English Parishes Research Articles

Recording Liturgical and Sacramental Rites of Passage in Pre-Reformation English Parishes

The introduction of parochial registers in England in 1538 was a milestone in the recording of (some) liturgical and sacramental rites of passage. Limited evidence reveals an earlier and superficially similar system incorporating detailed recording of offerings and other receipts among parochial ‘altarage’ income in benefice accounts. The material is examined and contextualized, to establish its relationship with the system introduced in 1538 and its value for appreciating the experience of liturgical rites of passage in pre-Reformation England.

A field experiment: Testing the potential of norms for achieving behavior change in English parishes

Tests of behavioral insights have become increasingly more common, and have been deployed by UK government and agencies. Typically, these field experiments aim to change individual-level behaviors. The current article tests the potential of behavioral insights for changing group-level behavior. This article reports the results of a field experiment carried out with the Department of Communities and Local Government. The field experiment tested whether a normative message (vs. a neutral or no message) could encourage parish councils to register an asset of community value (social action). There was no statistically significant effect from this intervention, but the process of designing and implementing this field experiment shows the potential for theories of behavior change to be used by government departments.

The History of the 1980 Anglican Pastoral Provision

The reception of married convert priests in the catholic church was made possible by a set of policies and permissions established in 1980 that have come to be known as the Pastoral Provision.1 the term provision refers to a privilege or accommodation that is made for pastoral reasons, to remove barriers to or help facilitate the spiritual growth of a person or group. the accommodation for anglican converts provided for them to retain certain cultural practices, such as a traditional anglican liturgy and married clergy, to smooth their entry into the catholic faith. How is it that the catholic church came to make such a generous accommodation for anglicans? and why only for anglicans, and not other christian denominations? this article recounts the events and trends that led to the 1980 decision establishing these policies.Influences on the Pastoral ProvisionThe 1980 decision reflected a unique confluence of short and long term historical and religious trends both within and outside the catholic church. it is a tale that begins in the 16th century religious division between Protestant and catholic and ends in the contemporary religious division between liberal and conservative, with attempts, ultimately futile, to heal the divisions in between. conceived as an ecumenical initiative in the spirit of Vatican council ii, its establishment reflected the character of the centuries-old forces separating catholicism and anglicanism as well as the particular cultural situations of both churches in the 1970s. Most of all, the Pastoral Provision was an idea whose time had come.Five elements stand out as particularly important for understanding this development: 1) the 16th century english Reformation, which separated anglicanism from catholicism in unique ways; 2) the 19th century conversion of the anglican priest John Henry Newman, which set a pattern for future clergy conversions; 3) the second Vatican council, which introduced catholics to a more open stance toward Protestants, and anglicans in particular, and to a married deaconate; 4) the failure of ecumenical engagement amid diverging cultural and religious stances of anglicanism and catholicism in the 1970s; and 5) the particular interest and force of bishop bernard law, who, long before becoming embroiled in sex abuse scandal as cardinal archbishop of boston in the 2000s, was one of the american church's most effective advocates for civil rights and ecumenical unity.From Reformation to NewmanFew dispute that the english Reformation was more a matter of politics than of national conversion. though views differ on how far Protestant ideals had taken hold among the english people prior to the 1530s, no historian goes so far as to attribute the break with Rome to this cause. even a.G. dickens, probably the strongest proponent of the view that receptiveness to Protestantism was well advanced in the popular mind, only claims that changing religious sensibilities meant that when the king quarreled with the Pope over his divorce, a permanent schism did not merely become conceivable; it proved actually manageable without arousing much opposition within the realm.2The Protestant religion was imposed upon, not acquired from, the english people, and was accompanied by a violent and thorough suppression of the catholic faith. the 1535 oath of supremacy, requiring the submission of clergy and religious to the king as the supreme spiritual authority in england on pain of death, was hardly the sign of a popular movement. under elizabeth, beginning in 1559, attending the church of england was enforced by heavy fines, and celebrating a catholic Mass was punishable by death. catholic priests, and laypersons publicly affirming the catholic faith, were subject to painful and humiliating public execution, often without benefit of trial, resulting in almost 300 martyrs by 1670.3 as the oxford catholic historian eamon duffy has asserted in recent years,4 the catholic character and practice of english parishes was systematically dismantled in a stripping of the altars (the title of his study). …

