Church In Town Research Articles

Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition by Luis R. Corteguera (review)

Death by Effigy: A Case from the Mexican Inquisition. By Luis R. Corteguera. [The Early Modern Americas.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2012. Pp, xviii, 222. $39.95. ISBN 978-0-8122-4439-7.)In January 1569, King Philip II decreed the establishment of a tribunal of the Inquisition in New Spain to eradicate from non-Indian society all heresy, heterodoxy, and offenses against the Christian God. Still on unsure footing in the viceroyalty, the Mexican Inquisition soon became involved in quarrels with both ecclesiastical and royal authorities over matters of jurisdiction and privileges over both temporal and spiritual spheres. Inquisitors were sensitive to matters of etiquette, and the breach of protocol by both ecclesiastic and secular authorities in Masses, meetings, and rituals of public punishment often triggered heated disagreements that easily escalated into serious confrontations. Eager to establish its authority, the newly established institution became particularly sensitive about the unauthorized use of the Holy Office's name and symbols to promote personal interests.In Death by Effigy, Luis R. Corteguera offers a probing discussion of the challenges faced by the Holy Office to establish its authority in New Spain, through a careful and nuanced analysis of a scandalous case of misappropriation of the Inquisition's symbols in a colonial setting. Corteguera's book revolves around an apparently insignificant incident that took place on July 21, 1578, in the small town of Temachalco that is located in the present-day state of Puebla. On that day, a Franciscan friar found a two-faced effigy hanging from the town church's door over a pile of wood. Adorned with black feathers and a sambenito (the Inquisition's penitential garment), the doll had a tongue sewn into each one of its mouths (one with a forked end, the other with a gag); two additional sambenitos were affixed to the building's facade, and three signs in gothic letters slandered a prominent town dweller by labeling him a Jew and warned others against removing these signs of infamy.Hernando Rubio Naranjo, the victim of the anonymous slander, was a thirtyfive-year-old unmarried man who made a fortune by trading between Teca- machalco and Oaxaca. Although he had no ancestry, the merchant was widely known as a Jewish scoundrel because of his widespread reputation as a usurer. The antisemitic accusation was compounded by Rubio's deeds as a deslenguado (loose-tongued); a hated man who had no problem defaming neighbors who considered him a friend, spreading false rumors on several reputable women, and cuckolding a fellow trader. …

Forecasting the future of religion in the 1920s: Ramsden Balmforth's post-orthodox prognostications

Standing at the apogee of post-Protestant theological liberalism, the scholarly Unitarian minister Ramsden Balmforth, who served the Unitarian Church in Cape Town from 1897 until 1937, responded to a broad spectrum of issues affecting South African religious, political and economic life. Having been moulded by Fabian socialism in his native Yorkshire, however, and informed by the theology of such denominational fellows as Joseph Estlin Carpenter during his student years in Oxford, he remained relatively marginalised on the ecclesiastical landscape of South Africa. Despite this quasi-isolation, Balmforth sought in the late 1920s to predict the future of Christianity or religious life generally not only in his adopted homeland, but also on an international scale. In the present article his conceptualisation is analysed in the historical context of his theological liberalism generally, and a critique of his prognostications is offered which highlights Balmforth’s failure to come to grips with the fact that his liberalism, which he regarded as a virtually inevitable product of cultural history, had failed to make nearly any inroads on the increasingly complex kaleidoscope of South African Christianity.

The Gap between Text, Image and Ritual as Iconological Problem. Two Examples from the Adriatic Coast

Through the discussion of two practical “case studies”, the authors deal with a classical theme of iconographical studies, that is the complex relationship between text and image. The two examples explain in particular how the “intention” of the artist or patron, and so the deeper meaning of the pictures, are not revealed by the exact correspondences between text and image, but emerge mainly from the recognition of the differences. Often this gap between text and image can be originated from the liturgy or can be explained by the links with ritual practices, in which the pictures are involved. Catholic prelates from Kotor were able to commission such artists who could paint the fresco programmes of town churches mostly based on models found in Byzantine art because such solutions offered them possibilities of forming their own programme based on the liturgy of the Catholic Church. In the case of the Olivuccio di Ceccarello’s Dormitio, from Sirolo, the semi-liturgical rituality of the assault on the properties of the Jews, accepted by the Church, justifies the scars on the image of Jews and clarifies the reason of the selection of episodes made by the painter on the basis of the Legenda aurea, with the intention to highlight the negative role of the Jews, as opposed to the positive one played by the incredulous Apostle Thomas.

