The disagreement between Thomas More and William Tyndale has often been deplored. It has been felt that the controversy failed to bring out the best in More as a writer – that he became bitter, bullying and, worst of all, tedious. Alistair Fox, in his recent book on More, while rightly assigning an important place to the controversial works, writes of them, on the whole, with distaste, finding ‘a pattern of progressive deterioration; dialogue gives way to debellation, self-control yields to loss of proportion and perspective, candour is replaced by dishonesty, and charity is displaced by violence’. More's latest biographer, Richard Marius, finds ‘ferocity and deadly dullness’ in More's polemic, ‘monumental self-righteousness and viciousness’ in Tyndale's. Other modern readers have agreed; C. S. Lewis, in particular, pointed to the tragic irony of such a lengthy quarrel between two men who shared many intellectual assumptions and were to have strangely similar fates. It is true that the opponents have much in common, true also that the scolding of scholars is no longer regarded as first-class intellectual entertainment. And the reader, while admitting the importance of the long-distance debate in the Renaissance as a means of clarifying and disseminating ideas, misses, in More's writings against Tyndale, the pleasing courtesy of his Letter to Martin Dorp in defence of Erasmus and, more acutely perhaps, the ability to compress and control his subject which gives his earlier polemical letters their attractive blend of lightness and earnestness.

The Middle Ages remained serenely unaware that a dark problem might attach itself some day to the Dialogues of Gregory the Great. They knew their Gregory, studied his Moralia and other scriptural commentaries with uplifted hearts, read his Dialogues with equal veneration and devotion and never perceived even the glimmer of a contradiction between the two categories of works. Then came the Reformation with its stress on Scripture and its dislike of the ‘superstitious Romanist piety’ fostered by works like the Dialogues. A problem thus arose for the Reformers. They had little love for the papacy but retained a veneration for the Church Fathers, among whom they counted Gregory the Great, that great interpreter of Scripture, who had been instrumental in bringing Christianity to England. Was it possible to retain Gregory but divest him of an embarrassing work? It is important to note that the first attempts to deny Gregory's authorship of the Dialogues are rooted in the polemics of the Reformation period.

No original Anglo-Saxon charter bearing an AD date earlier than 736 is extant, which seems to suit the traditional view that dating by the Era of the Incarnation, as opposed to the indiction or regnal years, was due to its popularisation by Bede's treatise De temponim ratione and his Historia ecclesiastica. ‘Consequently,’ in R. L. Poole's words, ‘not a few Anglo-Saxon charters which contain the date from the Incarnation have been condemned as spurious or corrupt.’ He then added that ‘there seems, however, to be no reason to suppose that the adoption of this era was originated by the treatise of Bede’, maintaining that it is ‘much more likely’ that it was derived from the Easter Tables of Dionysius Exiguus, arguing on the basis of the accounts of St Wilfrid's instruction at Rome and his speech at the Synod of Whitby in 664, that the saint championed the use of the Dionysian computation. Kenneth Harrison has shown how likely this is on various grounds. These include a defence of four charters bearing AD dates in the seventh century and arguably connected with Wilfrid. Harrison's case has been accepted by Nicholas Brooks, though not by Anton Scharer, and Harrison later brought two more charters into the discussion. The earliest of Harrison's charters, the foundation charter of Bath, dated AD 676 and attested by Wilfrid, and a charter concerning Ripple, Worcestershire, dated AD 680, will be discussed in detail below. Three others, all attested by Wilfrid, belong to the group of charters which Anton Scharer and Patrick Wormald associate with Eorcenwald, bishop of London, who also attests: Casdwalla of Wessex's grant of Farnham, Surrey, dated (problematically)AD 688, Eorcenwald's grant of Battersea, Surrey, dated AD 693, and his charter for Barking monastery, in which his visit to Rome is dated (again problematically) to AD 677. It is entirely possible that Wilfrid was responsible for the inclusion of the annus Domini in these charters, even if their actual drafting was done by Eorcenwald or one of his circle; the absence of the annus Domini from the other credible ‘Eorcenwald’ charters is significant. (Eorcenwald attests the Bath foundation charter, but so does Wilfrid.) Harrison's remaining charter is Æthelred of Mercia's confirmation of a grant in Thanet to the Kentish abbess Æbbe, dated AD 691 in the best manuscript.6 Significantly, this is the only one of the thirteen charters between 675 and 737 in Elmham's Historia Monasterii S. Augustini Cantuariensis to bear an AD date. Wilfrid does not attest — the confirmation carries no witness list — but Brooks comments that, of the four charters originally discussed by Harrison (Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, nos 42, 43, 51 and 72), only BCS 42 [the Thanet charter] has no evident connection with Wilfrid. Yet it shows Wilfrid's friend and protector, King Æthelred of Mercia, intervening in Kent by force in January 6gi (‘dum ille infirmaverat terram nostram’) at a time when the see of Canterbury was vacant. Wilfrid was by this time again running into difficulties with the Northumbrian king, and his biographer claims that he had been offered the succession to the see of Canterbury by Archbishop Theodore himself.

