996. £35 from Mr Robin Whittaker, Hereford and Worcester County Record Office, County Hall, Spetchley Road, Worcester WR5 2NP. 0141 4577 - Volume 49 Issue 2

La notion de naturalisme, ou Warburton contre Bolingbroke et Hume

The notion of naturalism, or Warburton against Bolingbroke and Hume. The first important occurrence of the term naturalism is to be found in a letter from Warburton to Richard Hurd, Bishop of Worcester, in 1738. With this new term, Warburton is condemning the thought of both Bolingbroke and Hume. He is referring to a theological system that recognizes only the physical attributes, not the moral attributes, of God. The accusation of "naturalism" is as serious as that of "Spinozism". In addition, in his Remarks on the Natural History of Religion, Warburton accuses Hume of insinuating that religion originates in the imagination and the passions, in other words in what Hume understands by "origin in human nature".

Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 12 3 Truth), written, probably, between t677 and t69o, ~ and also in a letter to Varignon dated February 2, 17o2. a Leibniz believed Euclid's Elements to be a model of knowledge, but still open to criticism and perfectible. While Sanches excelled in criticism, Leibniz labored throughout his whole life upon the improvement of the Elements. Contrasting this mathematical model with Cartesian universal doubt, Leibniz invariably held that the latter was a rhetorical device.4 Sanches at least pointed out real faults of Leibniz's model of knowledge.5 This is only one reason we have for explaining Leibniz's strange respect for Sanches. Another could be that, as Borges said, great writers create their own precursors. EZEQUIEL DE OLASO National Council for Scientific Research, Argentina William H. Huffman. Robert Fludd and the End of the Renaissance. London: Routledge, t988. Pp. xii + 252. $49.5 o. Robert Fiudd ought not to be seen as an oddity of the Scientific Revolution, but, argues William Huffman, as the foremost spokesman of an altogether valid world view in the early seventeenth century. Fludd's monumental, yet incomplete, Utriusque cosmi... historica (16 t 7-1621), his Medicina Catholica (1629- t 631), and his later MosaicaU Philosophy (1638) represent the culmination of Renaissance Christian Platonism. Yet, however valuable his writings, Fludd's written works reveal only part of his involvement in the intellectual and social life of the mid-seventeenth century. What has been missing in studies focused on Fludd, Huffman contends, is the personal context of friends, associates , and patrons. Looking here reveals that Fludd was anything but the occult eccentric that subsequent centuries made him out to be. Rather, he was accepted as an important, well-established intellectual figure and medical practitioner during his own time. In establishing the social and intellectual legitimacy of Fludd's ideas, Huffman shows that Fludd was associated with at least three distinct circles. The first, formed around John Thornborough, Bishop of Worcester, was a center of alchemical activity. A second circle included several prominent English scholars and antiquaries, and a third was made up of medical colleagues. Beyond these, Fludd also enjoyed royal patronage, writing for James I an unpublished manuscript, the "Declaratio Brevis," which defended his apology of the Rosicrucian brotherhood, and gaining a royal patent for making steel in 162o. It was, Huffman suggests, Fludd's legitimate success in both medicine and chemistry that earned him respect from colleagues and patronage 55- ' Cf. Opusculesetfragments in~ditsde Leibniz, ed. L. Couturat (Paris: Alcan, 19o3), 191. 3 Cf. LeibnizensmathematischeSchriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt (Berlin/Halle, 1849-63), 4:92-93 9 4 Cf. G. W. Leibniz. DiephilosophischenSchriften, ed. C. I. Gerhardt (Berlin, 1875-9o), 4: 3545 Cf. my study "Francisco Sanches e Leibniz," Analyse4 (Lisbon, 1986): 37-74- 124 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 29:~ JANUARY 1991 from the crown, and it is against this background, not against the hostile assaults of mechanical philosophers, that his written works should be considered. Huffman's survey of the literature of the Platonic Renaissance is sound and well informed. In terms of that literature, Fludd's work amounts to a "grand systematic synthesis" of Neoplatonic, Pythagorean, Gnostic, Stoic, and hermetic thinking. But to these occult views of nature Fludd also added his own ideas, discussing the process of creation as beginning with the appearance of "Hyle" ("an infinite mass or darke fog"), which is formed into a primeval Chaos by divine light, and deciding on the basis of Genesis that earth, air, fire, and water are actually secondary elements having their origins in a primary element, water. Fludd also added to the Neoplatonic tradition by creating images through which occult knowledge, especially the harmonies of the universe and the relation between spirit and matter, could be grasped. Huffman's description of Fludd's thinking, especially in the Mosaicall Philosophy, is instructive. However, it would have been even more helpful if Fludd's ideas had been compared to others that formed the larger arena of hermetic-Paracelsian philosophy. The concept of "Hyle," for instance, a central concept in Fludd's History of the Macrocosm (the first volume of his Utriusque cosmi.., historica) stems from Hermes and is criticized...

