The death of Canon R.J. Campbell on 1 March 1956 did not cause a national stir. There was an obituary the following day in The Times and some comment on subsequent days from friends and associates, but little to indicate that fifty years earlier he had been a substantial public figure. One obscure diarist, who had known Campbell as a young man, felt that ‘the grudging admission…of some academic distinction’ was an inadequate summary of Campbell's life and work. In part, of course, having outlived most of his contemporaries, Campbell was paying the penalty for his longevity. More important, however, was the fact that for decades he had consciously avoided the limelight. ‘No man’ he had written to the novelist Margaret Lane in December 1947 ‘could more carefully avoid publicity than I have done for a generation’. From 1930 to 1946 he had been a residentiary canon and then chancellor of Chichester and before that served as vicar of Holy Trinity, Brighton for six years. It would appear that he possessed an eminently Anglican pedigree. In May 1903, however, a frail, ascetic-looking, prematurely white-haired Campbell had commenced his ministry at the City Temple, the leading Congregational church in London. W. T. Stead's Review of Reviews looked forward to the ‘Renascence of Nonconformity’ under the leadership of this thirty-five-year-old young man. Over seven thousand people attended the services on his first Sunday. Picture postcards of Campbell were soon on sale and later admirers could purchase the R. J. Campbell Birthday Book containing his ‘favourite poetical quotations, portrait and autograph’. There was even A Rosary from the City Temple, described as being threaded from the writings and sermons of R. J. Campbell. The publicity which attended his arrival in London rarely left him for the next dozen years. In September 1915, rumours of Campbell's intention to resign the pastorate and speculation about his subsequent course were thought of sufficient interest to reach the news columns of The Times. His resignation merited a leader in the newspaper and, following his reception into the Church of England in early October, the comments of prominent religious leaders were printed. In 1916 Campbell published A Spiritual Pilgrimage, and a reconsideration of this volume throws interesting light on the cross-currents of Edwardian religious life.

Medieval historians confronted with the Latin word papa may be tempted to translate it unthinkingly as ‘pope’. Certainly the word has been restricted to the bishop of Rome for much of the history of the Church, and its application to this bishop is of long standing. It occurs in an inscription from pre-Constantinian Rome, in a letter despatched to Rome by the fathers of the Council of Aries in 314, which is addressed ‘dilectissimo papae Silvestro’ and goes on to style Silvester ‘gloribsissime papa’, and in the acts of the first Council of Toledo which met in 400, where language is used which implies that the bishop of Rome, and he alone, was papa. But in the early Church it generally seems to have been felt that the word could be applied to other bishops as well. A striking indication of this is furnished by a letter sent to Cyprian of Carthage by the priests and deacons of the Roman Church itself, which refers to him as papa. Sidonius Apollinaris, who became bishop of Clermont in 469, felt free to address his confrères among the Gallic episcopate by the same title, apparently indiscriminately, and was himself so addressed.

Throughout its history one may detect three principle tendencies at work in the African Church. First, and probably the strongest, was the traditional Cyprianic and Donatist view of Christianity. This was a Biblical religion, rejecting the culture and society of the surrounding pagan world and exalting the qualities of the prophet and the martyr. Its ideas can be traced in unbroken sequence through the Montanists of Tertullian's time and the confessor party during the primacy of Cyprian down to the Donatists themselves. This religion interpreted the ideas of the majority of the North Africans at least as late as the first decades of the fifth century, and in particular it appealed to the labouring population of Numidia for whom it provided means of voicing hostility to the Roman taxes and Roman institutions.

In his Introduction to The Visitations in the Diocese of Lincoln 1517–1531, the late Professor Hamilton Thompson drew attention to the large number of pluralist and non-resident parish priests in the diocese in the early part of the sixteenth century. He could do no more than comment on a few cases, since the scribe did not bother to include in the comperta the names of all delinquents, their alleged reasons for non-residence nor the details about their licences. More recently attention has been drawn to the actual number of non-residents, but no attempt has been made to go behind the figures to the individual priests and parishes concerned.

Lanfranc was born at Pavia early in the eleventh century, became a monk of Bee in Normandy about 1041, was promoted prior three years later, and was appointed abbot of Caen in 1063 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1070. He died in William Rufus's reign in 1089. He had three distinct careers, first as a wandering scholar, second as a cloistered monk, and finally as a prelate. One obstacle to viewing Lanfranc as a whole is the nature and form of the sources for his life. And I propose in this paper first to look briefly at the sources, then to comment on the various phases of his curriculum vitae and, in conclusion, to make a few rash observations on his character and manners.

