Religion In England Research Articles

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650-1100

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650-1100

Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300–1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith. By Lynneth Miller Renberg. Gender in the Middle Ages, 19. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2022. xi + 254 pp. $85.00 cloth.

Women, Dance and Parish Religion in England, 1300–1640: Negotiating the Steps of Faith. By Lynneth Miller Renberg. Gender in the Middle Ages, 19. Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2022. xi + 254 pp. $85.00 cloth.

The many histories of the conflict thesis: the science vs. religion narrative in nineteenth-century Germany

ABSTRACT The idea of an inevitable conflict between science and religion leading to relentless hostility between the two emerged in the nineteenth century and has become a powerful narrative of modernity. Most historians of science trace the origins of the so-called ‘conflict thesis’ to the English-speaking world, more precisely to scientist-historian John William Draper and literary scholar Andrew Dickson White. Their books on the history of scientific-religious conflict turned into bestsellers. Yet, if we look beyond the Anglo-American world, the conflict thesis appears in new historical settings. This paper argues that the science vs. religion narrative flourished already in Germany before Draper and White announced the warfare between science and religion in England and the USA. Focusing on Germany, we aim to show that the conflict thesis emerged in a polycentric process shaped by various political, cultural, and social struggles. It became a rhetorical weapon for liberal scientists in Germany to oppose Ultramontanism and, at the same time, to discredit their rivals as unscientific, fanatic, or even as ‘henchmen’ of the Pope. Our paper makes a case for a decentred approach to the history of the conflict thesis, which brings to the fore specific political and cultural tensions shaping this narrative in the nineteenth century.

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650‐1100 (Studies in Early Medieval History). By DianeWatt. Pp. x, 238, London/NY, Bloomsbury Academic, hdb 2020 $95.00, ppb 2021 $39.95.

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650‐1100 (Studies in Early Medieval History). By DianeWatt. Pp. x, 238, London/NY, Bloomsbury Academic, hdb 2020 $95.00, ppb 2021 $39.95.

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 by Diane Watt

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100 by Diane Watt

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100

Women, Writing and Religion in England and Beyond, 650–1100

THE ANGLICAN-CATHOLIC RELATIONS IN THE ASSESSMENT OF POLITICAL PERSONALITIES OF THE UNITED KINGDOM IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XIX CENTURY

The article addresses the issue of how leading leaders of the liberal and conservative British party assessed the problem of interaction between the Anglican and Catholic churches in the nineteenth century. The main emphasis is on the social and political results of the emancipation of in English society, in the representations of Protestant or skeptical politicians or thinkers. The problem of religion in England has been an important element of social and political life since the sixteenth century. One of the most pressing aspects of this issue was the problem of relations between the Anglican and Catholic churches. After the Reformation from above, the Anglican State Church became a unique phenomenon, which testified to the strong national trends in society. The Catholic question was not a common problem in English life, playing not only a purely dynastic or religious role, but also having political and geopolitical significance. The situation has changed dramatically since the beginning of the nineteenth century because of the act of unity with Ireland raised questions about the status of Irish in the UK government. Also, an opposition to the Anglican Church, such as Tractarianism or the Oxford movement, has developed in England as well. As the article states, that against the background of the general social tensions and economic crises that took place between 1815 and 1840, the government was forced to seek compromise. Among these compromises was the improvement of conditions for Catholics. In 1829, a parliamentary document called the Act on the Freedom of Catholics allowed to participate in elections and to be elected to Parliament and to confer on them other civil rights. From that moment on, the Irish were given the opportunity to take part in the political life of the United Kingdom, the action that politicized the question. In the article the classical conservative and liberal view of the problem is compared. The author states that the conservatives and liberals had a similar attitude to the development of Anglicanism and the growing role of Catholicism. The problems of the internal reform of Anglicanism, foreign influence, the destruction of traditions and the institutionalization of the Catholic Church created a significant problem, to which public thought responded fervently and actively. The author emphasizes that, in contrast, Anglicanism was perceived as a national cultural heritage uniting the British people.

Combining Microhistorical and Field Theory Approaches

Abstract The purpose of this article is to explore the frictions and potentials endemic in combining microhistorical and field theory approaches, using popular religion in England in the long fifteenth century as an example. In two case studies, concerning basic catechetical texts and the last wills and testaments created by a wide spectrum of the population, the article analyzes how micro- and macro-historical investigation can be tied together. Crucially, micro examples do not simply illustrate but rather add to our knowledge of the general picture. Where micro examples offer a corrective to a general picture there is potential for friction. However, the article also proposes that it is valuable to use Bourdieusian concepts of the cultural field to inventorize the micro evidence in the process of understanding historical situations and transitions more broadly.

