The first general study of different attitudes to conformity and the political and cultural significance of the resulting consensus on what came to be regarded as orthodox. The different ways in which people expressed `conformity' or `nonconformity' to the 1559 settlement of religion in the English church have generally been treated separately by historians: Catholic recusancy and occasional conformity; Protestant ministerial subscription to the canons and articles of the Church of England; the innovations made by avant-garde conformist clerics to the early Stuart Church; and conformist support for the prayer book in the 1640s. This is the first book to look across the board at what was politically important about conformity, aiming to assess how different attitudes to conformity affected what was regarded as orthodox or true religion in the English Church: that is, the political and cultural significance of the ways in which one could obey or disobey the law governing the Church. The introduction places the articles in the context of the recent historiography of the late Tudor and early Stuart Church. PETER LAKE is Professor of History, Princeton University; MICHAEL QUESTIER is Senior Research Fellow, St Mary's Strawberry Hill. Contributors: ALEXANDRA WALSHAM, MICHAEL QUESTIER, PAULINE CROFT, KENNETH FINCHAM, THOMAS FREEMAN, PETER LAKE, ANDREW FOSTER, NICHOLAS TYACKE, DAVID COMO, JUDITH MALTBY.

The correspondence of William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645, provides revealing insights into his mind, methods and activities, especially in the 1630s, as he sought to remodel the church and the clerical estatein the three kingdoms. William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645, is a central figure in the history of seventeenth-century Britain. Laud's correspondence provides revealing insights into his mind, methods and activities, especially in the 1630s, as he sought to remodel the church and the clerical estate in the three kingdoms. The Further Correspondence of William Laud prints 223 letters, drawn from thirty-eight libraries and archives, which were not included in the nineteenth-century edition of his Works. It has real importance for our perception of Laud and the early Stuart church, greatly increasing the number of his letters for the 1620s and providing significant new information, such as the three earliest letters to his closest political ally, Thomas Wentworth, in 1630. Other correspondents include politicians such as Sir John Coke and Lord Keeper Coventry, the diplomat Sir William Boswell, numerous heads of colleges at both Oxford and Cambridge, and churchmen such as Bishops John Bridgeman of Chester and John Bramhall of Derry as well as Cyril Lucaris, Patriarch of Constantinople. A lengthy introduction assesses the waysin which these letters deepen our knowledge, broaden our understanding and refine our views of Laud's various roles, as chief ecclesiastical counsellor to Charles I, court politician and administrator, chancellor of Oxford University, and overseer of religious reformation in the kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland. An appendix lists all of Laud's correspondence in chronological order. Collectively, the letters attest to his extraordinary energy andtireless commitment to reform and point to the indelible impact that Laud made on his contemporaries. KENNETH FINCHAM is Professor of Early Modern History at the University of Kent. He has written extensively on religion and politics in early modern Britain, including two monographs, Prelate as Pastor: the Episcopate of James I (1990) and, with Nicholas Tyacke, Altars Restored: the Changing Face of English Religious Worship 1547-c.1700 (2007); edited two collections of essays, The Early Stuart Church 1603-1642 (1993) and, with Peter Lake, Religious Politics in post-Reformation England (2006); and edited two volumes of Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church (1994-8) for the Church of England Record Society.

New insights into the nature of the seventeenth-century English revolution - one of the most contested issues in early modern British history. The nature of the seventeenth-century English revolution remains one of the most contested of all historical issues. Scholars are unable to agree on what caused it, when precisely it happened, how significant it was in terms of political, social, economic, and intellectual impact, or even whether it merits being described as a "revolution" at all. Over the past twenty years these debates have become more complex, but also richer. This volume brings together new essays by a group of leading scholars of the revolutionary period and will provide readers with a provocative and stimulating introduction to current research. All the essays engage with one or more of three themes which lieat the heart of recent debate: the importance of the connection between individuals and ideas; the power and influence of religious ideas; and the most appropriate chronological context for discussion of the revolution. STEPHEN TAYLOR is Professor in the History of Early Modern England at the University of Durham. GRANT TAPSELL is Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall. Contributors: Philip Baker, J. C. Davis, Kenneth Fincham, Rachel Foxley, Tim Harris, Ethan H. Shagan, John Spurr, Grant Tapsell, Stephen Taylor, Tim Wales, John Walter, Blair Worden

Altars are powerful symbols, fraught with meaning, but during the early modern period they became a religious battleground. Attacked by reformers in the mid-sixteenth century because of their allegedly idolatrous associations with the Catholic sacrifice of the mass, a hundred years later they served to divide Protestants due to their re-introduction by Archbishop Laud and his associates as part of a counter-reforming program. Moreover, having subsequently been removed by the victorious puritans, they gradually came back after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This book explores these developments, over a 150 year period, and recaptures the experience of the ordinary parishioner in this crucial period of religious change. Far from being the passive recipients of changes imposed from above, the laity are revealed as actively engaged from the early days of the Reformation, as zealous iconoclasts or their Catholic opponents -- a division later translated into competing protestant views.
Altars Restored integrates the worlds of theological debate, church politics and government, and parish practice and belief, which are often studied in isolation from one another. It draws from hitherto largely untapped sources, notably the surviving artefactual evidence comprising communion tables and rails, fonts, images in stained glass, paintings and plates, and examines the riches of local parish records -- especially churchwardens' accounts. The result is a richly textured study of religious change at both local and national level.

