Early Christian teachers and preachers were often cautious about, if not suspicious of, pleasure, but they also had a lively awareness of the psychological aspects of pedagogy, and of the power of pleasure and delight to persuade, move, instruct and even convert. This article explores the treatment of pleasure as a pedagogical tool, tracing this subject through the lens of sermons, letters, treatises and poetry written in Latin and Greek and drawing out both classical and biblical themes. It notes that, while most of the authors considered acknowledge pleasure as a potential problem in pedagogy, it is a problem they attempt to navigate. The article sketches out various approaches to the problem, noting especially the pleasure involved in reading, performing and expounding Scripture; pleasure used as a conscious educational strategy; and discussions which weigh up the dangers and gains of pleasure in education.

This article explores the reasons why dialogue has been such a key part of religious education by examining several texts from the medieval period: Gregory the Great's Dialogues, Petrus Alfonsi's Dialogue against the Jews and three hagiographical narratives from tenth-century Spanish manuscripts. It will argue that when read or listened to, the dialogue of the text was meant in turn to cue an internal dialogue, a response within the self, and a transformation. While meditative religious reading of all kinds was thought of as producing this inner reflection and debate, the dialogue format was an especially effective didactic tool for inculcating in beginners a mode of internal reflection and questioning, inspired by an outside source. Finally, although the content and even the message of the dialogue that is written or overheard may be fixed and clear, its effect on those who read or hear it remains open and provisional. It is up to readers or listeners to draw their own conclusions and absorb their own lessons from it.

This article explores the ways in which histories were used in the moral and doctrinal education of Christian elites in the West from the late Roman to the Carolingian periods. In the sixth century, Cassiodorus wrote that histories, whether Christian or not, were useful for ‘instructing the minds of readers in heavenly matters’. How far was this characteristic of the period? Traditionally, scholars have emphasized either the apologetic purpose or the moral of specific histories, such as Orosius's Historiae or Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica. Few modern scholars, however, have examined the long-term development of history writing as a vehicle for Christian education during the transformation of the Roman world. Those who have done, such as Karl-Ferdinand Werner and Hans-Werner Goetz, have emphasized continuity rather than change. The article sketches some of the changes and continuities across the period. In particular, it demonstrates that there was a shift from the apologetic concerns of the fifth-century historians, writing to educate Christians from pagan backgrounds, to the doctrinal (as much as moral) concerns of Frankish historians, emerging from the Carolingian Renaissance.

This article discusses the educational value of penitential literature in Carolingian Francia. In particular, it looks at manuscripts which were not simple penitential handbooks but were compiled as educational tools for priests. Apart from penitential works, these manuscripts included monastic rules, moral and ascetic works providing moral instruction, and, in some cases, school texts and glossaries.

Scholars interested in those medieval clergy charged with the delivery of pastoral care have highlighted the flourishing of reforming movements in the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Thus the period between the fall of the Carolingian empire and the beginnings of the so-called pastoral revolution is generally viewed as one of episcopal neglect. Focusing on case studies drawn from the Carolingian heartlands of north-east Frankia and Lotharingia, as well as what had been the more peripheral regions of northern Italy and southern England, this article offers a revised interpretation of the education of the local clergy in the post-Carolingian world. Exploring the ways in which higher churchmen sought to innovate on the texts they inherited from their Carolingian predecessors, it demonstrates how they paid considerable attention to the preparation and ordination of suitable candidates, to the instruction and monitoring of local clergy through attendance at diocesan synods and local episcopal visitations, and to the provision of suitable texts to support local churchmen in the delivery of pastoral care.