The coronation of Edward VII at the beginning of this century was an unfamiliar scene in Westminster Abbey after the long rule of Victoria, and it elicited a spate of scholarly investigations into those ancient ceremonies. As one of the minor fruits of this renewed interest, a controversy was carried on concerning the ceremonial of the coronation of Elizabeth I on 15 January 1559. Three questions occupied the centre of the stage: Who celebrated the mass: Owen Oglethorpe, the bishop who anointed and crowned her, or George Carew, the priest whom she had made dean of the Chapel Royal? Were the consecrated elements elevated during the canon of the mass? Did Elizabeth withdraw during the consecration to the chapel of St. Edward behind the high altar?

The present-day parishioner, constantly urged to take a more positive role in the life of the local church community, might be surprised to reflect that this onus of responsibility is a comparatively recent development, and that throughout most of the Middle Ages, on the rare occasions when parishioners as such were mentioned at all in the ecclesiastical records, it was virtually in the capacity of property, and often troublesome property at that.

Tremellius' 1569 edition of the Syriac New Testament was a quite distinctive product of Heidelberg oriental scholarship, very different from other sixteenth-century editions produced by Catholic scholars. Tremellius produced his edition by first reconstructing an historical grammar of Aramaic and then, in the light of this, vocalising the text of Vat. sir. 16 which he took to be more ancient than that of Widmanstetter's editio princeps. Thus in this way he sought to construct the earliest recoverable linguistic and textual form of the Peshitta. The anonymous Specularius dialogus of 1581 is here used for the first time to corroborate this assessment of Tremellius' achievement and to cast light on the confessional polemics his edition provoked.

It has long been a favourite theme of ecclesiastical historians, particularly in Germany, that the separation of cathedral chapter from episcopal estates was an important step in the development of ecclesiastical administration, not least because it assisted cathedral chapters to become independent and powerful electoral colleges. It was shown by Gerhard Kallen in the 1920s and, more recently and in greater detail, by Rudolf Schieffer, how this separation of estates, which took a long time to be effected, began with grants made to the cathedral ‘for the use of the brothers’ or with grants for more specific purposes, usually of a liturgical nature. This paper looks at a closely related issue, the splitting up of the estates held by the chapter. This division was to some extent inherent from early on, because of the conditions attached to certain benefactions, but it increased throughout the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The way the chapter's revenues were organised had important consequences for the cohesion of the chapter as a community and also for the way in which clerical preferment operated. This can be very clearly demonstrated by a comparative study of the ways in which German and English cathedrals managed their property in the twelfth century. Since the differences between the German and the English systems are so striking the two will be considered in turn, and a comparison will also be made of the control which German and English clerks had over their personal property, which deserves attention not least because the dividing line between personal and chapter property was sometimes a fine one.

According to the Rule of St. Benedict the powers of an abbot, who stands in the place of Christ, are virtually absolute. It is true that the Rule has general injunctions for an abbot's good behaviour. He must always be mindful of the words of the apostle, ‘ye have received the spirit of the adoption of children, in which we cry Abba, Father’. He should study to be loved not feared, and the Rule states that he ‘should not harass the flock committed to him, nor exercise his power in an arbitrary, unjust way, but should always remember that for all his decisions and acts he must render account to God’. Nevertheless, there are no sanctions to enforce this code of conduct. In the abbot's hands lies the ultimate control of the administration. The Rule specifies that the abbot is to appoint the prior, and that the cellarer is bound by his commands.