RANGE AND PANORAMIC IMAGE FUSION INTO A TEXTURED RANGE IMAGE FOR CULTURE HERITAGE DOCUMENTATION

Abstract. This paper deals with a fusion of range and panoramic images, where the range image is acquired by a 3D laser scanner and the panoramic image is acquired with a digital still camera mounted on a panoramic head and tripod. The fused resulting dataset, called "textured range image", provides more reliable information about the investigated object for conservators and historians, than using both datasets separately. A simple example of fusion of a range and panoramic images, both obtained in St. Francis Xavier Church in town Opařany, is given here. Firstly, we describe the process of data acquisition, then the processing of both datasets into a proper format for following fusion and the process of fusion. The process of fusion can be divided into a two main parts: transformation and remapping. In the first, transformation, part, both images are related by matching similar features detected on both images with a proper detector, which results in transformation matrix enabling transformation of the range image onto a panoramic image. Then, the range data are remapped from the range image space into a panoramic image space and stored as an additional "range" channel. The process of image fusion is validated by comparing similar features extracted on both datasets.

Church of San Giuliano di Puglia: Seismic repair and upgrading

The notorious October-31-2002 earthquake threatened the collapse of the church of San Giuliano di Puglia (Campobasso, Italy). This paper describes the main points of the repair and seismic retrofitting of the town church, San Giuliano Martire. The seismic retrofitting had to meet the new Italian seismic code that was issued immediately after this earthquake (seismic upgrading). The structural rehabilitation was limited because of the requirements to stay true to the original aspect (conservation of the bare-surface stone masonry, without plaster). To this end, the design considered recent scientific advancements and developed innovative methods, rather than just referring to technical practice.The rehabilitation work, in particular the technical innovation, has been tested by two earthquakes, both of them with an epicenter within close proximity to the building. The first one struck in 2007, with a magnitude of 3.1; the second one in 2011, with a magnitude of 3.7 and a Peak Ground Acceleration of 0.19⋅g. Whilst the sacral furniture resting on the ground suffered from significant damage, none of the earthquakes caused any structural damage to the building. In particular, no cracks opened in the masonry structures. The PGA and seismic forces of the 2011-earthquake were 1.7 and 2.5 times greater than the values prescribed by the present Italian code for the damage limitation and no-collapse requirements, respectively. This proves the effectiveness of applying post-tensioned bonded tendons to masonry structures, in order to significantly increase both the stiffness and the lateral load-carrying capacity of a masonry building.

