Witnessing as it did the seven hundredth anniversary of the death of St. Thomas Aquinas, the year 1974 was marked by multiple conferences and publications dedicated to his life, his thought and his place in medieval intellectual history. The recently completed septicentennial also provides a useful vantage point from which to examine the current historiographical assessment of St. Thomas' influence in modern intellectual history. Aquinas scholars devoted little systematic attention to this topic in 1974, a fact which, in itself, reflects a striking and persistent imbalance within the field of Aquinas studies. It is a commonplace to state that St. Thomas enjoyed an authority in the period since the thirteenth century far exceeding any he achieved in his own day. Yet, a consideration of the historiography of Thomas' place in modern thought reveals the fact that the Angelic Doctor's substantial post-medieval reputation has not generally been matched by an equally plentiful measure of historical understanding. For two generations, historians of the Middle Ages have made great strides toward the systematic recovery of the historical Thomas Aquinas. But the task of uncovering the historical significance of his thought within the changing contexts of post-medieval culture still awaits its Grabmanns and Chenus.

John McNeill was a warm and gracious man who was bound to friends, relatives, students in human ways which cannot be easily summarized. We do well to remember thankfully what he meant and means for us and the scholarly world in his achievement as a church historian.

The ignominious end of the conciliar movement in the mid-fifteenth century strikes many contemporary historians and theologians as one of the tragedies in the history of western civilization. Having shown great promise as an instrument of ecclesiastical reform and credited with ending the scandalous Great Western Schism in 1417, the movement for all practical purposes reached an inglorious end with the signing of the Concordat of Vienna in 1448. Though the tragic dimensions of the movement's demise are somewhat diminished by the truth of Tierney's conjecture that “the merely constitutional reforms emphasized in the conciliar programme could not have produced the much-needed regeneration in the whole life of the Church”, one is nevertheless inclined to view with sadness the neutralization of the nascent democratic aspirations which conciliarism represented.

The concept of Fortune (Tychē) had lain at the very center of traditional pagan thought about history. Herodotus thought that the gods intervened in history to control the course of men's fortunes. His successor Thucydides completely rejected any notion of divine intervention in history, but nevertheless used the word tychē twenty-eight times in his speeches, and eleven times in his narrative sections. He did not imply anything which we today would call supernatural by his use of the word, simply unforeseen chance occurrences which disrupted human plans. Polybius' use of the concept of Fortune was particularly notorious, and a vast literature exists on the question of what this historian in fact meant by the term, and whether he thought of Fortune in different ways at different stages in his own intellectual development.

In the thirteenth century the Roman papacy, despite an outward appearance of strength, faced a severe struggle for survival. Within Catholic Europe itself, the Hohenstaufen and their allies questioned clerical prerogatives and, as a result, often suffered excommunication and anathema. In southern France and northern Italy the alarming growth of heresy threatened to detach a significant area of Europe from allegiance to Rome. Simultaneously, a Mongol army menaced Europe's eastern flank, while the Crusader states were soon to fall again into Moslem hands. In Italy papal involvement in communal politics fanned suspicion and distrust of clerical motives. Within the church itself, debate raged between conservatives and radicals, contemplative and active orders, concerning the best means of combatting these threats while fulfilling the Christian Gospel.

In 1636 the Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts Bay was confronted with a sectarian outburst which rent the religious and civil peace of Boston and temporarily threatened that of the whole colony. Certain of the Boston congregation, led by Anne Hutchinson and abetted by John Cotton, the teacher of the church, charged that the clergy of the Bay, almost entirely, were not true ministers of the gospel but in fact a company of unregenerate “legalists”, preaching a “covenant of works” instead of a “covenant of grace”, and there by hindering the work of redemption. For nearly two years the “Antinomian Controversy” darkened the radiance of the City on the Hill, and echoes of the affair returned in the next decade to plague apologists for the New England Way. Part of the apologists' difficulty was the fact that their star, the illustrious Cotton, had been on the wrong side.

The nature of the relationship between the Renaissance and the Reformation has intrigued historians of both the past and the present. Recently a number of noted scholars have attempted to demonstrate the connection between the two movements with varying degrees of success. Historians seem to have marshalled an impressive and growing body of evidence to show the direct relationship between the advent of humanism and the coming of the Lutheran Reformation, even though the exact nature of this relationship has not yet been clarified in a definitive manner. But in the case of humanism and Calvinism no consensus has been reached concerning this problem; consequently, the situation is still in doubt. The purpose of this study is to enhance the historical understanding of the connection between humanism and Calvinism by a fresh analysis of the life and thought of three important first generation leaders of the Reformed church, namely, John Calvin, Theodore Beza and Pierre Viret. Moreover, new evidence on the subject from the career of Viret, the least known but nevertheless a very important member of this Calvinist trinity, will be presented to demonstrate more clearly the positive and direct link between humanism and Calvinism in the formative years of the Reformation.