It is surprising to find that Friends were included within the terms of the Toleration Act. The political situation they faced in 1689 was distinctly unpromising. They not only continued to experience the hostility and prejudice that they had suffered since their earliest days, but they were seriously compromised by the close identification of William Penn with the discredited Catholic policies of James II. An examination of the debates in parliament on the Toleration Bill reveals that Friends were by no means certain of being included in the act. Yet their acceptance of the terms they were offered is also surprising in view of their objection to any compromise with the state over matters of religious conscience, an objection which led to their refusal to seek licences under Charles II's Declaration of Indulgence in 1672. Moreover, a number of recent studies have identified the continued insistence of many provincial Friends, particularly in the rigorous heartland of Quakerism in the north–west, upon the strict maintenance of their testimonies, and indeed a redefining of those testimonies partly in response to the growing compromises with the state made by the Quaker leadership.

This article examines the development of English Methodism during the formative period between 1738 and 1741, focusing upon the experiences of women, who made up the majority of Methodists both at this time and through much of the movement's history. In particular, the role that women and questions of gender played in the conflict between the Wesley brothers and the Moravian leadership in London is considered. Using accounts written by the male leaders of both groups and the women who supported them, it is argued that women's choices determined the outcome of this early battle, shaping the nascent movement in crucial ways.

This article examines changes in content and tone in some polemical exchanges between Anglican conformists and Nonconformists in the reign of Charles ii. In response to the Dissenters' pleas for comprehension and/or toleration because of shared Protestant beliefs, some conformists accused them of holding an antinomian doctrine of justification that undermined morality and political order – and Dissenters retorted with accusations of Socinianism. The disputes were complicated by divisions over justification within rather than between Anglican and Nonconformist groups, and by the late 1670s the perceived threats from papists brought renewed emphasis on common ground

A close reading of sources documenting the Vandal conquest (429–39 ce) reveals that contemporary authors did not present the event as a persecution. To be sure, they insisted on the devastation that the Vandals caused, the typical woes of war, but not on its religious motivation. The article argues that it was Augustine who, in his ep. ccxxviii, first presented a theological interpretation of the event that allowed later sources writing within the Augustinian tradition to frame the conquest retroactively as a persecution.

The recent publication of Mr. Nicholl's ‘Life’ of Thurstan, archbishop of York (1114–1140), has made this subject once more topical: and, indeed, for twelfth-century historians at least it will always be interesting. One of the constant themes of the century, and of the 1120s and 1130s in particular, was the question of the state, position and purpose of monks. The ‘monastic centuries’ were ending and the age of the secular masters had begun. The social purposes that the monasteries had served in the tenth and eleventh centuries were becoming less obvious and outdated. It was necessary that the position of the whole monastic order in society should be reconsidered and this roused strong feelings and bitter controversy. This controversy took place not only outside the monasteries but inside them as well and the great abbey of St. Mary's York is one of the houses where such controversy can be seen and studied.

Within the papacy's jurisdiction of Western Christendom, the general chapter of each religious order replaced the Curia Romana, as the central legislative and judicial assembly. The text of the Promulgatio Chartae Charitatis elaborates this right of self-government and compares the hierarchy of the Cistercian order with that of the Roman Church:

‘… sicut Christus Ecclesiam suam condidit sub Romano Pontifice, per quatuor Patriarchas, Archiepiscopos multos, sed plures ad hue Episcopos regendam; sic Cisterciensis ordo sub abbate Cistercii supremo capite, pro Episcopis abbates filios habeat, pro Archiepiscopis abbates quos patres vocant, pro Patriarchis primos illos quatuor, per quos in charitate radicatus, ac mutuis inter se officiis devinctus, sine alius interventu regeretur …’.

While working on a more general assessment of William Gray's tenure of the see of Ely, I was struck by the amount of incidental information in his register relating to his associates, the officers of his spiritual and temporal administrations and the men who benefited from his patronage.