The English parishes and knights' fees tax of 1428: a study in fiscal politics and administration

This article is the first detailed examination of the English parishes and knights' fees tax of 1428, based upon parliamentary and exchequer material. It demonstrates that the house of commons insisted upon granting this novel tax, in place of a more financially burdensome fifteenth and tenth, during the financial crisis of 1427–8. The parishes and knights' fees tax was efficiently administered, notwithstanding some local complications, although its yield was not commensurate with the scale of the crown's financial needs by the late fourteen-twenties. This provides a unique insight into the origins of the well-documented late Lancastrian fiscal crisis.

Parliamentary enclosure, vermin and the cultural life of English parishes, 1750–1850

This article explores the impact of parliamentary enclosure on the cultural life of English villages after 1750. It focuses on parish-sponsored vermin control, arguing that the popular ‘hunting’ sanctioned by parish vestries under Tudor legislation, and persisting into the early nineteenth century, created a highly participatory recreational culture which continued to exist under the radar of the game laws. Using a sample of parishes from the heavily enclosed county of Northamptonshire, the article demonstrates that this communal activity survived the reworking of the landscape by parliamentary enclosure, and that, by extension, the level of disruption to village cultural life was less than has been suggested.

Real wages and the family: Adjusting real wages to changing demography in pre-modern England

This paper uses demographic data drawn from Wrigley et al.'s (1997) family reconstitutions of 26 English parishes to adjust Allen's (2001) real wages to the changing demography of early modern England. Using parity progression ratios (a fertility measure) and age specific mortality for children and parents, model families are predicted in two reference periods 1650–1700 and 1750–1800. These models yield two levels of interesting results. At the individual family level, we can measure how different families' real wages changed over the family life cycle as additional children were born. At the aggregate level, we can predict thousands of families using Monte Carlo simulation, creating a realistic distribution of median family real wages in the economy. There are two main findings. First, pregnancy and lactation do not create cyclical effects in the family's income. Instead, most families' welfare ratios decline steadily across the family life cycle until children begin to leave the household, increasing the welfare ratios. Second, Allen's real wages understate or match the median of the predicted demography-adjusted distributions.

The Annual General Meeting as an Accountability Mechanism

This review of Annual General Meetings (AGMs) as they evolved historically in English parishes and early joint-stock companies shows the manner in which they provided valuable opportunities to fulfill organizational accountability. AGMs enabled members to call elected governors to account and, in generating forums for organizational construction, supplied models which were foundational in early company law. As faceto- face meetings, AGMs were heterogeneous and presented non-financial information to augment publicly available financial information. Whilst low attendance at AGMs indicates apathy and modern technological advances may enable their replacement, recent calls to revise the legal requirement for an AGM have not gained traction. This paper therefore suggests a recommitment to the process of AGM accountability as practiced in early public sector and profit-oriented organizations. This will enable today's organizations to utilize the potential of the AGM as a formal and transparent mechanism to deliver accountability.

Evolving heritage control and practice: the case of Anglican churches in English parishes

PurposeAs part of its broader re‐evaluation of heritage policy, the UK Government has reviewed the Ecclesiastical Exemption, a long‐standing system that removes certain ecclesiastical buildings from secular heritage controls. This paper aims to critically review The Future of the Ecclesiastical Exemption and subsequent The Ecclesiastical Exemption: The Way Forward.Design/methodology/approachThe paper presents a detailed overview of the Ecclesiastical Exemption and the Faculty Jurisdiction literature followed by a critical review of recent government proposals.FindingsThe post‐consultation evaluation of responses forced a review of the High Level Management Agreement and the introduction of voluntary Heritage Partnership Agreements. But further reviews of the Ecclesiastical Exemption are likely to be implemented in the future.Originality/valueThe paper contributes to the broader appreciation of the “shadow” planning system that the Church of England enjoys.