It was in broken health that Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester (1205–38), returned for the last time to England, about Michaelmas 1236. On 31 October 1236, at Rochester, he made his last testament; this was given royal acceptance and confirmation at Windsor on 4 November, in the presence of some of the executors: Ralph de Nevill, bishop of Chichester (1222–44) and chancellor (1226–44), P. archdeacon of Winchester, Luke des Roches, archdeacon (by 1228–44) of Surrey, and the versatile architect and administrator Mr. Elias de Derham (c. 1167–d. 1245). Bishop Peter rallied, to take some part in national affairs, as well as in his diocese, during die next two years. He died at his episcopal castle of Farnham on 9 June 1238 and his body was buried in his cathedral; but his heart was buried at die Cistercian abbey of Waverley, a few miles soudi-west of Farnham. In 1237 he had petitioned the Cistercian chapter general for leave to have a Cistercian monk and two lay brodiers living with him. This, the heart burial, and the notices accorded him by Waverley's annalist, reflect die private preoccupations of his last years: die founding of Cistercian houses in his native country and in his English diocese. The arrangements, unfinished at his deadi, were left to be completed by his executors, who notified die Order's chapter general at its usual mid-September meeting in 1238, when die investigating commissioners for die new foundations were appointed.

In recent years the doctrine of providence has attracted increasing attention from secular historians. They have come to realise that it cannot be regarded as the exclusive domain of their religious colleagues, nor as an intellectual oddity, picturesque but irrelevant to serious analysis of political movements and choices. In Religion and the Decline of Magic, Keith Thomas showed the pervasiveness of the belief in providence in early modern England and its function as explanation, consolation and reassurance in a world often unpredictable, inexplicable and unjust. Other historians have shown its place in the rise of Puritan activism. Most recently, Blair Worden has elucidated the doctrine and has powerfully demonstrated its importance as an engine of political action in the ‘politics of Cromwellian England’ as well as its part in crucial decisions in the career of Cromwell himself.

No. 273 in the Vatican Archive series of Instrumenta Miscellanea is the surviving fragment of a register of letters despatched by Boniface VIII's camerarius, Theoderic of Orvieto. The register is on paper and consists of eleven folios, of which the last four are blank. The first three of the seven folios used have been badly damaged by damp in consequence of which all but two of the first twelve letters in the register are illegible in parts. The fragmentary nature of the register in the form in which it has survived is proved by the fact that it begins and finishes in the middle of a letter. Including these two truncated letters, it contains twenty-eight letters. The earliest legible date of writing is 3 January 1297 and the latest is 17 July 1297, but in some cases no date is given and in others the full date is not legible. Since the letters are not registered in chronological order it is evident that, as with the contemporary registers of papal letters, they were not always copied into the register—or at least not into the register in the form in which it has survived—at the time when they were drawn up in the chamberlain's chancery. Several of the letters (nos. 15, 17 and 23) mention the fact that the chamberlain has caused a copy of the letter to be registered.

Up till now the Egyptian government has not succeeded in arranging the purchase of the manuscripts forming the library of a Gnostic community living in the fourth century a.d. near the old site of Khenoboskion in Upper Egypt. But thanks to some preliminary studies we know the titles of the works copied in those manuscripts. When once these most important texts have been published we shall know much more about what the Egyptian Gnostics thought and taught in the fourth century in Upper Egypt.

Jerome was writing De viris illustribus in c. 393, and his verdict on Donatus of Carthage conceded that he had indeed ‘deceived nearly the whole of Africa’, an aim echoed by Augustine in his satirical anti-Donatist poem composed the same year. In fact, the year 393 had not been a good one for the Donatists. The high-handed acts of the new bishop of Carthage, Primian (391–412+), had provoked a schism among moderate and traditional members of the Church in proconsular Africa and Zeugitana (modern Tunisia). About one hundred bishops from these provinces had rallied to the cause of Maximian, a deacon in the Church at Carthage who was also a descendant of Donatus himself. In the meantime, the Catholic Church, condemned to minority status since the reign of Julian (361–3), had begun to reassert itself through Aurelius, its new bishop of Carthage (392–430). In 393 it held an important council at Hippo where Augustine, even though only a presbyter, had been the preacher.

On 25 April 1244 Pope Innocent iv granted Henry III's petition for absolution from any sentence of excommunication he might incur for violence against clerks. At first sight it might seem unlikely that the king of England would get involved in scuffles with clerks. He was in his thirty-seventh year and has been described by Sir Maurice Powiek? as devout, if not spiritually minded. He was of a fiery temperament, however, and may have been aware of the opinion of some canonists as to the culpability of those who instructed or ordered others to violence.