Historians of the Middle Ages usually associate the phrase ‘pastoral care’ with the sacraments and religious services performed by parish priests on behalf of lay people. But late twelfth-century writers primarily attributed pastoral care to prelates. Closely following the tradition of Pope Gregory I's Pastoral Rule, they held that prelates bore the responsibility to govern, guide and (perhaps most importantly) instruct their subordinate clergy or religious. Prelates did this by preaching, and they were supposed to validate their words with the example of their own righteous lives. But although commentators assumed that prelates would be reasonably well educated, late twelfth-century writers did not attribute good preaching to intellectual aptitude, or to the availability of preaching treatises or model sermon collections, as historians often assume. In an age of intellectual vibrancy and flourishing schools, ensuring that prelates instructed their subordinates remained firmly a moral, rather than an educational, question for the English church. Only by instructing subordinates could a prelate ensure their, and by extension his own, eternal salvation: neglect of preaching was tantamount to murder. This article uses the little-studied writings of Alexander of Ashby, Bartholomew of Exeter and Thomas Agnellus to uncover new links between ideas about prelacy, pastoral care and the instruction of subordinates in the high Middle Ages.

Recent histories have challenged narratives of a late medieval decline in monastic scholarship. This article extends that work to the natural sciences, showing how monks could learn astronomy and mathematics through their scholarly labour of reading, copying and glossing. Although the processes of learning are often poorly documented, and are often conflated with teaching, it is possible, through close reading of annotations and reconstruction of mathematical processes, to get a glimpse of an individual in the moment of acquiring scientific skills. Focusing on a piece of adaptive copying carried out by an English Benedictine monk c.1380, this article explores the devotional motivations underlying his work, and argues that it was through such copying and compilation that he acquired the expertise necessary to invent an astronomical instrument some years later.

The Jesuit Peter Canisius (1521–97) became widely respected as a catechist, pedagogue and preacher who worked tirelessly on behalf of the Catholic faith. Canisius's set of three catechisms – the Large, Small and Smaller – were the most popular and widely available Catholic catechisms in sixteenth-century Germany: by his death, at least 357 editions had appeared, in a number of languages. Employed in Catholic schools, churches and homes across the Holy Roman Empire, his catechisms have been interpreted as a direct response to the Protestant attack on Catholicism in Germany. However, the boundaries between Catholicism and heresy were not always clear to the laity. Drawing on examples from his catechisms and his approach to the Index of Prohibited Books, this article suggests that Canisius sought to promote a policy of inclusion among his fellow Catholics in a time of conflict and uncertainty. In recognizing the distinct nature of German Catholicism, Canisius advocated a tailored educational approach to contentious doctrines and practices. Directed towards the German laity, this approach taught the lesson of compromise and acceptance among those who identified as Catholic. The article adds to existing scholarship on Jesuit education, Canisius's contribution to the development of a German religious identity, Jesuit casuistry and the dissemination of religious knowledge in German society.

This article explores the place of education within the early Quaker movement in England. It examines how Quaker attitudes towards human nature shaped their views on the role of nurture in the creation of a community of believers, and probes the theological assumptions that underpinned this, notably their repudiation of conventional Protestant ideas about original sin and predestination. It also traces the evolution of Quaker views on spiritual direction in domestic and institutional settings against the backdrop of the transformation of the Society of Friends from a radical evangelical sect to a more sober and disciplined movement in the later seventeenth century. Particular attention is paid to the part that education played in ensuring that Quakerism was passed down to the next generation, once the heady excitement of its initial conversionary phase had waned.

Following the Reformation, Catholic families seeking to educate both sons and daughters in their faith faced many challenges. The penal laws proscribed the creation of Catholic schools in England and forbade parents to send children abroad for education. However, such was the determination to provide Catholic schooling that families were prepared to break the laws and meet the expense of fees and travel. The convents established schools for several reasons. For some orders it was part of their religious purpose to educate girls, others saw it as a means of educating future members, and all needed to secure their convents financially and be self-sufficient. Schooling provided varied significantly. This article, drawing mainly on manuscript sources from convents and some of the families with daughters attending convent schools, considers the scope of the provision of girls' education in the ‘exile’ period and offers some preliminary insights into the experience of pupils.