The efficiency gains from site value taxes: the Tithe Commutation Act of 1836

The theoretical efficiency advantages of land site value taxation have been known since at least the writings of Adam Smith. However, the practical gains from switching land taxes to this basis have never, to our knowledge, been measured. The Tithe Commutation Act of 1836 in England switched taxation of large areas of farmland from a percentage of gross output to an equivalent lump sum tax on site values. We estimate the rent gains from this reform between 1842 and 1855 using data from 5108 English parishes. We show that converting the tithe to a lump sum raised rents, net of the tithe, by an average of £0.43 for every £1 of tithe collected. Some of these rent gains may have stemmed from increased investment by landlords in fixed capital rented with the land, so that we can only give a range for the possible excess burden of the tithe of 17–43%. Interestingly with a Cobb–Douglass production function the predicted excess burden would be 17%.

Enough of Thorough: Watertown as a Case Study of Early Massachusetts Town Government

T HE toil of new plantation, contemporary New Englanders lame ted, was akin to Labors of Hercules. In addition to each family's considerable personal exertions in clearing land, raising dwellings, and planting crops, community infrastructure had to be developed so that land could be allocated, public buildings constructed, education delivered, and general welfare maintained. Among first six Massachusetts towns to be founded, Watertown, like its fellows, relied on its particular English precedents as it formed its governing organization. By 1630, English parishes had been expanding their range of duties over course of two generations, but different parishes had developed different administrative models. The founders of Watertown, then, who had formerly resided in East Anglia, discovered that they had more than one precedent from which to choose. For major issues, some eastern county parishes held to principle of consulting all householders to assess the mind of town. Such desire for broad-based oversight was also evident in 16o6, when Ashdon, in northwest Essex, began keeping parish accounts because a great suspicion was grown among some parishioners of honest and just business of such officers as were chosen. Other parishes, however, had developed oligarchic leaderships-self-perpetuating, non-accountable closed vestries intent on imposing culture of discipline on inferior and meaner sort of parishioners'-and it is this approach that historians have tended to

Unnatural infertility, or, whatever happened in Colyton? Some reflections on English population history from family reconstitution 1580–1837

It has been more than thirty years since E. A. Wrigley demonstrated, in a still-famous article, that the technique of ‘family reconstitution’, as developed in France by Louis Henry and before then applied only to French parishes and elite groups, could be used in English historical demography. Although English parish registers seldom supply nearly as much detail as found in some French ones, and many registers are incomplete owing to an interruption of registration during the Civil War – or after 1789, 1769, or even 1729 – some English parishes were discovered whose registers allow adequate identification of the participants in all demographic events. Furthermore, English parish registers have one advantage over the French: they often started in the mid-sixteenth century (not the early seventeenth).The parish Wrigley chose to illustrate the alluring prospects for English historical demographers, as is well known, was Colyton in Devonshire. His article, however, was not merely a programmatic one setting forth the possible benefits – and costs – of family reconstitution. He had also made an unexpected discovery: that there may well have been family limitation in England (as the title of his article proclaimed) or, more specifically, in Colyton in the period from 1647 to 1719.

Talking about rurality: Social representations of the rural as expressed by residents of six English parishes

This paper presents a summary account of the associations made, in a variety of questionnaire responses and interview questions, by residents of six English parishes with the term ‘rural’. The case is made for defining ‘the rural’ as an abstract ‘social representation’, a set of rules and resources existing out of space and time which are drawn upon in both discursive and non-discursive actions. The precise form that this representation takes in these actions is highly contextualised and depends upon its precise usage. The content of respondents' representations of the rural contained many aspects of the ‘rural idyll’ familiar to academic researchers, especially in the interviews where the social aspect of rurality was more strongly expressed. However, this resemblance was not a naive acceptance of the idyll but involved a more engaged and often critical reflection on rural living. Hence, the respondents should not be dismissed as the ‘cultural dupes’ of a Pastoral ideology. Nonetheless, in general, they still set themselves up in representational opposition to what have been labelled ‘neglected rural geographies’.

Changes in fertility relative to starting, stopping, and spacing behaviors in a migrating Mennonite community, 1775-1889.

Fertility change over time in a migrating Mennonite church congregation is reconstructed through genealogies developed from church registries of vital events during 1725-1924. The congregation was located in Prussia from 1725-1821, in Russia from 1822-1874, and in Kansas, U.S.A., from 1875-1924. Age-specific marital fertility rates were relatively low and usually peaked for women aged 25-29. Total fertility rates ranged from 1.19 to 5.29. These relatively low figures for a natural fertility population may partly reflect underreporting of births and deaths of infants, but it also reflects the heterogeneity in fertility evident for this population. Some women had many children while others were having either few or none. This pattern changed twice. Fertility was lowest during residence late in Prussia and early in Russia, peaked during residence late in Russia, and has decreased slightly for women born in the United States.