Snow on Snow

Snow on Snow Robert Clark (bio) Snow had fallen, snow on snow,Snow on snow,In the bleak mid-winterLong ago. You probably know these lines, either from Christina Rossetti's poem of 1871 or, more likely, Holst's setting of them as a carol. I used one of them as the title of a book, "bleak" altered to "deep" by the publisher, who thought "bleak" too bleak. Which it might indeed be. Rossetti was melancholic, iced up with unversed emotion, with passions gone gelid that, reticent and gob-stopped, couldn't quite state their names. She was a devout Anglo-Catholic. Her worship at Christ Church in London's Camden Town fumed with incense and candles, ardent for the Eucharist. Ever virgin, dazzled and expectant, she posed for Annunciations by her brother Gabriel and his Pre-Raphaelite cohort. Critics say her prosody had its roots in nursery rhymes, the tick-tock of fortunes and unravelings, of goblins vanquished, of witches made meek, of children saved and of children saving all—of things coming round upon themselves. Still, I say it was snow. She might have been cold, and then again she must have been misunderstood. Isn't that what children always and everywhere are—misunderstood? When I see snow falling, I hear a clock ticking; the clock next to the bed upon which my mother holds me, her heart its counterpoint; and the snow unwinds, sheathes and coils like drapery, like the shade that, as she leaves, cascades down the window sash. The clock gets lost in my own heartbeat and outside—you know this; you hear it ticking, swinging on its pendulum—the snow falls and will fall for as long as it takes to cover everything. A car will drive by, headlights tunneling, the tires a whir and then a rustle compressed to a sigh. There is a great [End Page 36] clockwork above you in heaven, geared and laboring, and it will spin all night until there is nothing but snow. It will do the work. You may rest. Angels will watch over your bed. They descend upon you like snow. Like a bell in the night, it tolls until it's put the world to sleep, rung it into silence. I will wake in the morning and it will be like Christmas: I will race to see what great thing has been accomplished, what thing—vouch-safed in the night—I've been given. And what I have is a world erased, whited out, veiled and muffled; snow on snow and then, for good measure (as Rossetti has it in the poem), snow on snow again. There's no time, only space. I am sub specie aeternitatis. There will be no more suffering. It has been laid down and covered over, swaddled in boundless white. Peace: that's how it is for me, swaddled too. I have the snow to keep me warm. Rossetti did not see it this way. In another poem, she finds a bird dead of cold and says, "Dig him a grave where the soft mosses grow / Raise him a tombstone of snow." And then, chillingly, she writes in "Wife to Husband," "Pardon the faults in me, / For the love of years ago: / Good-bye. / I must drift across the sea, / I must sink into the snow, / I must die." She was never a wife: her one intended broke off their engagement, saying he wanted to become a priest. So I must imagine who this husband might be. But perhaps I am misunderstanding her. Perhaps you are misunderstanding me. You may be thinking, all that snow is another word for obliteration, for the world wished away, for a kind of death. And perhaps you are right. It is I who misunderstands, and what I misunderstand is me. But where I grew up, in north country, the first snow fell in mid-November and piled up, snow on snow (none of it melting, only clotting, becoming denser, withdrawing deeper to make room for more of itself) until March. And then the ticking would begin again, in droplets of meltwater, from eaves and tree branches, along gutters and downspouts, from the rust...

Apokryficzne przedstawienie męczeństwa św. Bartłomieja Apostoła na obrazie z kościoła parafialnego w Burgrabicach

In the Burgrabice’s town church (diocese Opole) there is a painting by Max Günther (1887-1961), a local painter living in Burgrabice. It describes the death of the saint Apostle Bartholomew. Max Günther is said to paint it during his journey to Rome in 1914. The picture is a copy of Francesco Manno’s (1752-1831) work, exposed in saint Bartholomew’s Basilica in Rome (all’Isola Tiberina).

Double-mouthed discourse: Interpreting, framing, and participant roles1

In this article I examine multilingual displays in a Congolese Pentecostal church in Cape Town, South Africa. I focus on the simultaneous interpreting of the pastor's French sermon into English. I argue that the interpreting activity performed at church is used as a powerful interactional device to dramatize and shape the pastor's sermon. A close examination of participant roles shows that although these may appear to be predetermined by the interpretee-interpreter format of the sermon, speaking roles are actually fluid and negotiated. I submit that an important role of the church interpreter is to convey the pastor's inspiration from the Holy Spirit and reach out to the potential audience absent from the here and now of the service. His high emotional engagement helps convey this inspiration prospectively to the audience and retroactively to the pastor himself.

Controlling Time in the Habsburg Lands: The Introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in Austria below the Enns

On6 January1584, the provost of Zwettl in the archduchy of Austria below the Enns recounted events two days earlier that had greatly alarmed him. Present in the town of Zwettl on administrative business, Ulrich Hackel had been very surprised to see the town church unlocked and packed with peasants and townspeople. An additional 600 peasants, according to his reckoning, were gathered outside the church. All were dressed in their best and all were celebrating Christmas. Yet, as far as Hackel had been concerned, Christmas had already been celebrated ten days earlier. He halted worship in the church, telling the congregation that Christmas was now past and had been duly marked. He then sought out the local magistrate to ensure that the church would be kept locked and that trade would be resumed in the town. His actions had, however, aroused very great opposition. An angry crowd surrounded Hackel, accusing him of being a papist and a rogue and demanding to know why he was depriving them of Christmas. He believed that had he uttered one more word in favor of the earlier celebration of Christmas, he would have been killed on the spot. Hackel had escaped their fury only by being escorted by the town magistrate out of the local parish house in which he had taken refuge and beyond the walls of the town.