This article explores the role parish priests were expected to play in educating the populace of the Habsburg empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and especially how this was manifested in the form and content of their sermons. Emperor Joseph II took a keen interest in the education of future priests and expected them to be good shepherds (pastores boni) and educators to their parishioners. To this end, together with his mother, he carried out several reforms in their education (such as changing theology faculty curricula, introducing pastoral theology as a new subject and establishing general seminaries) and even issued a special decree on 4 February 1783, providing detailed instructions for preachers. The article outlines how future priests were taught to educate their parishioners through their sermons, concentrating on how they followed these instructions in their homiletic practice, which changed the form and content of sermons radically. It is based on archival material concerning the education of future priests (such as court decrees, governmental orders and university curricula), pastoral theology textbooks used at the Prague faculty of theology, and selected printed sermons.

In 1737 Erik Pontoppidan, a Danish bishop of pietist leanings, published a Lutheran catechism, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (Truth unto Godliness), which became the Church of Denmark's official catechism for the following fifty years, with new editions being printed in Norway into the twentieth century. For a figure largely overlooked by modern scholarship, he has enjoyed an extraordinarily lengthy influence over Christian formation in Scandinavia and in Norwegian immigrant communities in the USA. Pontoppidan not only left behind this ‘official’ programme of Christian education, but also an unofficial blueprint, Menoza (1742–3). This opbyggelse (‘edifying’) novel recounts the conversion of an imaginary Indian prince, Menoza, and his subsequent travels around Europe. Menoza might even be said to offer its readers an alternative or additional Lutheran catechism in literary form. This article examines Menoza's Christian formation in the light of Pontoppidan's official catechism. Which topics of the catechism receive emphasis or are downplayed? Does the progression and linking of doctrinal topics match the catechism's layout or does the author restructure Christian theology for pedagogical purposes? The article also considers the non-doctrinal elements of the characters’ catechesis, especially in relation to pietist expectations regarding conversion. What indoctrination, intentional or unintentional, into the vocabulary and experience of pietist culture did Pontoppidan offer his Scandinavian readers?

This article discusses the Church of England's initiative in providing education for the children of the poor during the long eighteenth century with particular reference to London. Briefly it considers the religious, economic and social context and motives for this largely lay-led and lay-supported initiative in the 1690s and early 1700s to establish catechetical day elementary schools, which also taught reading and writing, for poor boys and girls. It focuses particularly on the extensive evidence available from schools in the growing suburbs of Westminster and Holborn and discusses the personnel involved with charity schools, as trustees, benefactors and teachers; how funds were raised and schools managed; and how children were managed, including the arrangement and oversight of apprenticeships. It demonstrates that the schools continued to be well supported, including financially, throughout the changing, economic, social, religious and political circumstances of the century, until most of them became associated with the National Society for the Education of the Poor in the Principles of the Established Church, founded in 1811.

Catechizing played an important part in domestic religious education in Britain in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as in the better documented early modern period. However, its significance has been neglected in comparison with family prayers (often deemed to be an expression of patriarchy), Sunday observance or even private prayers. This article analyses the incidence of catechizing across religious denominations in Britain from 1740 to 1870, and within selected overseas missionary families. Drawing on a wide range of personal memoirs, the article analyses the range of contexts and relationships within which catechizing could occur. These included not only household worship (which could be conducted by women) but also relationships between siblings. It demonstrates that catechizing could provide opportunities for asking questions and spending ‘quality time’ with parents and / or children, rather than embodying an alienating form of rote-learning. The article therefore challenges many stereotypes relating to family domestic education, relating to themes such as patriarchy, denominational difference and adult-child interaction.