Harvesting the Air: Windmill Pioneers in Twelfth-Century England by Edward J. Kealey

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 153 This is hardly what we expect in books on culture, but it becomes less surprising when one finds that the book is dedicated to Joseph Need­ ham, and when Dieter Kuhn indicates that he is a contributor to the Science and Civilisation in China volume dealing with textiles. The technical advances of the Sung, as described here, include improved strains of rice, fertilization, and the introduction of exotic citrus fruits, teas, sugar, and cotton. The seed plow came into wide­ spread use, as did a kind of reaping machine. Watermills were sys­ tematically established by the state, and there is an illustration of a waterpowered spinning machine of 1313. The book is handier than, and to some degree supplementary to, the Needham magnum opus in its treatment of technology, especially ofagriculture and textiles. And technology occupies only about a third of the text, the bulk of the remainder being devoted to relevant topics, the development of a civilian society, trade and daily life (the standard of living appears to have resembled that of Italian cities two centuries later), and archaeological evidence. Kuhn’s sources are mainly Chinese, and there is a Chinese index. R. P. Multhauf Dr. Multhauf is historian emeritus at the National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution. Harvesting the Air: Windmill Pioneers in Twelfth-Century England. By Edward J. Kealey. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali­ fornia Press, 1987. Pp. xiii + 307; illustrations, notes, appendix, bib­ liography, index. $40.00. The origins of wind power may be less problematic than the origins of waterpower, but even so they have given rise to much controversy over the years. J. C. Notebaart’s classic study, Windmuehlen (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1971), examines various theories exhaustively, and it might be supposed definitively, yet it still leaves room for debate. Its absence from the bibliography of Harvesting the Air is a curious omission. So much depends on the exact dating of information from legal documents that may or may not be faithful copies of earlier versions. Certainly Edward Kealey makes a good case for localizing the in­ vention of vertical windmills of the oldest, post-mill type in eastern England somewhat earlier than the period usually specified. For whereas Notebaart and others indicate such mills in England only from the 1190s, and in Normandy from the 1180s (a matter of one or two instances in each case), Kealey’s first windmill reference dates from before 1137, and he can find a few more from the middle years of the 12th century. Windmills spread slowly at first, he states, until inflation and other changes in the last twenty years of the century finally made them popular. Kealey relied chiefly on monastic sources, 154 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE but he also incorporated the results of recent archaeological investi­ gation, and he uses manuscript illustration (the earliest also English). Until monastic records or archaeological data from the Continent can challenge him, Kealey’s thesis stands. He provides us with a table of no less than fifty-six English windmills that date from before 1200, together with a map of their distribution and a gazetteer that supplies details of the history of each mill. It would have been useful to have a graph showing the increasing proportion of English parishes that had windmills; did this increase over time, as Kealey seems to suggest? Unfortunately, most of his dates are those by which a certain mill stood on a particular site. They are not erection dates, which can seldom be discovered. Windmills are a striking piece of invention. The going work might be adapted from the machinery of watermills, but when before had a shed been mounted on a post so as to rotate? Buildings—and wa­ termills too—were constructed in order to be stable, but here was one that was intended to turn around. Like watermills, windmills are re­ stricted in the potential sites they can occupy; they must stand in the open where neither ridges nor other obstacles will break the wind before it strikes their sails. Millstones are quite heavy, so installation of the machinery must have been a hard job; at least...

Supplementing English parish listings—a way forward?