Dynamisme du néo-gothique, architecture du renouveau religieux : le débat sur la création architecturale dans les années 1840 : A. W. N. Pugin et J. H. Newman

The Oxford Movement and the many religious controversies it raised did not fail to have a strong impact beyond strictly theological issues. The architectural criticism of the early Victorian period bears the marks of the passionate debate around the Catholic revival in England in the 1830s and 1840s. This article examines the significant opposition between two radically opposed visions, that of A.W.N. Pugin, the leading figure of the ritualist movement and architectural critic, contrasting with that of J.H. Newman, the well-known theologian and thinker. While the former advocated architectural decoration in the Gothic style as its most perfect form, best suited to the expression of Catholic faith, the latter found the essence of religion not in the visible manifestations of faith but in interior contemplation. The polemical aspect of Pugin’s opposition to Newman is exemplified by his quarrel with The Rambler, a Catholic journal supported by Newman, concerning an article on town churches, published in January 1850.

Jumping from A Moving Train: Risk, Migration and Rights at NAFTA's Southern Border

July 2007. Hundreds of Central American migrants were camped along the railway tracks in Arriaga, Chiapas waiting to for the freight train to leave. Some were eating, perhaps their last food for days, others had bottles of water tied across their shoulders, some attempted to rest under the train cars to escape the hot sun. One young man brushed his teeth under the trees, using the water he carried in a recycled coca-cola bottle, to prepare himself for the journey ahead. Arriaga, a town of 25,000 people, is split in half by the train tracks. The town's tiny plaza, with a small playground, fondas (eateries), and a railway museum, sits on one side of the tracks. The town's church and market lie on the other. These Central American migrants in Arriaga, some 150 miles from Mexico's southern border with Guatemala, were eager to jump the freight train to continue their journey north to the United States. The train had not left Arriaga for a full week and many were desperate as they felt trapped. Their preparations underscored the dangers and harshness of the trip. They would have to hold on to the train for hours and days at a time, riding on ladders and the roofs of tank cars. Those who fall asleep and lose their grip risk death or severe injury, such as dismemberment.

The rain-triggered Atenquique volcaniclastic debris flow of October 16, 1955 at Nevado de Colima Volcano, Mexico

On October 16, 1955, at 10:45 a.m. (local time), after three days of intense rain (140 mm) that was twice the monthly average precipitation, a devastating flood surge formed a volcaniclastic debris flow on the eastern slopes of Nevado de Colima Volcano. Nearly simultaneous flood surges formed in the Arroyo Seco, Los Platanos, and Dos Volcanes ravines that coalesced with the larger flow in the Atenquique ravine. At each confluence with a tributary, the flow was diluted. The texture and structure of the preserved 1955 deposits near high water marks indicate that the downstream flow was mainly in the lower range of debris flow concentration (60% sediment concentration by weight). Downstream the tributaries, the flood encountered a ∼ 0.06 × 10 6 m 3 water reservoir that failed, significantly increasing the surge volume. Additional entrained sediment also increased the flow volume. Downstream, the flood wave reached the town of Atenquique as an 8–9 m catastrophic wave causing the death of more than 23 people, the partial destruction of the town, and losses of ∼ 13,000,000 pesos (∼ 1 million US dollars today) to a paper mill and company facilities. According to eyewitness accounts the flood wave had a peak discharge that lasted ca. 10 to 15 minutes at Atenquique. Deposits at the site and the high-water marks observed from photographs of the town's church indicate that sediment concentration was ca. 60 wt.%. The flood continued for about 1 km to its junction with the Tuxpan River where it was diluted by mixing with normal flood flow. The deposits covered an area of ∼ 1.2 km 2 and had a minimum volume of ∼ 3.2 × 10 6 m 3. The main deposit consists of a single unit, averaging 4 m in thickness, with weak textural variations that suggest surging within the flood wave. The deposit is heterolithologic and consists of boulders set in a matrix of sand-size sediment, with polymodal or bimodal distributions and normal grading varying with distance from source. The town of Atenquique has been reconstructed largely within the area inundated by the 1955 flood wave, thus creating the conditions for a future disaster. A rainfall-intensity warning system and an educational program for inhabitants are strategies to mitigate this risk.