Latimer, the ‘Commonwealth of Kent’ and the 1549 Rebellions

It has been proposed recently that contrary to universal belief Hugh Latimer, former bishop of Worcester and a leading participant in the mid-Tudor reform movement, was not the individual known as the 'Common Welthe called Latymer' active in Kent during the popular unrest of I 549.1 The traditional assumption rests entirely upon a letter of io September I549 from Sir Anthony Aucher to William Cecil, secretary to Protector Somerset. This expressed anxiety over 'these men called Comon Welthes and there aderents' and protested that one Latimer, identified merely as the 'Common Welthe', had been able to secure pardons for some of the Kentish agitators.2 Nevertheless, the new, attractive assertion that this was not Hugh Latimer remains to date equally tenuous. It is based upon inferences from a second letter of I5 September I549 from Aucher to Somerset's steward, SirJohn Thynne.3 Aucher here elaborated upon his criticism of this 'Comonwelthe of Kent called Lattymer', who ran up and down the county claiming in every town and tippling house to have Somerset's approval to collect bills of complaint and to perform unspecified (in Aucher's words) 'evyll... myschefes'. Such behaviour, it has been argued, would have been improbable and incongruous for Hugh Latimer, and therefore a second Latimer must have existed. This postulates the existence of two very different individuals sharing the same surname and linked to Protector Somerset; the one a non-worldly court preacher, the other a seditious lusty knave. The topic is of some significance, extending beyond considerations of Latimer's role as a social reformer to the nature of the commonwealth movement and its relationship with the I549 insurrections. The new interpretation, based as it is upon the unsupported and clearly biased sentiments of Aucher, is not the only possible explanation.4 The question of the identity of the Latimer who participated in the I 549 events can, however, be settled conclusively by reference to new independent documentary evidence. An original privy council warrant of August I 549 establishes

Book Reviews

AbstractBook reviewed in this article:The Hisforian invites scholars who wish to prepare book reviews for the Journal to write to Dr. Phillip D. ThomasSlave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Military System. By Daniel Pipes. (New Haven)Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164‐1179. By Mary G. Cheney. [Oxford Historical Monographs.]

Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164-1179. Mary G. Cheney

<i>Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164-1179</i>. Mary G. Cheney

Calendar of the Register of Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Worcester, 1327–1333, Edited by R. M. Haines. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1979. xxvi + 305 pp. $27.

Calendar of the Register of Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Worcester, 1327–1333, Edited by R. M. Haines. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1979. xxvi + 305 pp. $27.

Calendar of the Register of Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Worcester 1327–1333. Edited R. M. Haines. (Worcestershire Historical Society Publications, 10, and Historical Manuscripts Commission, JP 27.) Pp. XXV1 + 305 + 11 plates. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1979. £27.

Calendar of the Register of Adam de Orleton, Bishop of Worcester 1327–1333. Edited R. M. Haines. (Worcestershire Historical Society Publications, 10, and Historical Manuscripts Commission, JP 27.) Pp. XXV1 + 305 + 11 plates. Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1979. £27.

Book Review: Roger, Bishop of Worcester 1164–1179: An English Bishop of the Age of Becket, Robert Winchelsey and the Crown 1294–1313: A Study in the Defence of Ecclesiastical Liberty, the Church and the English Crown 1305–1334: A Study Based on the Register of Archbishop Walter Reynolds

Book Review: Roger, Bishop of Worcester 1164–1179: An English Bishop of the Age of Becket, Robert Winchelsey and the Crown 1294–1313: A Study in the Defence of Ecclesiastical Liberty, the Church and the English Crown 1305–1334: A Study Based on the Register of Archbishop Walter Reynolds

Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164-1179

Roger, Bishop of Worcester, 1164-1179

Milred of Worcester's collection of Latin epigrams and its continental counterparts

