London Churches Research Articles

The Medieval Court of Arches (review)

The Medieval Court of Arches. Edited by F. Donald Logan. [The Canterbury and York Society,Volume 95.] (Rochester, NewYork:The Boydell Press. 2005. Pp. xlviii, 240. $49.95.) The metropolitan appellate court of the archbishop of Canterbury, the Court of Arches (or the Arches, for short) that met in St. Mary le Bow church in central London, was the most important medieval English ecclesiastical tribunal. Logan's study of the court ranges from its creation sometime in the midthirteenth century until the early sixteenth century, when Henrician statutes prohibited legal recourse in ecclesiastical matters from England to the pope. The volume contains an excellent lengthy introductory essay, wherein Logan not only offers a summary history of the Arches, but also provides an analysis of the court's structure, personnel, administrative routine, and trial procedures. He has collected and carefully edited an impressive range of Latin documents, which he has grouped in three sections after his introduction: archiepiscopal statutes concerning the Arches, the customs of the court, and procedural treatises designed for practitioners in this tribunal. Two further sections follow the edited texts. One lists the names, ordered chronologically and by office, of several hundred court personnel (officiates Cantuariensis, deans of the Arches, examiners general, registrars, scribes of the acts, apparitors, proctors, and advocates).The other briefly describes the court's calendar of sessions. While the existence of the Court of Arches dates at least from 1251, Logan suggests that disputes concerning appeals could have spurred Archbishop Boniface of Savoy after his 1245 consecration to establish a provincial appellate tribunal fixed at St. Mary le Bow: By the end of the century the Court of Arches had presiding officers (the archbishop's officialis and the latter's commissary-general, the dean of the Arches) as well as a professional-and probably already closed-group of sworn practitioners, namely, the advocates and proctors who functioned roughly in the same manner as modern barristers and solicitors. Several archbishops had already issued statutes; the customs of the court had been redacted in written form, and several procedural treatises had been composed. During this early period the Arches heard three kinds of cases: appeals from diocesan courts, direct complaints, and so-called tuitorial appeals, whereby a litigant appealed the main issue in dispute directly to the pope, while requesting protection (or tuition) from the archbishop in the interim.The second and third kinds of cases periodically caused friction between the archbishop and his suffragans. In the early 1280's the latter charged that direct complaints to the Arches bypassed their own diocesan courts, and that the appellate court's summary procedure of granting tuition permitted frivolous appeals. Arbitration settled this conflict in 1282; apart from intermittent disputes, Canterbury archbishops and suffragans managed to co-operate in the smooth functioning of the court. …

Tradition as a Resource

This introductory article reflects on a personal interest in the concept of tradition. Two contrasting sociological approaches to tradition are examined, the first being the structural-functionalist treatment of tradition as embedded and institutionalized, the second the more dynamic Weberian approach to tradition which links it with charismatic breakthroughs. Using the latter, it is possible to speak of a ‘revolution by tradition’ and to indicate different referents of tradition in the Church of England. A recent study of Hawksmoor’s London churches shows the attempted embodiment of primitive tradition in their architecture. In a very different context, Maori prophetic movements in nineteenth-century New Zealand reveal the potential for tradition to provide a charismatic springboard. A third example of the innovative potential of tradition is located in the ‘Asian values’ debate, where a constructed cluster of values surrounding neo-Confucianism can be associated with what is termed ‘reverse Orientalism’. Ideological discourse in Singapore provides an important test of the ‘Asia Values’ model. Finally, features of each article in this special issue are highlighted.

Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (review)

Reviewed by: Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe Jane E.A. Dawson Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Will Coster and Andrew Spicer. Pp. xiii, 350. ISBN-10 0 521 82487 7. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2005. £50. This collection of essays addresses many aspects of the interesting and innovative subject of sacred space. The volume ranges widely in its geographical spread across early modern Europe stretching as far as Moldavia and Bohemia as well as the more familiar German territories, Spain, France and the eternal city of Rome. Various aspects of the British experience are covered in four essays, with Andrew Spicer's piece being the only one to deal exclusively with Scotland. By adopting an inclusive definition of sacred space, the editors have found room to include a broad spread of topics under that title. Gardening by Spanish rubs shoulders with German taverns, Bohemian bridges, the Brittany landscape, a Welsh healing well, Moldavian funerary rooms and the aural soundscape of London churches. As the editors note, what is surprising is that the concept of sacred space, delineated forty years ago by the religious anthropologist, Mircea Eliade, having been enthusiastically embraced in many other disciplines, has been little utilised in historical study. They provide a helpful introduction on the dimensions of sacred space which picks up many of the theoretical nuances of the configuration of the sacred. Through a series of case studies written by scholars based in Europe and the States as well as the U.K., these themes are examined in a European context during the period when Reformations of all hues were underway. Dr Spicer's earlier essays on burial in Scotland in W. G. and P. Roberts (eds), Fear in Early Modern Society (Manchester, 1997) and in B. Gordon and P. Marshall (eds), The Place of the Dead. Death and Remembrance in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 2000) have alerted us to the potentialities of [End Page 334] analysing Scottish evidence within the conceptual framework of sacred space. In this essay he places ecclesiology alongside physical locations and actions performed inside and out of ecclesiastical buildings. In 'What kinde of house a kirk is: conventicles, consecrations and the concept of the sacred', he examines evidence drawn from these very different areas to offer a fresh insight into the liturgical changes introduced in the 1630s and the style of opposition they provoked. He makes a convincing case for the argument that the battle over the nature and perception of the church and 'holy ground' which raged during this period should be understood within the context of sacred space. In their very different ways the pre-covenanter conventicles in the open air and the liturgical consecrations of church buildings by some Caroline bishops were making important statements about opposing theological understandings of the church and reflected the broader concepts of the sacred within society. Some fascinating comparisons with the Reformed Kirk in Scotland can be found in Christian Grosse's essay on the liturgical sacrality of the Genevan churches in Calvin's time. Similarly, John Craig's thought-provoking study of the soundscape of a church discussing metrical psalm-singing, the groaning which accompanied prayer and the presence and noise of dogs in church has many points of contact with Scottish evidence. Although a long way in every sense from the post-Reformation Scottish experience, Simon Ditchfield's excellent discussion on reading Rome as a sacred landscape, offers much food for thought. As always in a volume of essays covering diverse places and approaches, readers will find different juicy plums to pick from this new and tasty pie, and it is to be recommended as a valuable addition to the library of all interested in the early modern period. Jane E.A. Dawson University of Edinburgh Copyright © 2007 Edinburgh University Press

Who Went to Thomas More's Lectures on St Augustine's De Civitate Dei?

AbstractIn 1501 omas More, newly qualified as a barrister, delivered a series of lectures on St Augustine's De Civitate Dei to a select audience in the London church of St Lawrence Jewry. To Erasmus, looking back some years later, what was striking was the contrast between the youthful speaker and the established clergy, lawyers, and higher civil servants who came to hear him. In fact the lectures can be seen as the fulfilment of a native tradition of lay piety, that of the "medled" or mixed life which combined spiritual culture with civic responsibility. In More's case it provided a fertile ground for the reception of humanist ideals.

Charles Booth, Charity Control, and the London Churches, 1897–1903

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsThomas R. C. BrydonThomas R. C. Brydon is a Ph.D. candidate in the History Department at McGill University.