UNLIMITED ACCESS: SAFEGUARDING HISTORIC TEXTILES ON OPEN DISPLAY IN PUBLIC BUILDINGS IN THE UK

Many public buildings, not designated as museums or historic houses, contain historically and/or culturally important textiles. Town halls, churches, hospitals, schools, leisure centres and government offices can all contain textiles that are part of the fabric of the building or its contents. The textiles may have a purely decorative role or be fully functioning elements of an active work environment. All are in contexts in which their preservation is secondary to the purpose of the building, and many are not protected by any form of preservation guidance or expertise. Drawing upon a range of case examples from private practice the risks from unrestricted public access are explored. Strategies aimed at preserving these textiles, while enabling them to continue to fulfil their public role, are presented. Issues arising from the short-term and once-removed relationship between the contracted conservator and the textiles are also examined.

From Constantine to Charlemagne: an archaeology of Italy, AD 300-800

This book offers an overview of the archaeological and structural evidence for one of the most vital periods of Italian history, spanning the late Roman and early medieval periods. The chronological scope covers the adoption of Christianity and the emergence of Rome as the seat of Western Christendom, the break-up of the Roman west in the face of internal decay and the settlement of non-Romans and Germanic groups, the impact of Germanic and Byzantine rule on Italy until the rise of Charlemagne and of a Papal State in the later eighth century. Presenting a detailed review and analysis of recent discoveries by archaeologists, historians, art historians, numismatists and architectural historians, Neil Christie identifies the changes brought about by the Church in town and country, the level of change within Italy under Rome before and after occupation by Ostrogoths, Byzantines and Lombards, and reviews wider changes in urbanism, rural exploitation and defence. The emphasis is on human settlement on its varied levels - town, country, fort, refuge - and the assessment of how these evolved and the changes that impacted on them. Too long neglected as a 'Dark Age', this book helps to further illuminate this fascinating and dynamic period of European history.

:Accounts of the Feoffees of the Town Lands of Bury St. Edmunds, 1569-1622

In 1569, thirty years after its abbey had been dissolved, the large town of Bury St Edmunds remained unincorporated. These accounts show how the feoffees (still essentially the medieval Candlemas guild) experimented with town government. The pre-Reformation landed endowments were increased throughout the period. This enabled the feoffees to address many aspects of town life. In addition to payments for housing and clothing the poor, and the provision of medical care, they also contributed to the cost of providing clergy (whose theology was akin to their own) for the two town churches. To encourage trade, they built the town's first covered Market Cross, while the acquisition of the Shire House enabled the assizes and quarter sessions to move into the town. After the turn of the century, the Charitable Uses Act of 1601 was used to recover land which had long ago been alienated. At the same time some of the up and coming men successfully petitioned for a charter of incorporation for Bury St Edmunds, so that in 1606 the town acquired the borough status which had eluded it for centuries. Unless new sources are discovered, these accounts, though inevitably slanted to the feoffees' activities, are the most revealing source for the work of the new corporation in its early years.

“Sleeping Women”

ABSTRACT “Sleeping Women” was written several years ago while I was serving as interim pastor of a small town church in Minnesota. At the time, I was taking an advanced preaching course at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities, from which I had graduated in 1994. The sermon was written as a requirement of the class. In addition to preaching the sermon at the first church I mentioned, I've preached it with minor adaptations in three other small town churches.