Although historians have been aware that foreigners were appointed to the French episcopacy, there are no studies of the evolution of this practice as a longterm trend. Indeed, there are no studies for any particular reign. The only information on this subject is provided indirectly by articles on Italians in France. One such study asserts that the appointment of foreigners to the French episcopacy began in the thirteenth century and ended in the sixteenth century, but this is erroneous since this author has discovered that foreign appointments continued until the last quarter of the seventeenth century. This study focuses in depth on the reign of Francis I because it was during this period that the appointment of foreigners to the French episcopacy reached its apogee. We will investigate the reasons for this and will show that Francis I used ecclesiastical patronage to further the goals of an ambitious foreign policy. The characteristics of his foreign episcopal appointments will be examined along with their effects on the French church. An attempt also will be made to place this reign within the larger context of the evolution of this practice from the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries.

The seventeenth-century Netherlands was the Puritan refuge. Its easy accessibility for radical English Puritans caused many a mishap in the plans of the bishops as they enforced conformity in England. When the going became too rough at home, nonconforming ministers could jump across to Holland, rather than obediently submit to discipline, and there carry on their defiant ways. Especially in the 1620s and 1630s, William Laud and others of the English hierarchy exerted themselves mightily to stamp out the Puritan outposts abroad; for Puritanism in exile provided a splendid habitation for all kinds of schemes.Initially going back into the sixteenth century, the Brownists were the main English religious settlers abroad, raising up their own churches and print shops in Amsterdam, Leiden and Middelburg; but in the several decades leading up to the English Civil Wars—in the great days of Archbishop Laud and Bishop Wren—mainstream, non-separating Puritans also were going over, providing strong leadership for most of the English churches in the Netherlands and serving as chaplains for the English regiments, even organizing themselves into an English Classis (1621–1635).

Historians have commonly taken the secularization of politics and diplomacy as one of the great themes of the seventeenth century, and rightly so. But secular attitudes in matters of state did not move in an unbroken, irresistible progression; until well into the century they coexisted with more traditional modes of thought and developed against resistance from many people who still believed it immoral to divorce religion from politics. Moreover it was by no means always clear which trend was the stronger. Thus long after the Peace of Westphalia, for example, the possibility of international religious war continued to seem real, even to the point where fears of it entered into considerations of diplomacy. One interesting case of this kind arose in the course of Anglo-French negotiations during the mid-1650s, when apprehension of a Catholic crusade on the one side and rumors of a Protestant one on the other added a special dimension to an already complicated situation.

“Are we to permit none but louts and boors to rule when we can do better than that.” With these words, Martin Luther challenged the politicians of his day to educate the young, for, he wrote, it is pleasing to God that princes, lords and councilmen and others in authority be educated and qualified to perform the functions of their offices. It was necessary for those in authority to educate the young, because many parents would not do it, others were incompetent to do so, others did not have the time, and that was not to mention orphans.One of those politicians who responded to Luther's challenge was Philip the Magnanimous of Hesse. In the years 1526 to 1537, Philip organized a territorial system of public education consisting of state Latin grammar schools and a university.

Few early New England practices troubled European observers more than the attempt to restrict church membership to the regenerate. The requirement that each prospective church member give a “relation” of his experience of grace, a public declaration “of God's manner of working upon [his] soul,” won quick notoriety. In his list of sixteen questions designed to embarass the Independent party, for instance, the Dutch minister William Apollonius began by raising the issue of the qualifications of church members. “Is no one to be admitted into the communion of the external visible church,” he demanded, “unless he is endowed with the real internal holiness of regeneration and with justifying faith in Christ? Must such a person undergo a strict examination…?” Robert Baillie suggested that prospective members' obligation “to show to the whole congregation convincing signs of their regeneration” was the “capital and fundamental difference” between his position and that of the New Englanders. He and his fellow Scot Samuel Rutherford were convinced that by requiring such a test, the New England churches had so seriously deviated from traditional Christian practice that they had aligned themselves with the sectarians.

The period 1638–1651 saw the first major purges of the ministry of the reformed kirk in Scotland since the Reformation. These were the forerunners of the later great purges associated with the Restoration (of monarchy and episcopacy) in the 1660s and with the Revolution and re-establishment of presbyterianism in 1688–1690. Before 1638, for all the conflicts within the kirk and in its relations with the state, deposition of ministers had been rare. J. K. Hewison's estimate of 49 deprivations or depositions in 1560–1638 is probably too low, but is of the right order. No detailed study of depositions under the covenanters has ever been made. Hewison calculated that 138 ministers were deprived in the whole of the period 1638–1660. but this figure is far too low. More recentestimates (again covering 1638–1660) of about 200, and of about 210 depositions come much nearer the truth, but they also are too low; there were more depositions than this even in 1638–1651. Considering the importance attached to the depositions after 1660 and after 1688 as indicating the acceptability to ministers of the religious changes then introduced and the extent of persecution, it is rather surprising that so little attention has been paid to the predecessors of these purges— though James Bulloch's two useful local studies of depositions do cover the whole of the seventeenth century.