Provides for a selection of texts, together with scholarly introductions, from one of the world's great private libraries, covering a period from Elizabeth I to the Church's involvement in homosexual law reform. This volume of the Church of England Record Society, published in celebration of the 400th anniversary of the foundation of Lambeth Palace Library, is a tribute to the value of one of the world's great private libraries to the scholarly community and its importance for the history of the Church of England in particular. Thirteen historians, who have made considerable use of the Library in their research, have selected texts which together offer an illustration of the remarkable resources preserved by the Library for the period from the Reformation to the late twentieth century. A number of the contributions draw on the papers of the archbishops of Canterbury and bishops of London,which are among the most frequently used collections. Others come from the main manuscript sequence, including both materials originally deposited by Archbishop Sancroft and a manuscript published with the help of the Friends of Lambeth Palace Library in 2007. Another makes use of the riches to the papers of the Lambeth Conferences. Each text is accompanied by a substantial introduction, discussing its context and significance, and a full scholarly apparatus. The themes covered in the volume range from the famous dispute between Archbishop Grindal and Queen Elizabeth I, through the administration of the Church by Archbishop Laud and Archbishop Davidson's visit to the Western Frontduring World War I, to involvement of the Church in homosexual law reform.

Texts expressing concerns and priorities of the church during the reign of Charles I. `Sets a standard of excellence which will gain the society a high reputation... Documents which have for much too long been inaccessible to ecclesiastical and social historians, and which they cannot afford to ignore.' JOURNAL OFECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY `An important sourcebook for research about early seventeenth-century religious and social history.' TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT [Following on from the highly-praised first volume of visitation articles, covering the years 1603-25] This selection of articles and injunctions issued by archbishops, bishops, archdeacons, and other ecclesiastical ordinaries in the early Stuart church concentrates on the church of Charles I, from his accession in 1625 to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1642. The volume traces the impact of Laudian reforms as well as the defensive reaction of the Church hierarchy in 1641-2. The range of churchmanship included is broad, stretchingfrom the articles and injunctions of Laudian enthusiasts such as bishops Wren and Montagu to those issued by Calvinist episcopalians such as Hall and Thornborough. The introduction places these texts in their historical and historiographical contexts, and an appendix lists all surviving sets of visitation articles for the years 1603-1642. The volume will be a valuable work of reference for anyone interested in the government and ideals of the early Stuartchurch. Dr KENNETH FINCHAMis Senior Lecturer in History at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

New scrutinies of the most important political and religious debates of the post-Reformation period. The consequences of the Reformation and the church/state polity it created have always been an area of important scholarly debate. The essays in this volume, by many of the leading scholars of the period, revisit many of the important issues during the period from the Henrician Reformation to the Glorious Revolution: theology, political structures, the relationship of theology and secular ideologies, and the Civil War. Topics include Puritan networks and nomenclature in England and in the New World; examinations of the changing theology of the Church in the century after the Reformation; the evolving relationship of art and protestantism; the providentialist thinking of Charles I;the operation of the penal laws against Catholics; and protestantism in the localities of Yorkshire and Norwich. KENNETH FINCHAM is Reader in History at the University of Kent; Professor PETER LAKE teaches in the Department of History at Princeton University. Contributors: THOMAS COGSWELL, RICHARD CUST, PATRICK COLLINSON, THOMAS FREEMAN, PETER LAKE, SUSAN HARDMAN MOORE, DIARMAID MACCULLOCH, ANTHONY MILTON, PAUL SEAVER, WILLIAM SHEILS

`An invaluable source for ecclesiastical history... promises to be a highly important record series.' ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW This is the first of two volumes which reproduce manuscript and printed documents for the years 1603-1642. The articles issued by archbishops, bishops, archdeacons and others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction have been frequently used by historians as evidence of the priorities and concerns of church government, but until now there has been no systematic examination of the structure and contents of articles, nor the relationship between sets issued bydifferent archbishops, bishops or archdeacons. These two volumes attempt to fill this gap. Volume 1, centring on the Church of James I, contains no less than sixty-six sets of articles, printed either in full or in collated form and includes injunctions or charges issued duringor after visitations. Volume 2 extends the same treatment to the Caroline Church up to the Civil War. KENNETH FINCHAM is lecturer in history at the University of Kent at Canterbury.

This is a study of the 66 bishops of James I. Kenneth Fincham surveys the range of their activities and functions, including their part in central politics, their role in local society, their work as diocesan governors enforcing moral and spiritual discipline and their supervision of the parish clergy. Dr Fincham argues that the accession of James I marked the restoration of episcopal fortunes at court and in the localities, seen most clearly in the revival of the court prelate. The Jacobean episcopate as a group were active pastors, working under the watchful eye of an informed supreme governor. During these years, the image of the bishop as preaching pastor won widespread acceptance and evangelical churchmanship flourished, to be challenged in the second half of the reign by Arminian prelates. Dr Fincham's analysis of the early 17th-century episcopate, grounded in contemporary sources, reveals much about the church of James I, the doctrinal divisions of the period and the origins of Laudian government in the 1630s. "Prelate as Pastor" offers a new perspective on the controversies of early Stuart religious history.