Seeking Sanctuary: Crime, Mercy, and Politics in English Courts, 1400–1550, by Shannon McSheffrey

The sanctuary offered to suspected criminals by churches in the Middle Ages has often been cited as evidence for the otherness of the medieval past. It has been seen as antithetical to the universalism of the law, a hindrance to state growth, a sign of ecclesiastical privilege and the enemy of justice. In this study Shannon McSheffrey takes issue with that picture, looking more thoroughly and critically at sanctuary in the later medieval period than any historian has done to date. She draws upon a huge volume of archival records from ecclesiastical, royal and civic courts, and describes the use of sanctuary by a great range of individuals in enormous and fascinating detail. But the driving force of her insightful analysis is her ability to read the sources anew, stripping away the prejudices and assumptions of earlier studies and putting sanctuary into its proper contemporary context. It will be essential reading for historians of crime, law, politics and religion in England between 1350 and 1550.

Fields, Ritual and Religion: Holistic Approaches to the Rural Landscape in Long‐Term Perspective (c.1500 BC–AD 1086)

SummaryThis paper discusses the relationship between agricultural activity and ritualized/religious practices in England from the middle Bronze Age to the early medieval period (c.1500 BC–AD 1086). It is written in the context of the ERC‐funded, Oxford‐based ‘English Landscapes and Identities project’ (EngLaId), which involved the compilation of an extensive spatial database of archaeological ‘monuments’, finds and other related data to chart change and continuity during this period. Drawing on this database alongside documentary and onomastic evidence, we analyze the changing relationship between fields, ritual and religion in England. We identify four moments of change, around the start of the middle Bronze Age (c.1500 BC), in the late Bronze Age (c.1150 BC), the late Iron Age (c.150 BC) and the middle/late Anglo‐Saxon period (c.800 AD). However, despite changes in both agricultural and ritual/religious practices during this extensive timeframe, a clear link between them can be observed throughout.

Teaching Jessica: race, religion, and gender inThe Merchant of Venice

AbstractThe Jew’s “fair daughter” in Shakespeare’s playThe Merchant of Veniceconverts and marries a Christian, Lorenzo. Recent attention, however, to changing ideas of race and identity in the early modern period has brought into question the divisions of Christian/Jew/Moor. Can Jessica convert and no longer be considered the Jew’s daughter? As “gentle” and “fair” is she to be considered gentile and in no way dark (spiritually or racially)? Jessica’s conversion has apparently little religious meaning, but rather she is saved from the Jew her father by marriage to Lorenzo, who becomes Shylock’s heir. Is Jessica’s conversion to be considered a matter of convenience that might, as Launcelot quips, raise the price of hogs, or is it also to be counted as an ideological and racial conversion that reveals underlying anxieties about gender, sexuality, and religious identity? This essay attempts to argue against the grain of the performance history ofThe Merchant History, which often downplays the role of Jessica or revises the text of the play, and returns to the text in order to contextualize the conversion of Jessica in contemporary discourses of gender, race, and religion in England’s expansionist colonialism and proto-capitalist commerce. The conversion of Jessica can be seen in that context as an exchange of monetary and ethical value, in which women’s sexuality also had a price-tag. These questions have implications for the teaching of the play and for the understanding of its concerns with unstable sexual, religious, and national identities.

Review: Lake Methodism: Polite Literature and Popular Religion in England, 1780–1830 by Jasper Cragwell

Review: Lake Methodism: Polite Literature and Popular Religion in England, 1780–1830 by Jasper Cragwell

The International Context of Secularization in England: The End of Empire, Immigration, and the Decline of Christian National Identity, 1945–1970

AbstractThis article discusses the impact of declining British power and increasing Commonwealth immigration on religion in England after the Second World War. It argues that a diminishing sense of Britain's greatness undermined the belief that England was a Christian nation, a belief common among Britain's elites, especially members of the Conservative party, and one that had long undergirded Christian faith and practice in the country. The language of Christian nationhood became toxic as it became associated with unpopular white settler governments in southern Africa. Moreover, the debates over the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act show how the migration of non-Christian religious groups to England had created a situation in which those who wished to continue to speak of the country as Christian would be accused of racism, a charge with fresh bite at that time. The article argues that international contexts deserve greater attention in the study of religious change.