This article examines the phenomenon of Welsh circulating schools from those of Griffith Jones in the mid-eighteenth century, which over nearly fifty years brought the basics of religious education to thousands of poor children and adults, to their successors later in the century under Thomas Charles and, in the nineteenth century, the Bevan Charity. It compares Jones's success with the relatively limited impact of the later schemes and seeks to demonstrate the importance of his flair for publicity, his connections, his use of Anglican networks and his organizational ability. The article considers how the changed political and social climate in the last decades of the eighteenth century and into the nineteenth affected the success of later schemes and describes how the schools had to adapt to changed expectations and new educational developments. It argues that the schools provide strong evidence against the view that the charity school movement was motivated primarily by the desire for social control.

One of the most important spheres of activity in the early nineteenth-century Church of England was the establishment and support of schools for the poor. The primary agent of such activity was the National Society. Founded in 1811 by clergymen and philanthropists, this organization aimed to maintain Anglicanism as the ‘National Religion’ by instructing as many poor children as possible in church doctrine under clerical supervision. By 1837, almost a million children across England were being educated in Anglican charitable institutions. This remarkable effort has largely been the province of educational historians. Yet it was also a political enterprise. The creation of a national system of education along exclusively Anglican lines represented an assertive intervention in the contemporary debate about the relationship between church and nation-state. Using a wide range of neglected sources, this article discusses how such political concerns were manifested at a local level in National Society schools’ teaching, rituals and use as venues for political activism. It is argued that these aspects of the society's work afforded the church a powerful political platform. This analysis informs our broader understanding of the ways in which churches’ involvement in mass education has sustained religiously inflected conceptions of nationhood.

This article analyses elementary school development in three contrasting Devon communities during the mid-nineteenth century. This was a time of intense interest in the expansion of education amongst the labouring poor, but scholars have found it difficult to explain why schools were established in some places but not in others. With information from local sources, the authors have been able to identify the social context in which developments did (or did not) take place and the actions of the relevant interested parties. They argue that a significant variable accounting for success or failure is the availability of a local champion with the skills not only to persuade others of the merits of a school, but also to seize opportunities to further the project and manage the relationships necessary to assure its success.

Ragged schools provided a free education to impoverished children in the mid-nineteenth century. Inspired by religious fervour and presided over by Lord Shaftesbury, that figurehead of evangelical Anglicans, the schools taught the most destitute to read and write, as well as about the God who loved them. By 1870 the London schools alone recorded an average attendance of 32,231 children. The missionary aspect of the classroom shaped the recommended character of the teacher. Teachers were to be benevolent, while corporal punishment was discouraged. Teaching advice demonstrates that the classroom could prove difficult terrain and suggests that the respect of scholars was hard-won and highly valued. With children attending freely, it was necessary that they desired to return. The children were consumers whom teachers sought to please; their responses determined the success or failure of lessons. This article responds to recent scholarship that interprets the teachers as imposed and powerful agents. By focusing on advice given to teachers, it highlights both how the children were perceived and the impact evangelical theology had upon ideas regarding the teacher's character. Largely overlooked by church historians, the ragged school movement embodies the profound impact of evangelical Christians on popular education in the nineteenth century.

The Magdalene Asylums were penitentiaries for ‘fallen’ women. A high percentage of such women had been involved in sex trade in some form; others were betrayed fiancées, unmarried partners or women with drinking problems. This article explores the Magdalene Asylums’ education as a tool for reforming the inmates into women reflecting the managers’ ideals of femininity and Christian virtue in nineteenth-century Scotland. The reports of these institutions describe their aims, quoting selected letters of former inmates, their parents and new employers. They give us an insight into how these Christian philanthropists imagined and applied educational programme for this group of women and girls. The two main areas of the asylums’ education were religious teaching and instruction in a range of skills necessary for becoming a servant or a factory worker. Those who could not read and write also received basic literacy lessons. Magdalene Asylums in nineteenth-century Scotland offer a rich case study of a context in which education had a very narrow meaning and served a precisely defined purpose. They provided a broad spectrum of skills, although never at a comprehensive level. The article explores the managers’ intentions and ideals by analysing the language they used to talk about ‘successfully reformed’ women.