‘There were about ten million Catholics in the British dominions, and, properly considered, Queen Victoria was one of die great Catholic powers of Europe. She reigned over more Cadiolics man some Catholic Sovereigns’. This was the claim of an Irish member of parliament in advocating equality of Catholic education with Protestant at the great meeting held by Cardinal Cullen in the Marlborough Street ‘Cathedral’ in Dublin in January 1872. The meeting was intended to demonstrate the unanimity of laity and clergy in the demand for denominationalism in the National Schools system and the rejection of mixed schools. On the same day the opposition to Cullen's policy was expressed by die Radical John Roebuck in an address given in Sheffield, in the course of which he argued that the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1869 had merely been a dissembling attempt by the Liberals to dupe Dissenters and Radicals and bind diem to Mr Gladstone. It had not brought religious peace to Ireland. ‘Were not the whole body of the Cadiolics, headed by Cardinal Cullen, still determined upon attaining their old end, which was supremacy of the Cadiolic Church in Ireland?’ At the Dublin gathering Cullen quoted J. S. Mill on die danger of a state monopoly in education and roundly condemned the government's policy of mixed education as a scheme which die Protestant Archbishop Whately had admitted was the only way of weaning the Irish from the abuses of popery. The organ of Irish nationalist opinion, The Freeman's Journal, rallied support by denouncing Lord Hartington for resisting the logic of die argument that Irish education of Cadiolic children should be handed over to ‘the priests and people of Ireland’: English Protestants were insincere in favouring a denominational system for Scotland while treating Catholic education for the Irish as subversive of civil and religious liberty.

It was as a breath of fresh air that the first news of the debates at Salters' Hall came to a young minister in a remote country village in Somerset, where he had found asylum because he had deviated slightly from the received Calvinism of his day and been made to feel the oppressiveness of the orthodox atmosphere of Dissenting congregations in the neighbouring county of Devon. When the news came he had recently seen two of the four Exeter ministers, James Peirce and Joseph Hallett ejected by the Trustees from the city meeting houses as the result of what seemed to him a vendetta led by a certain John Ball, minister at Honiton. It is with evident exhilaration, therefore, that on the first news of the Salters' Hall debates he wrote to a friend:

‘Mr. [Ball]'s conduct with respect to Mr. Peirce and Mr. Hallet, will render him infamous throughout the kingdom. … Blessed be God, that he has stirred up such a noble spirit of Christian liberty in London: where it was carried in a meeting of above an hundred ministers, at Salters-Hall, that no human tests, articles, or interpretations should be urged as the trial of a man's orthodoxy; and that no minister should be condemned as heterodox, or an heretick, unless he taught, &c. contrary to express scripture. This was the substance of one part of their determination.’

While much has been written about the London Missionary Society and its very impressive record in the foreign mission held, comparatively little recognition has been given to the Society's early and equally important contribution to church union. This is not surprising. The London Missionary Society has historically been associated with the Congregational Church and until recently was called the Congregational Council for World Missions. Its founding fathers and early patrons, not to mention its missionaries, were mostly Independents although other sympathetic evangelicals—mostly Calvinistic Methodists and English and Scottish Presbyterians—were also involved in its formation. In the view of most historians, the significance of the London Missionary Society lay principally in its impact on heathen popujations in far away lands, only minimally in its impact on those who united to direct its affairs in England. In short, it has often been assumed that, like the Baptist and Wesleyan missions that preceded it, the London Missionary Society was designed to serve a limited denominational or theological constituency and that its evolution into a branch of the Congregational Church was almost inevitable from the beginning.

On 22 April 1646 the House of Commons formally questioned the jure divino claims put forward by the ministers in the Westminster Assembly. Ostensibly this action represents the climax to one of the most puzzling developments in the Civil War: the triumphant assertion of Erastianism by men who had acquiesced in the passing of theocratic measures in the early part of the Civil War. W. A. Shaw's reading of the situation typifies the general attitude of historians of the period: the resolution of the problem by denying that it is one. His main thesis is that English Puritanism in the period 1641–6 was never really divorced from its historic Erastian associations.

This article examines the neglected role of religious ideas and vocabulary in expressions of English national sentiment in the fourteenth century, particularly in official rhetoric. Many official uses of religious language followed well-established literary conventions. However, documents requesting nationwide prayers during national crises suggest that the government encouraged the concept of a special relationship between God and England, modelled on Old Testament Israel, well before the Protestant Reformation. National misfortunes were explained as divine punishment for national sins, with England presented as a collective moral community. Parallels with Israel were then drawn out more explicitly in public preaching, bringing this interplay between religion and politics to a wider audience.