The evidence left by the medieval church courts has proved to be a rich source for the study of both the social and legal aspects of marriage. This has been particularly true for the records of matrimonial litigation generated by the English courts as well as those from the continent and, to a lesser extent, Ireland. Much of this interest has focused on the instance business of the courts, corresponding roughly to modern-day civil litigation. In the context of the English courts, this usually involved an attempt to establish the existence of a valid marriage. Less attention has been paid to the ex officio actions brought by courts against errant individuals. Interest has also tended to concentrate on the actual act of marriage itself and the degree to which this matched the Church's ideal system of how marriages should be formed. Questions concerning courtship and the alternatives to marriage have only begun to be addressed.

This article dissents from the classic analysis of the ‘commission for ecclesiastical promotions’ (1681–4) offered by Robert Beddard in 1967. Rather than acting as a powerful ‘instrument of tory reaction’, in the hands of a ‘reversionary interest’ of lay and clerical ‘Yorkists’ dedicated to changing the political hue of the upper ranks of the clergy, in reality it functioned as ‘an instrument of personal rule’ for a king who had not surrendered his own interests to those of his heir presumptive. Its political impact is queried with evidence from the start of James's reign that emphasises the immediate sense of crisis felt by many bishops.

‘One is always aware of Bede's Church as an institution of men and women, meetings and buildings, and especially as a bishops' Church.’ With this comment, J. M. Wallace-Hadrill directed attention to a fundamental aspect of Bede's world which requires further examination. From early childhood until his death, Bede was and remained a monk. He had entered the monasterium of Wearmouth and Jarrow at the age of seven and was to remain in it all his life. Although he was ordained to the priesthood by John of Beverley he never advanced to episcopal office. Despite the fact that he was nurtured in a world of reflective scholarship at Wearmouth and Jarrow it is now less common for historians to view Bede as ‘a lonely intellectual locked in an elite minority community’ and a scholar who lived out his life away from the events of the outside world. He perceived that world and the clergy who occupied it, however, through monastic eyes. Since Bede is, and indeed should be, seen as a representative and guardian of a monastic culture heavily influenced by Benedictine spirituality his views concerning the episcopate have not been analysed to the same extent as his views concerning monasticism. This is somewhat surprising since Bede himself perceived a clear link between the episcopal and monastic lives and was deeply concerned with the early Anglo-Saxon Church as an episcopally governed institution. The purpose of this article is to examine Bede's exploration of the manner in which individual bishops came personally to define their prestige, power and authority. This involves an investigation of their continued attachment to ascetic traditions once they had been elevated to the episcopate and an examination of the models applying ascetic sanctity to an episcopal context which Bede inherited from his predecessors in the late antique and early Christian world.

One of the many areas in which there is a lack of knowledge of the post-Reformation Scottish clergy is their economic status. This article uses the county of Fife as a case study to examine the finances of post-Reformation ministers. Stipends improved gradually during the decades after the Reformation, especially for ministers paid in kind, but there were still serious problems in many parishes well into the seventeenth century. Ministers' testaments show few signs of real poverty, however, and it appears that most ministers lived modestly and within their means, rather than acting as major economic actors in the parish.

The act of comforting soon-to-be executed martyrs was a collective and participatory affair in early modern England, but it was Catholics’ consolation of dying priests that resonated with a sacramental and doctrinal meaning all its own. This article seeks to highlight the late medieval traditions as well as contemporary Tridentine practices that infused such acts of comfort, particularly as they were negotiated in a time of Catholic persecution and upheaval. Of prime importance in instructing consolers, however, was Ignatius of Loyola's Spiritual exercises, which, as this essay argues, provided a guidebook for behaviour and an answer to suffering for priests and followers alike.

This article explores an important but hitherto neglected factor that helps to account for the early divergence between Richard Baxter (1615–91) and John Owen (1616–83). Theological differences alone cannot account for that divergence, since in the early 1640s Baxter and Owen would have agreed on the issues that later separated them. Their starkly contrasting experiences of the First Civil War helped to set them apart. For Baxter, personally caught up in the upheaval, the war was a disaster that corrupted the Gospel. For Owen, untouched by the fighting, the war was a blessing from God that liberated the Gospel from Arminian captivity. All this helps to illuminate some of the ways in which the civil wars continued to shape religious developments and divisions long after the battles had ceased.

This article examines how lay people brought preaching of the Word to their locality in early seventeenth-century Yorkshire and Lancashire by acting collectively to build chapels, raise funds for ministers’ wages and provide fees and hospitality. A wide cross-section of society was willingly involved in this support, suggesting that enthusiasm for sermon-centred worship was not just the preserve of a godly few. It is proposed that this collective behaviour and its rhetorical representation could foster an inclusive sense of local identity. The importance of the personal style and skills of individual preachers in engendering support is also considered.