"All Wrought Up": The Apocalyptic South of McKendree Robbins Long

Whether preaching the Gospel though the South at tent meetings and revivals or painting biblical scenes in his vivid, highly personal style, Reverend McKendree Robbins Long (1888-1976) embraced his callings with a stirring passion and a visionary's zeal. A quarter-century after his death, Long remains one of North Carolina's most original and distinctive artists. Long grew up in a distinguished family in Statesville, North Carolina. Beginning in 1910 he studied painting first at the Art Students League in New York and then abroad. He established himself as a portrait painter and teacher in Los Angeles and New York. A decade later Long returned to North Carolina and set aside his artistic ambitions in favor of another calling. Ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1922, he began a forty-year career preaching both from the pulpit and at tent revivals and small southern churches. His religious views grew more fundamentalist, and he eventually became Baptist, but Baptist or Presbyterian, his fiery preaching attracted a large following. Long's notebooks from the time are filled with his own hymns and poetry, thoughts on theology, morality, and the ever-looming Apocalypse. After World War II and the onset of the Cold War, he became more convinced than ever that the events of Revelation were at hand. These beliefs found expression when he returned to his painting in the 1950s. Although he was academically trained, from this time on he worked in a highly individualistic style that helped convey his beliefs about religion and culture. The paintings pictured here are from the exhibition Reverend McKendree Robbins Long: Picture Painter of the Apocalypse, organized by Davidson College and the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA) in 2002. The exhibition catalogue was published in 2002 by Davidson and NCMA. The contributions by authors Lee Smith and Hal Crowther were first read at a public presentation on McKendree's work organized by Professors Lucinda MacKethan of North Carolina State University and Joseph Flora of the University of North Carolina and hosted by NCMA. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Lee Smith Back when I was a very dramatic and religious girl, I often spoke at Christian youth groups and camp meetings. As my minister once said in introducing me, This here is Lee Smith, and she just loves to testify! As if this weren't bad enough, I embarrassed my staid Methodist parents further by developing a fervent addiction to revivals when I was about seventeen. Not the nice little revivals we held in our stone Methodist Church in town, but tent revivals out in the county when the word of God-ah! was shouted out by hard-breathing, wild-eyed gospel stompers, and people hollered out and danced and spoke in tongues and threw their babies. I'd sneak off to these revivals with my school friends, and every time they issued that familiar altar call and that irresistible hymn started up--Just As I A-am Without One Plea--there I'd be, up out of my seat before I even noticed I was moving, then rushing forward, in a pure-T frenzy to rededicate my life one more time. Frequently they'd immerse you on the spot--right there in the river or the little tent behind the big tent--and then I'd come home all dripping wet again--and then of course my mother would know exactly where I'd been. Finally they told me they were taking my car away unless I promised to stop rededicating my life all over the county, as it had become so embarrassing for them. So I stopped. I wanted those wheels. But I will never forget the way I felt when I stood up and came forward, that heightened, exalted holy feeling that came over me. My mother used to call it GETTING ALL WROUGHT UP and viewed it as a kind of sickness, like the flu. (And need I say that she felt it was also unladylike?) I should mention that the excitement of the revival was compounded by the fact that we often had dates for the revival, since there wasn't anything else to do in that town, or anyplace else to go, and that oftentimes, your date would be holding your hand while you both got all wrought up together. …

Zwei spätmittelalterliche Gruppen der Madonna mit Hl. Johannes Evangelista im Staatlichen Museum Schwerin

Summary The Staatliches Museum Schwerin possesses two carved groups of the Madonna with St. John the Evangelist, which, although they are nearly images of each other, are the work of different hands. Their form is similar to those Anna Selbdritt groups where the naked child is situated between the women. It has been handed down that the last provenance was Zapel near Schwerin. The iconographically unusual carving apparently arrived here after the reformation, which, in Mecklenburg, was associated with frequent transfer of liturgical pieces from town and diocesan churches to small out of the way village churches. Even today the Schwerin Cathedral St. Mary and St. John the Evangelist possesses several related representations of the Virgin and child and John with chalice. They appear side by side on someSchwerin episcopal seals of the 14th century. It was probably the generous Bishop Konrad Loste (1482–1503), who commissioned a relief-like group of church patrons. His successor Johann III. Thun (1504–1506) m...