Counting the converts: investigating change of religion in Scotland and estimating change of religion in England and Wales using data from Scotland’s Census 2001

Due to the nature of the question asked in the Census for England and Wales about religion in both the 2001 and the 2011 Census, it is not possible to investigate the phenomenon of change of religion from Census data alone. Scotland's Census 2001 asked questions about both current religion and religion of upbringing and by cross-referencing answers to these two questions, change of religion can be tracked (unfortunately in Scotland‟s 2011 Census a question about religion of upbringing was dropped). This paper presents a quantitative analysis of change of religion in Scotland using data from Scotland's Census 2001 and then provides an estimate for change of religion in England and Wales in 2011.

Lake Methodism: polite literature and popular religion in England, 1780-1830

Lake Methodism: polite literature and popular religion in England, 1780-1830

An appetite for wonder: the making of a scientist: a memoir

Born to parents who were enthusiastic naturalists, and linked through his wider family to a clutch of accomplished scientists, Richard Dawkins was bound to have biology in his genes. But what were the influences that shaped his life and intellectual development? And who inspired him to become the pioneering scientist and public thinker now famous (and infamous to some) around the world? In An Appetite for Wonder we join him on a personal journey back to an enchanting childhood in colonial Africa. There the exotic natural world was his constant companion. Boarding school in England aged 8, and later, public school at Oundle introduce him, and the reader, to strange rules and eccentric school masters vividly described with both humorous affection and some reservation. An initial fervent attachment to Church of England religion soon gives way to disaffection and, later, teenage rebellion. Early signs of a preference for music, poetry and reading over practical matters become apparent as he recalls the opportunities that entered his small world. Oxford, however, is the catalyst to his life. Vigorous debate in the dynamic Zoology Department unleashes his innate intellectual curiosity; and inspirational mentors together with his own creative thinking ignite the spark that results in his radical and new vision of Darwinism, The Selfish Gene. From innocent child to charismatic world-famous scientist, Richard Dawkins paints a colourful, richly-textured canvas of his early life. Honest self-reflection and witty anecdote are interspersed with touching reminiscences of his best-loved family and friends, literature, poetry and songs. We are finally able to understand the private influences that shaped the public man who more than anyone else in his generation explained our own origins.

Changing Historical Perspectives on the English Reformation: The Last Fifty Years

In 1971 and early 1972, as a final-year Cambridge undergraduate, I turned to the study of the English Reformation, under the able supervision of Felicity Heal, while attending the lectures of a wonderfully rackety and quirkily learned Fellow of Selwyn College, the late and much lamented patron of the Cambridge Footlights, Harry Porter. The course was entitled ‘Thought and Religion in England 1500 to 1650’, and it was fairly cutting-edge by the standards of its day: a genuine effort to reach across the divide then standard between the history and divinity faculties. It also tried to integrate England with mainland Europe – what in those days, we would routinely call with sublime and literal insularity ‘the Continent’.

Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament by Bruce T. Morrill, S.J.