:St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604-2004

:<i>St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604-2004</i>

A New Author for an Old Epitaph: Qualis vita and Joshua Sylvester

THE third edition of John Stow's Survey of London, ‘corrected and much enlarged’ and dated 1617 in some copies, 1618 in others (STC 23344), incorporated new material prepared by Anthony Munday. He described many of the more notable funerary monuments that had recently been erected in London churches and transcribed the verses they bore. Among the epitaphs he recorded was one, cast in the form of a sonnet, to Joane Essex, who died on 15 March 1607/8. He found it carved on ‘a faire stone’ that was placed by the communion table in the church of St Sepulchre without Newgate. Munday provided the following text (3A2r–3A2v, pp. 723–4): Qualis vita, finis ita. Here-under lyes the wonder of her kinde, The Quintessence of Nature and of Grace, Wit, Beauty, Bounty, and (in Noble race The rarest Jewell) a right humble minde; Here lyes her body, but her soule refin’d Above th’impyreall, hath imperiall place, In blisse so boundlesse, as no words embrace, Nor Art can feigne, nor mortall heart can find. Her fame remaines a Monument of honor, Built by her vertue gilt with purest gold, With Lilly-flowres and Roses strewed upon her, Her Epitaph Urania thus enrol’d: Mild child, chaste mayden, and religious wife: The Even crownes the day, Joane Essex death her life. Piè obiit die Martis Martii 15. An. ætatis suæ 26. Salutis nostræ, 1607. 1 The phrase qualis vita, finis ita (‘as the life, so the end’) was by 1608 a proverbial formula for epitaphs.

Rossetti and the Tractarians

Rossetti and the Tractarians Diane D'Amico (bio) and David A. Kent (bio) Christina Rossetti's life and art are closely connected to all aspects of the Oxford Movement. Beginning in 1843, she attended Christ Church, Albany Street, the church often described as the leading London church of the Oxford Movement. She supported Anglican religious sisterhoods; in fact, the first sisterhood was planned in her parish and established in nearby Park Village West in 1845. Later, both she and her sister, Maria, supported the work of The Society of All Saints, another of these Anglican sisterhoods. Maria became a fully professed sister of that order in 1876. In her own daily life, Rossetti engaged in regular devotional practices encouraged by members of the Oxford Movement, practicing confession and regularly receiving Holy Communion. She also was engaged in various forms of activism, including her work for fallen women and minors, her opposition to pew rentals, and her support of the anti-vivisectionist cause. Her reading indicates her admiration for the movement's leading figures. She carefully illustrated her own copies of Keble's Christian Year and Isaac Williams' The Altar. She owned a copy of John Henry Newman's Dream of Gerontius, and shortly after his death in 1890, she wrote a sonnet to honor him. In the last years of her life, the poetry and life of Isaac Williams seems to have been of special interest to her. In 1892 while recovering from cancer surgery, she enjoyed having her brother read to her from the Autobiography of Isaac Williams. Clearly, Rossetti was drawn to the Tractarians as both religious thinkers and poets. In articles published shortly after her death, much is made of Rossetti's religious poetry. In his essay An Appreciation of the Late Christina Georgina Rossetti, Rev. B. F. Westcott, Lord Bishop of Durham, goes so far as to write, "she is pre-eminently the spiritual poet of our age." However, very few if any connections are made between Rossetti and the Tractarians, perhaps with the exception of William Robertson Nicoll's description of Rossetti as "the great poetess of Catholic Christianity," in other words, Anglo-Catholicism. Twenty years later in the introduction to the 1925 edition of Rossetti's Verses, W.K.L.C. appears to be the first to link directly Rossetti's High Church views with the Tractarians: "Her religious views were Tractarian, that is to say, Anglo-Catholic without any leaning toward Roman Catholicism and strongly Puritan."1 Early commentary on Rossetti may have overlooked signs of Tractarian influence because such signs would have associated her with Roman Catholicism. Certainly those critics who wanted to claim her as a [End Page 93] religious poet but who resisted what they perceived as Romanist influences would not have wished to note characteristics of the Oxford Movement in her work. For example, Mrs. Aubrey Richardson's assurance to her readers in Women of the Church of England (1907) that while Rossetti referred to Jesus as the "Heavenly Bridegroom," she was guiltless of "degrading the Divine to the low limits of an amourous personality," suggests that Richardson wanted to distance Rossetti from Roman Catholicism, a religion Richardson refers to as marked by "Vatican tyranny" and "gross superstitions."2 Two major studies in the 1930s of Rossetti's life and work (Dorothy Margaret Stuart's Christina Rossetti and Eleanor Thomas' Christina Georgina Rossetti) mention the significance of the Oxford Movement, but neither offers any close consideration of its influence. The title of Irene A. M. Shipton's 1933 article, "Christina Rossetti: The Poetess of the Oxford Movement," promises more; however, after asserting that the Oxford Movement was Rossetti's "spiritual home," Shipton then offers what is primarily a sketch of the poet's "saintly" life with some attention given to her religious poetry in rather general terms.3 Considering this absence of analysis of Rossetti's relationship with the Tractarians, the work of Desmond Morse-Boycott, published in 1932, stands out as something of an exception. In Lead, Kindly Light: Studies of the Saints and Heroes of the Oxford Movement, he includes a chapter on Rossetti. Although his commentary on Rossetti is similar to that of Shipton's in...