He “saw England with fresh eyes”, and for more than fifty years Elie Halévy's provocative interpretation of the effect of religion on the Victorian out look has continued to engender lively debate and controversy. After his History of the English People in the Nineteenth Century, few historians would contest the practical role of evangelicalism and nonconformity in molding Victorian society. What continues to be challenged is Halévy's claim that the moral influence of the evangelical movement is the parameter within which the social history of nineteenth-century England unfolded.

In the 1670s John Bunyan and his Nonconformist colleagues put into effect an organizational plan developed during the imprisonment years prior to 1672. The purpose of the plan was to provide a network of preachers and teachers in the local villages throughout northern Bedfordshire and contiguous areas that would be strong enough to withstand further persecution. As the plan was put into effect, it brought Bunyan into closer contact with other Nonconformists to the south and east, as far away as London. Ironically the plan was formulated when Bunyan and others were imprisoned together at Bedford for their Nonconformity. Their success vividly illustrates the failure of the Stuart government to suppress these men of faith.

The thanksgiving sermons offered from Anglican and Puritan pulpits during the seventeenth century, particularly upon such special occasions as proclaimed by Parliament, often led the preacher to consider an important issue for all Reformation Protestants: the response to grace. Whether the specific event were the anniversary of the Spanish Armada, the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot, the defeat of royalist forces at Selby, or the victorious return of the West Indies fleet, the occurrence was interpretable as a special evidence of God's merciful grace. The preacher generally conceived his responsibility to be, first, to remind his congregation of additional mercies, some general in nature (creation, preservation, redemption), and others specific or individual as indicated above. Second, the preacher was to direct his congregation in the manner of its response to these testimonies of grace. Beyond this, the preacher might proceed as he wished. He might fulminate against ingratitude; he might expatiate on the historical or political implications of the event or of past mercies; or he might focus upon the hope for future mercies.

Anonymity, forced or voluntary, has frequently cloaked the contributions of women to the life and thought of religious movements. Such was the case with Anne Dutton (1692–1765), an English evangelical, a “gentlewoman” who appears fleetingly in the records of the eighteenth century and only momentarily in later annals of pious women. In spite of some efforts to seek her out early in this century, Dutton has remained a relatively unknown figure in the history of English evangelicalism. In fact she was a prolific though elusive writer, credited by one source with nearly fifty distinct publications—religious pieces of diverse size and character. Anne Dutton became the friend, confidant and correspondent of many evangelical leaders and on more than one occasion directly assisted them in their pastoral activities. She was also the spirited opponent of others. This obscure, talented author defied powerful social conventions in her effort to rise above the backstage role commonly assigned to and accepted by women in the religious world of the eighteenth century.

In the first part of the nineteenth century, Frenchmen had to adjust their world view to the ideological issues raised by the Revolution and to the economic problems that came with the development of industrial society. At issue was the extent to which traditional institutions could adjust to a rapidly changing world. At that time literate Frenchmen felt that they were living in an ideological crisis. Many asked themselves whether Christianity could survive and attempt to resolve the problems of the new world. Such a question had great relevance in an era during which the discussion of social and political issues was felt by most educated Europeans to have a religious foundation. Either the Roman Catholic Church would have to take renewed stock of itself and learn how to deal with the problems of the new era, or a new religion would have to be constructed to resolve the early nineteenth-century ideological crisis.

The Reformation of the sixteenth century dealt a heavy blow to the historic episcopal government of the church. Only two of the national churches which embraced the Protestant Reformation succeeded in retaining their old primatical sees and episcopal polity: the Church of England and the Church of Sweden-Finland. For centuries before the Reformation, the Finnish church had been ecclesiastically part of the province of Uppsala (an archbishopric since 1164) just as Finland itself was politically part of the Kingdom of Sweden. Thus there was no need to establish a Finnish archdiocese while union with Sweden continued. But with Napoleon's concurrence (the Tilsit pact of 1807), the Russians invaded Finland in 1808 and met with such success that all Finland was ceded by Sweden to Russia in 1809.

In every diocese in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, there was a clerical elite whose most visible members were the clergy attached to the local cathedral. They included the bishop, the bishop's major judicial and administrative assistants and the cathedral's dean and chapter. What were the general career patterns of these men in the late Stuart and early Georgian periods? From what geographical, social and educational backgrounds were they recruited? What economic rewards did their appointments carry? One might answer these questions by citing contemporary writers and by relating case histories of the clerics involved, but contemporary writers are not always accurate reporters, and individuals are not always representative members of the group as a whole. What is needed is a more systematic investigation of the late Stuart and early Georgian cathedral clergy than has so far been made—one that can establish general patterns for the group as a whole by actually looking at the group as a whole. Collective biography makes it possible to delineate general patterns for an entire group and to relegate the individual example to its proper function—that of illustrating hypotheses that have already been demonstrated by more systematic means. This article attempts such an analysis: it is a prosopographical study of the cathedral clergy of Lincoln Diocese under the late Stuarts and early Hanoverians.