The People of the Parish. Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese (review)

The People of the Parish. Community Life in a Late Medieval English Diocese. By Katherine L. French. [The Middle Ages Series.] (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2001. Pp. ix, 316. $59.95.) In one way or another, this book has been in the making for over a decade, but it was well worth waiting for. Building on her doctoral work, Katherine French offers a coherent, well-written, and stimulating survey of parish life in the diocese of Bath and Wells, covering the county of Somerset in England's West Country. Parochial activities, to summarize the main thesis, reflected distinct communal identities composed of a complex blend of secular and religious components. Far from being mere objects of clerical directives, parishes evolved varying types of liturgical, administrative, and convivial practices informed by particular topographical, economic, and social parameters. Substantiated from a variety of perspectives, French's contention is entirely convincing. The argument rests on a range of primary sources, most notably churchwardens' accounts, wills, and devotional literature. The lack of church court evidence is compensated by an original analysis of Chancery records. After an initial concern with definitions (the controversial term 'community' being understood as repeated interactions over time of a group of people with shared goals, interests, concerns and ideals, p. 24), subsequent chapters deal with record-keeping, parochial leadership, fundraising, church architecture, and liturgical practices. French draws on extensive familiarity with academic scholarship in various disciplines and a number of maps (admirably produced by Stephen Hana), graphs, tables, and photographs. Readers also benefit from a valuable appendix of pre-Reformation parish endowments throughout the diocese, a substantial bibliography, and a general index. Less convenient is the absence of a list of illustrations and the arrangement of references-many of which with additional information-as endnotes. Only the briefest impression of content can be provided here. Differences between urban and rural settings were important variables in the formation of communal identities. While country parishes encouraged broad participation through fundraising devices based on seasonal festivals and entertainments, town churches like St. Mary's, Bridgwater, developed a more hierarchical and less inclusive atmosphere. From the mid-fifteenth century, seating arrangements and processional order expressed the superiority of municipal office over parochial service, while the financial regime relied on individual benefaction rather than communal collections. …

The Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week by James Monti

The Week of Salvation: History and Traditions of Holy Week. By James Monti. (Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publishing Division. 1993. Pp. 447.$19.95.) This is a very useful history of the Holy Week services of the Catholic Church down to and including the present rites. It is mainly concerned with the Roman liturgy, but also covers the Byzantine and other eastern rites, and the non-Roman western rites used in such places as Milan, Lyons, and Toledo. It also includes descriptions of popular devotions in various countries. Until the recent reform of the Roman liturgy, the popular devotions of Holy Week were probably more important than the liturgical services. Of course, people had to go to Mass on Palm Sunday in order to obtain the blessed palm, but for many the Mass was only a means toward the end: getting that palm. During the Sacred Triduum (which used to mean Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, but not Easter Sunday), the liturgy was celebrated early in the morning, and was attended only by the more devout. The really interesting things happened later in the day. On Holy Thursday the reserved sacrament was enshrined in a repository in one of the side chapels, and there was a certain competition among the churches to create the most splendid shrine. This reviewer remembers, as a child, being taken in the family car on a tour of all the churches in town. Mr. Monti seems to think that this was a custom only in Latin countries, but he is not as old as I am. On Good Friday, of course, everyone went to the Tre Ore, the three hours from noon to three o'clock. Again the churches competed with one another in hiring the most popular preachers, who preached on the seven last words of Christ. Many of us deserted our parish churches to fight our way into St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York to hear the great Bishop Sheen. On Holy Saturday the Easter Vigil was over and done with by nine o'clock in the morning. The sacristan and his helpers could then get to work decorating the church for Easter Sunday. Meanwhile people came to the church to fill their bottles with the Easter water. In some parishes (mainly Polish, I think) the priests went from house to house for the blessing with the Easter water. This custom seems to be overlooked in the chapter on Holy Saturday. In the Byzantine rite, on the other hand, the popular devotions are, generally speaking, incorporated into the official liturgy of Holy Week. …