In celebration of cerebration

The weight of past scholarship presses heavily on the shoulders of anyone who is invited to accept William Harvey’s challenge to his eponymous Orators to ‘Exhort the Fellows and Members of the College to search and study out the secrets of Nature by way of Experiment’. Since the first Harveian Oration, given on St Luke’s Day, 1665, exactly 340 years ago, the scientific and clinical stories told by previous distinguished Orators provide an oral history of knowledge, from Harvey’s extraordinary era to the present day. Harvey himself extends the lineage of scholarship back further. To Galileo, who was a Professor at Padua when Harvey studied medicine there. To William Shakespeare, who lodged at Puddle Dock, a few streets away from Harvey’s residence near St Martin’s Church in London. To his friends, John Donne and Thomas Hobbes. And to Francis Bacon, proponent of inductive reasoning, father of the scientific method, and an inspiration to those who later founded the Royal Society.

St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004. Edited by Derek Keene, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. xiv + 538 pp. $125.00 cloth.

St. Paul's: The Cathedral Church of London, 604–2004. Edited by Derek Keene, Arthur Burns, and Andrew Saint. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004. xiv + 538 pp. $125.00 cloth. - Volume 74 Issue 4

Halley and the London Queen Anne Churches

London churches makes them the first buildings planned using modern scientific techniques, argue Jason R Ali and Peter Cunich. Although Edmond Halley (1656–1742, figure 1) is most famous for the comet that bears his name, he made substantial and lasting contributions across a vast range of the sciences (Hughes 1990, figure 2) during a publication career that spanned 61 years (Malin 1993, Cook 1998). In the 18th and 19th centuries he was considered second only to Newton (Sir David Brewster in MacPike 1932). His direct output alone is enough to attract the scientific historian, but his additional activities, for example, with Newton and the Principia, with the Royal Society, as an international envoy, a Royal Navy captain, and an official of the Chester Mint, not to mention his religious position, make him a compelling figure. Unfortunately, our picture of Halley will remain incomplete; he does not appear to have kept a diary and his surviving correspondence is meagre (MacPike 1932, Cook 1998).

St. Paul's: the Cathedral Church of London, 604-2004

St Paul's is unique among English cathedrals for its association with the richest city in the realm and with the secular and political life of the capital. At the same time it has been a lively site of devotion, often innovative in liturgy, music, and decoration, and sometimes at the heart of conflict between opposing views. The story of St Paul's offers many insights into the history of England as a whole and into the part played by religion in both private and public life. This magnificent book--the first comprehensive history of St Paul's Cathedral in thirty years--opens with a series of historical overviews of the cathedral, of the people associated with it, and of its religious, social, and political significance, from its foundation to the present. Additional essays investigate various topics related to the successive cathedrals on the site, and many well-chosen illustrations underline these themes and present the splendid features of the cathedral as it is today.

Science in culture

The Queen Anne churches in east London were precisely aligned on an east–west axis.

William Mundy's ‘Vox Patris Caelestis’ and the Assumption of the Virgin Mary

William Mundy composed the votive antiphon Vox patris caelestis during the brief English Counter-Reformation under the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–8). Unlike the majority of earlier votive antiphons, Vox patris refers to a specific liturgical and theological event, the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The text is an elaborate network of tropes on the Song of Songs, interwoven with other scriptural and literary topics traditionally linked to the feast of the Assumption, and finds parallels in Conrad of Saxony's Speculum Beatae Mariae Virginis. Vox patris also reflects similar treatments of the Assumption in the Golden Legend, English mystery plays, devotional poems, and contemporary sermons. Archival evidence suggests its precise historical context. The activities of Mundy's own choir at the London church of St Mary at Hill and of other London singers, the musical observance of the Assumption during Queen Mary's reign, and the manuscript sources of Vox patris reveal the likely background for its composition and performance.