Abstract This article outlines a methodology for reconstructing census‐type listings of English parishes for the pre‐census era. The methodology is offered as a possible way around the impasse created by the uneven and random survival of a relatively small number of contemporary listings of the period. Examples are drawn from a series of reconstructed listings for the parish of Highley in Shropshire from the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Broken Angels: the Response of English Parishes to the Turkish Threat to Christendom, 1543–4

After several years’ prevarication, for diplomatic and matrimonial reasons, Henry VIII finally promised the Queen of Hungary, Regent of the Netherlands, in July 1543 (just two days before his marriage to Catherine Parr) that he would send 40,000 ducats to assist the Emperor in his fight against the Turks. It was a drop in the ocean as far as Charles V was concerned; his yearly revenue was averaging about 2¼ million ducats at this time. But that was insufficient to meet his expenses, and another 40,000 ducats was by no means to be spurned. In truth, it was modest enough too on the part of the English King as a contribution to so high a cause as the defence of Christendom, being equivalent to £10,000 sterling. But it was £10,000 which Henry could ill afford given his other commitments particularly on fortifications and military expenditure, and it seems to have been intended only as a loan, to be financed, when the logistics had been worked out, by bills drawn on London bankers and on the merchants of the staple at Calais.

Sterility in a Population with Natural Fertility

In this paper we examine the age pattern of sterility in a natural fertility population of 16 English parishes. We examine estimators of sterility proposed by historical demographers. We demonstrate through Monte Carolo simulation of reproductive histories that the estimators proposed earlier work well only if the ages to which the estimates pertain are substantially modified from the original formulation. The new estimates show a much larger positive effect of childbearing on sterility than would the earlier ones. We also present estimates of the age pattern of sterility due solely to the process of ageing by eliminating secondary sterility induced by childbearing. This curve rises slowly until age 40, after which the proportion sterile increases rapidly with age. We find no evidence of a sharp rise in the risk of sterility in the 30s. We find strong evidence of a decline in fecundity by examining age-specific fertility rates only for those women who are known to be fecund because they later bear children. The evidence suggests only a moderate decline until ages 35–39 and a much steeper decline thereafter.Finally, we illustrate the danger of the use of a clinical test of infertility commonly employed. We show that if women are judged to be infertile because they have not become pregnant within one year of unprotected exposure, then a large fraction of those so judged will be falsely diagnosed. We conclude that the one-year period is too short.

The Seasonality of Marriage in Old and New England

purpose of this article is to chart the seasonality of marriage in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England comparing the pattern in the colonies to the experience in the old world. Consideration is given to the impact of traditional religious prohibitions on the timing of marriage and whether their impact extended to America. author also examines the social cultural and economic factors affecting the seasonality of marriage once the old ecclesiastical constraints disappeared. The evidence presented includes marriage records from Boston Braintree Concord Dedham Plymouth and Watertown all in Massachusetts and from a large sample of English parishes with comparative material from France. (EXCERPT)

Gold from Dross? Population Reconstruction for the Pre-Census Era

author first describes two alternative methods that have been developed to provide estimates of past populations namely family reconstitution as developed by Louis Henry and others in France and population reconstruction. Population reconstruction as exemplified by E. A. Wrigley and R. S. Schofields The Population History of England 1541-1871: A Reconstruction involves the use of a series of aggregative counts of the number of births marriages and deaths each month and has been applied to a sample of English parishes. main objective of the present study is to describe the methodology of population reconstruction and to compare these two historical demographic methods.

In Tears With His People: Reflections on the Role of the Roman Catholic Clergy in Four English Parishes

In this article, a number of findings of a series of focussed interviews with fifteen Roman Catholic clergy associated with four English parishes will be discussed in the light of a recent survey of clergy from three denominations. It will be shown that in a number of important respects the findings of this mail questionnaire survey were not supported by the evidence derived from taped interviews in the present research.All the priests interviewed were or had been recently associated with one of the four parishes selected for the study of change in the Roman Catholic community in England. The parishes had been selected to reflect as far as possible with the resources available, both regional and social class variations. Two parishes were in the London area. One was a middle class commuter parish covering an area of some fifteen square miles, about 20 miles outside the city and with a Catholic density of around 8% of the population. The second was an inner-city parish occupying under one square mile in area with a large proportion of both Irish and New Commonwealth immigrants. In this parish Catholics comprised some 18% of the population. The remaining two parishes, both covering under one square mile in. area were in Preston where Catholics comprised between one quarter and one third of the population. Relatively few Catholics in Preston admitted to having any Irish ancestry. One parish was an inner-city, traditional working class parish in a state of population decline and aging associated with massive but arrested urban redevelopment programmes and the second, on the outskirts of Preston consisted mainly of new housing estates occupied by upwardly mobile people in professional, managerial and technical occupations.