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The origins of liturgical lawlessness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2025

Neil Patterson*
Affiliation:
Residentiary Canon and Vice Dean of Bristol Cathedral, UK

Abstract

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Type
Comment
Copyright
© Ecclesiastical Law Society 2025

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References

1 M Warner, ‘The law of liturgy: a theological context’ (2024) Ecc LJ 53–58.

2 The Bishop of Exeter had argued that Gorham, who had been presented by the Lord Chancellor to the vicarage of Brampford Speke, was unsuitable for the post due to his Calvinistic view of baptism. The Court of Arches on appeal confirmed the bishop’s decision and awarded costs against Gorham. This decision was, in turn, overturned by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council (a secular court), which caused great controversy.

3 Palmer, Bernard, Reverend Rebels, Five Victorian Clerics and their Fight Against Authority (London, 1993), .Google Scholar

4 Ibid, 93, citing Russell, G, St Alban the Martyr: A History of Fifty Years (New South Wales, 1913).Google Scholar

5 For example, the two judgments in the Purchas case, cf. Palmer, B, Reverend Rebels (London, 1993)Google Scholar, 9ff, and Hebert v Purchas [1871] LR3 PC 606–625.

6 Patterson, N, Ecclesiastical Law, Clergy and Laity (Oxford, 2019), .Google Scholar

7 Rodes, R, Law and Modernisation in the Church of England (Notre Dame, 1991), .Google Scholar

8 J Bentley, Ritualism and Politics in Victorian Britain (Oxford, 1978), 110.

9 For example, see the reference to ‘vetoing’ in Yate, N, Anglican Ritualism in Victorian Britain 1830–1910 (Oxford, 1999), 275276.Google Scholar The Upper House of Convocation made a collective decision about the matter in April 1881: cf. Adam, W, Legal Flexibility and the Mission of the Church (Farnham, 2011), .Google Scholar

10 On deposit at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

11 Wilson, A, The authority of church and party among London Anglo-Catholics, 1880–1914, with special reference to the Church Crisis, 1898–1904 (unpublished Oxford DPhil thesis, 1988) .Google Scholar

12 See Patterson (note 6), 106, citing Bishop Alan Wilson in his (unpublished) 1988 DPhil dissertation (see note 10, above).

13 Patterson (note 6), 107.

14 Royal Commission, conclusion, which can be accessed here: <https://anglicanhistory.org/pwra/rced11.html>, accessed 25 September 2024.

15 Ibid.

16 Maiden, J, National Religion and the Prayer Book Controversy (Martlesham, 2009), .Google Scholar

17 Bell, G, Randall Davidson vII (Oxford, 1935), 13361339.Google Scholar

18 Fox, A, Dean Inge (London, 1960), Google Scholar, cited in Yelton, M, Anglican Papalism (Canterbury, 2005), 7879.Google Scholar

19 The Book of Common Prayer with the Additions and Deviations Proposed in 1928 (undated), v.

20 Patterson, R, ‘The Post-War Church – Revision and Stability: 1947–94ʹ in Doe, N and Coleman, S (eds), The Legal History of the Church of England (Oxford, 2024), 196198.Google Scholar

21 Chronicle of Convocation, 19 January 1960, 9.

22 Patterson, R, ‘All Mouth and No Trousers? Observations Arising from the Decision on Jurisdiction in Re Evans’ (2023) 25 Ecc LJ 5254.Google Scholar

23 See, for example Collier, P, ‘50 Years of Safeguarding – 950 Years of Clergy Discipline: Where Do We Go From Here?’ (2022) 24 Ecc LJ 148174Google Scholar.

24 Under Authority: Report on Clergy Discipline (London, 1996), 53.

25 General Synod Proceedings, 10 July 2004, 109.

26 Hensley Henson, H, The Church of England (Cambridge, 1939), Google Scholar; emphasis added.