‘ACCORDING TO ANCIENT CUSTOM’: THE RETURN OF ALTARS IN THE RESTORATION CHURCH OF ENGLAND

Despite its association with the ill-fated reforms of Archbishop Laud in the 1630s and its dubious legality, the railed altar re-appeared in parish churches in the years after 1660. Initially only a handful of parishes and a minority of bishops backed so controversial a change, but the reconstruction of the city churches in London after the fire of 1666 popularised the railed altar, which was adopted elsewhere, particularly during the tory reaction of the 1680s. Studies of two urban parishes in the early 1680s indicate how struggles between dissenters and zealous anglicans could extend to disputes over worship. By 1700, what had been new and contested in the 1630s was becoming widely accepted, which may point to the powerful legacy of Laudian ideals in the restoration church.

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:Franklin H. Littell, Historical Atlas of ChristianityRichard John Neuhaus, ed., The Second One Thousand Years: Ten People Who Defined a MillenniumPatricia Ranft, A Woman's Way: The Forgotten History of Women Spiritual DirectorsEugen Weber, Apocalypses. Prophecies, Cults and Millennial Beliefs through the AgesMichelle Renee Salzman, The Making of a Christian Aristocracy. Social and Religious Change in the Western Roman EmpireConstance Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth‐Century EuropePierre de la Ruffinière du Prey, Hawksmoor's London Churches: Architecture and TheologyBrian Stanley, ed.: Christian Missions and the EnlightenmentSioban Nelson, Say Little, Do Much. Nursing, Nuns, and Hospitals in the Nineteenth CenturyTrystan Owain Hughes, Winds of Change. The Roman Catholic Church and Society in Wales, 1916‐1962Peter Bowler, Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early‐Twentieth‐Century Britain

:Hawksmoor's London Churches: Architecture and Theology

Six remarkable churches built by Nicholas Hawksmoor from 1712 to 1731 still stand in London. In this book, architectural historian Pierre de la Ruffiniere du Prey examines these designs as a coherent whole - a single masterpiece reflecting both Hawksmoor's design principles and his desire to reconnect, architecturally, with the purest days of Christianity.

Amazing grace in John Newton: slave-ship captain, hymnwriter, and abolitionist

In Amazing Grace, the best-loved of all hymns, John Newton's allusions to the drama of his life tell the story of a youth who was a virtual slave in Sierra Leone before ironically becoming a slave trader himself. Liverpool, his home port, was the center of the most colossal, lucrative, and inhumane slave trade the world has ever known. A gradual spiritual awakening transformed Newton into an ardent evangelist and anti-slavery activist.Influenced by Methodists George Whitefield and John Wesley, Newton became prominent among those favoring a Methodist-style revival in the Church of England. This movement stressed personal conversion, simple worship, emotional enthusiasm, and social justice. While pastoring a poor flock in Olney, he and poet William Cowper produced a hymnal containing such perennial favorites as Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken and God Moves in a Mysterious Way. Later, while serving a church in London, Newton raised British consciousness on the immorality of the slave trade. The account he gave to Parliament on the atrocities he had witnessed helped William Wilberforce obtain legislation to abolish the slave trade in England.Newton's life story convinced many who are found after being lost to sing Gospel hymns as they lobbied for civil rights legislation. His close involvement with both capitalism and evangelicalism, the main economic and religious forces of his era, provide a fascinating case study of the relationship of Christians to their social environment. In an afterword on Newtonian Christianity, Phipps explains Newton's critique of Karl Marx's thesis that religious ideals are always the effect of what produces the most profit. Phipps relies onaccounts Newton gives in his ship journal, diary, letters, and sermons for this most readable scholarly narrative.