Milred, who was bishop of Worcester from 743 × 745 to 774 × 775, is almost as shadowy a figure in the history of Anglo-Latin literature today as he was in the sixteenth century when John Leland recorded in his Commentarii de Scriptoribus Britannicis: ‘invidiosa vetustas Milredi monumenta destruxit’. The only composition by Milred that has come to light, in a single ninth-century continental manuscript, is the letter of consolation that he sent to Lull of Mainz after St Boniface's martyrdom. Apart from its inherent interest, this letter, with its elegant use of Vergilian echoes, is a valuable indication of Milred's literary interests and aspirations. Better still, it ends with a tantalizing glimpse of the literary world in which Milred lived: a postscript in which he apologizes for failing to send a copy of the picture poems of Optatianus Porphyrius because Cuthbert, the archbishop of Canterbury, had failed to return them. It was perhaps this very copy of Porphyrius that served as the model for the decoration of the Codex Aureus (Stockholm, Kungliga Biblioteket, A. 135), which may have been produced at St Augustine's, Canterbury, during Cuthbert's time.

The Register of Richard Clifford, Bishop of Worcester 1401-1407: A Calendar, by Waldo E. L. Smith

<i>The Register of Richard Clifford, Bishop of Worcester 1401-1407: A Calendar</i>, by Waldo E. L. Smith

Natural history books and manuscripts in Oxford University Libraries

— are incredibly rich in natural history books and manuscripts. A complete survey could occupy several happy years of research. As my time was somewhat more limited, my approach turned into the pulling out of plums from some of the collections here. My choice inevitably reflects my own interests to some degree, hence the bias in favour of botany and the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It can be assumed that most of the classics of our subject, as well as books of less importance, can be found somewhere in Oxford, so my comments will be limited to talking about association copies or manuscripts that are unique, and therefore have an extra historical interest. I must apologize for the lack of illustrations. They will follow this afternoon, when you will be able to see several of the things I describe, in the course of our library visits. The first University Library at Oxford began to be planned about 1320 by Thomas Cobham, then Bishop ofWorcester. It occupied a room above the porch of St. Mary's, the University Church, which apparently took a long time to be prepared for its new purpose, as it was not furnished until 1409. Soon afterwards, in 1426, the building of the Divinity School, still part of the Bodleian Library, was begun. Duke Humfrey of Gloucester gave money for the building and books for the library to be included in it, though the books

Reviews

Roger of Salisbury, Viceroy of England Edward J. Kealey Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, University of California Press, 1972 xvi + 312 pp., 8 plates $13.50 Rudolf II and his World: A Study in Intellectual History’, 1576–1612 R.J. W. Evans Oxford, 1973. xii + 324 pp. Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants: Essays in Eighteenth‐Century History presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland Edited by Anne Whiteman, J. S. Bromley and P. G. M. Dickson Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1973 xix + 375 pp. £6 Anglo‐Saxon Charters I: Charters of Rochester Edited by A. Campbell Published for the British Academy by the Oxford University Press, 1973 xxxix + 69 pp. £3 Confessions et Jugements de Criminels au Parlement de Paris (1319–1350) Edited by M. Langlois and Y. Lanhers Ministère des Affaires Culturelles, Paris, 1971. 206 pp. A Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefeld, Bishop of Worcester, 1375–95 Edited by W. P. Marett Worcestershire Historical Society, N.S. vii, 1972. xlvii + 280 pp., 2 plates £6 to non‐members from Mr. M. O. Harrison, Longfields, Tenbury, Worcs. The Works of Sir Roger Williams Edited by John X. Evans Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1972 cxlvi + 286 pp., frontis., 5 plates. £7.50 The Journal of Samuel Curwen, loyalist Edited by Andrew Oliver Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press, 1972 Vol. I xxxiv + 516 pp., Vol. II xi + 568 pp., illus., ports., facsims., maps. £15 the set Constitutional Relations between Britain and India. The Transfer of Power 1942–7. Vol. IV, The Bengal Famine and the new Viceroyalty, 15 June 1943–31 August 1944 Edited by N. Mansergh and the late E. W. R. Lumby H.M.S.O., 1973. xcix + 1295 pp. £13 A Guide to the Archive Collections in the Borthwick Institute of Historical Research David M. Smith Borthwick Texts and Calendars, no. 1, 1973. ix + 218 pp. £1.75 (obtainable from the Borthwick Institute, St. Anthony's Hall, York YO1 2PW, delivered charge £1.90) Inventaris van het oud archief van de stad Aalst E. Houtman Archives et Bibliothèques de Belgique, Inventaires IV. Brussels, 1974 Sources for Nonconformist Genealogy and Family History D.J. Steel Published for the Society of Genealogists by Phillimore 295 pp. [running from p. 501 to 795] £4.50 Sir William Foster, 1863–1951, a bibliography Compiled by Anthony Farrington H.M.S.O., 1972. 27 pp. Unpriced The Sir Nicholas Bacon Collection: sources on English society 1250–1700 A catalogue of an exhibition at the Joseph Regenstein Library of the University of Chicago, April‐June, 1972 Chicago, University Library, 1972. 101 pp. $3.50 Guide to the records of the Bahamas D. Gail Saunders and E. A. Carson Government Printing Department, Commonwealth of the Bahamas, 1973 xvi + 138pp. Unpriced. Yorkshire West Riding George Redmonds English Surnames Series, volume 1 Phillimore, 1973. xiv + 314pp. £5.25 Transport in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight: A Guide to the Records Hampshire Archivists’ Group, Publication No. 2, 1973. 126 pp. 60p Oxfordshire, a handbook for students of local history D. M. Barratt and D. G. Vaisey Oxfordshire Rural Community Council, 1973 xii + 83 pp., 9 plates. 50p Scottish Handwriting, 1150–1650 Grant G. Simpson Bratton Publishing Ltd., Edinburgh, 1973. £2.60 The Act of Union Public Record Office of Northern Ireland Education Facsimiles, 41–60, new edn., 1973. 45p Irish Elections, 1750–1832 Education Facsimiles, 21–40, new edn., 1973. 45p Available through H.M.S.O. The organisation of intermediate records storage A. W. Mabbs with the collaboration of Guy Duboscq Unesco, Paris, 1974. viii + 67 pp.

A Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefield, Bishop of Worcester 1375–95. By Warwick Paul Marett. (Worcestershire Historical Society, New Series, 7). Pp. xlviii + 280 + 2 illustrations. Worcestershire Historical Society, 1972. £6. (Obtainable from M. O. Harrison, Esq., Longfields, Tenbury, Worcs.)

A Calendar of the Register of Henry Wakefield, Bishop of Worcester 1375–95. By Warwick Paul Marett. (Worcestershire Historical Society, New Series, 7). Pp. xlviii + 280 + 2 illustrations. Worcestershire Historical Society, 1972. £6. (Obtainable from M. O. Harrison, Esq., Longfields, Tenbury, Worcs.)

The Philosophy of Bishop Stillingfleet

EDWARD STILLINGFLEET (1635-1699), the Bishop of Worcester, is known only as Locke's opponent. Although he was a leading figure seventeenth century intellectual history, he is now almost completely forgotten. 1 He is only mentioned once the Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the first person to write against Deism. 2 His texts have been ditlicult to locate, and have hardly been studied. Although Locke's answers to him comprise a large volume Locke's Works, little interest has been shown Stillingfleet's side of the story. His letters to Locke were last printed the 1710 edition of his works. (I am now publishing a photoreproduction edition of the attacks on Locke, and a photoreproduction of the six volumes of his works is due soon.) In spite of this neglect, Stillingfleet was a quite interesting figure. He was not a simple moss-back, a religious reactionary, fighting progressive theories like Locke's. Rather, he was trying to maintain some basis for religious belief the face of the intellectual upheavals the seventeenth century. For over forty years he struggled against a wide range of philosophical and theological developments of the time that he saw as leading to scepticism and infidelity. Stillingfleet attempted to defend the reasonableness of Christianity an intellectual world dominated by the new science, the new philosophy, the religious wars, the rise of irreligion, Bible criticism, and Spinozism. In the new scientific, philosophical and theological context he sought to show how an intelligent, reasonable man could maintain his religious views as more probable than their denials. And, he tried to show the perils involved various new lines of thought. As he wrote to Locke, in an age wherein the Mysteries of Faith are so much exposed by the Promoters of Scepticism and Infidelity, it is a thing of dangerous consequence to start such new methods of Certainty as are apt to leave men's minds more doubtJull than before. 3 Stillingfleet criticized various new views of thinkers like Descartes, Hobbes, Spinoza and Locke, and tried to show that they were unreasonable and