110 ANTIPHON 17.1 (2013) Bruce T. Morrill, S.J. Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament New York: Paulist Press, 2012 v+134 pages. Paperback. $16.95. Among liturgical theologians, it has become de rigueur to speak of the manifold presence of Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy, drawing from Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7. Such theologians, rather than seek a deeper understanding of what constitutes Eucharistic presence , tend to employ what might loosely be called “the doctrine of the fourfold presence”—at best, as a corrective to an exclusive focus on the real presence of Christ; at worst, as a way of dismissing the doctrine of transubstantiation in toto. Bruce Morrill’s Encountering Christ in the Eucharist is an important exception to this trend. Locating his understanding of presence in the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ, a move that situates him within the domain of the early liturgical movement and Pauline theology, Morrill provides a biblically grounded, patristic, and theologically sophisticated treatment of Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 7. Christ’s presence in the assembly is unfolded according to the sacramental logic of baptism, of the patristic sacramental seal, a biblical account of covenant, and the interruptive and latent Christological presence manifested in the assembly. The same presence is treated anew in the proclamation of the Scriptures themselves, attentive to the manner in which the liturgical ordering of the lectionary interrupts the human imagination, our own meaning structure, and reveals to us glimpses of the kingdom of God’s advent—what Morrill calls the “paschal imagination.” Morrill develops Christ’s abiding presence in the Eucharist through the union of Word and sacrament, an evaluation of the Trinitarian basis of sacrifice, a Christology of self-gift based in the biblical narrative, an account of Jewish anamnetic prayer forms focusing particularly on the communion sacrifice, and the “eucharistizing” effect of the Eucharistic prayer. Lastly, Morrill acknowledges Christ’s presence in Christian leadership (a term chosen because of its ecumenical nature), building his argument from the priestly and prophetic charism bestowed in baptism, a history of priestly ministry, an ecumenical theology of Eucharistic presidency, and an acknowledgement of other forms of liturgical leadership. 111 BOOK REVIEWS Morrill’s Encountering Christ in the Eucharist, an especially valuable text for parish study groups, ecumenical gatherings on the Eucharist, and undergraduate courses on the sacraments, is an icon of a form of liturgical studies so rarely practiced in the academy. He treats biblical and sacramental theology alongside liturgical history and the social sciences, and through this methodological diversity, engages in a refined evaluation of the manifold presence of Christ. To speak of the fourfold presence of Christ in the Eucharistic liturgy, for Morrill, is only sensible if the theologian attends to the particularities of the act under examination—what it means for a Christian to assemble, to proclaim the Scriptures according to the mind of the Church, to participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice , and to lead liturgical prayer. Such a move, a sign of LouisMarie Chauvet’s influence upon Morrill, may be conceived as an application of Chauvetean sacramental theology in an American context. Likewise, Morrill demonstrates his pastoral sensibility, interspersing narrative throughout the text in a way that elucidates even complex theological concepts. Encountering Christ is a work that only a teacher of undergraduates and liturgical practitioner could pull off. Nonetheless, there are two small lacunae that need to be addressed. First, at several places in the text, Morrill falls into a common, albeit too simplistic narrative regarding liturgical history , namely, that the Second Vatican Council rescued Catholicism from a form of medieval piety through a reclamation of the biblical and patristic approach to liturgy. While undoubtedly the Council did seek to promote a renewal of the liturgical life of the Church through a ressourcement of the biblical and patristic vision, medieval Catholicism also enabled a unique form of participation in the manifold presence of Christ through the sanctoral cycle, liturgical devotions, drama, and other forms of art (see in particular Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Tradition Religion in England 1400–1580, 1992). In fact, Morrill’s attention to particularity in the fourfold presence of Christ may inspire a...

Counting Religion in England and Wales: The Long Eighteenth Century,c.1680–c.1840

The statistical analysis of religion in England and Wales usually commences with the mid-nineteenth century. This article synthesises relevant primary and secondary sources to produce initial quantitative estimates of the religious composition of the population in 1680, 1720, 1760, 1800 and 1840. The Church of England is shown to have lost almost one-fifth of its affiliation market share during this period, with an ever increasing number of nominal Anglicans also ceasing to practise. Nonconformity more than quadrupled, mainly from 1760 and especially after 1800. Roman Catholicism kept pace with demographic growth, but, even reinforced by Irish immigration, remained a limited force in 1840. Judaism and overt irreligion were both negligible.

ROGER D. SELL and ANTHONY W. JOHNSON (eds), Writing and Religion in England, 1558-1689: Studies in Community-Making and Cultural Memory.

BEGINNING from the premise that early modern religious writing was essentially communicational, this collection aims to explore both how it was used to create or consolidate communities, and how it drew on cultural memory in order to do so. Its twenty chapters, in four parts, cover a variety of genres and religious affiliations, and span the period from the Elizabethan Settlement of 1558–9 to the Toleration Act of 1689. Part I contains two overviews, of Protestant dissenting literature by Alan Sell, and of attitudes towards toleration for Roman Catholics by Arthur Marotti. Part II, covering 1558–1631, includes essays by Lars-Håkan Svensson and Åke Bergvall on The Faerie Queene, A. D. Cousins on Donne’s Satire III, and Maria Salenius on his sermons. Anthony Johnson analyses Jonson’s representation in The Masque of Augurs of James I’s eirenic political ideology, and Thomas Rist evaluates changing critical reception of Shakespeare’s possible Catholicism. In two articles on undisputed Catholics, Roger Sell discusses Sir John Beaumont’s negotiation of three overlapping potential readerships, and Gunilla Florby Elizabeth Cary’s translation of du Perron.