Of Sacred Art and the Artist: Henry James's “The Altar of the Dead”

In Altar of the Dead Henry James examines the nature of both sacred art and the artist who creates it. His aesthetic gentleman, George Stransom, visualizes internal images, imagines types and frames, arranges objects, expects interpretation of his work (a lighted altar), and yearns for immortality like any other maker. However, because generating sacred art requires beatitude the creator, Stransom's intolerance, pride, and need objectify people hinder its completion. Only the descent of charity and Stransom's forgiveness of his enemy, Acton Hague, allow for compositional harmony and the artwork's final execution. Set a Catholic church, the altar even comes embody the three Scholastic requirements for beauty: integrity, proportion, and radiance. Some critics have denied value this tale, deploring what they believe be its sentimentality and perverted of love. Others have been positive but found the story only psychological significance. In contrast, I believe that Altar of the Dead depicts a true understanding of caritas, displays irony regarding its epiphanies, and reflects on theological as well as psychological truths. Redemption does not occur without cost: Stransom's charity could not have blossomed without the sometimes troubling influence of eros; Stransom and Hague could not have achieved their apotheoses without the aid (and suffering) of an unnamed woman. Grace may redeem individuals, but it does not obviate past selfishness. James always balances sublimity with a clear-headed awareness of the mixed motives and conflicted emotions with which it interweaves. George Stransom, an older man of affairs, habitually lights mental candles for his dead, a habit designed respect their memories and maintain a tie with the living. Visiting a suburban London church, he conceives the idea of externalizing his the form of a side altar. The table, soon ablaze with attracts the devotion of a middle-aged woman. Over time Stransom becomes intimate with this unnamed woman and discovers, his shock, that she has been mourning her lover Acton Hague, a former best friend excluded from Stransom's dead because of an ancient betrayal. This revelation suspends intimacy between Stransom and the woman as the man, unforgiving, finds himself unable light a candle for Hague. At length, haunted, sick, and dying, Stransom visits the church and beholds the of his long-deceased fiancee, Mary Antrim, within its lights. Infused with her generous spirit, Stransom forgives Hague and finds that he can mentally insert the last candle his altar needs for symmetry. Desperate pass on this revelation, Stransom turns and finds the woman, who, inexplicably, has discovered that she can forgive his cold-heartedness and return honor his dead. Evidently thinking of Hague, Stransom exclaims that there is room for just more, but the shocked woman demurs because her eyes the one more is Stransom himself, whose face [now] had the whiteness of death. (1) Though not an artist by vocation, Stransom is what Krishna Baldev Vaid describes as a man of vision (218). At the tale's outset his life, which had been fill[ed] the brim by the presence of Mary Antrim, has been emptied by her death (450). Turning away from the pain of the actual, Stransom, the manner of an expressionist artist, fills his internal canvas with images. These images do not originate the material world. At Mary's grave site, for example, he does not actually see the grave; rather, his eyes open to another light, a realm where the deceased may be condensed a simplified[,] intensified essence (451). Rearing an altar in his spiritual spaces, Stransom creates a harbinger of the artwork, a conjuring that escapes mere subjective fancy through its unconscious connection archetypes. Confronted with a lighted altar, Stransom perceives how, if occasions like this had been frequent his life[,] he would have been frequently conscious of the great original type, set up a myriad temples, of the unapproachable shrine he had erected his mind (457). …

Thomas Deloney and the London Weavers' Company

Thomas Deloney-balladeer, novelist, and yeoman weaver-remains best known for The Gentle Craft, the source for Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday, but he was also a passionate advocate for the needs of his class. Deloney's early polemical efforts endangered his freedom, particularly a now-lost ballad on the want of corn and a printed letter To the Minister and Elders of the French Church in London, He was more subtle in his novels about his own cloth trade, lacke of Newberie and Thomas of Reading, where his idealization of his craft mixes past and present ideologies of his gild, preserved for him and for us in the London Weavers' Company's ordinances. This idealization failed to reform Deloney's gild, but the novels were successful in more material terms, since lacke of Newberie and Thomas of Reading met with an acceptance and popularity that the printed letter or banned ballad could not.