Thomson, Andrew;
(2022)
Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England: Ecclesiastical justice in peril at Winchester, Worcester and Wells.
[Book].
UCL Press: London, UK.
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Abstract
Religion meant far more in early modern England than church on Sundays, a baptism, a funeral or a wedding ceremony. The Church was fully enmeshed in the everyday lives of the people; in particular, their morals and their religious observance. The Church imposed comprehensive regulations concerning such matters as sex before marriage, adultery, bastardy and receiving the sacrament on its flock. It employed an army of informers and bureaucrats, headed by a diocesan chancellor, to enforce these rules in its courts. The courts lay, thus, at the very intersection of Church and people but analysis of their performance in the uniquely turbulent seventeenth century has, surprisingly, had to wait until now. Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England offers a detailed survey of three dioceses across the whole of the century, examining key aspects such as attendance at court, completion of business and, crucially, the scale of guilt to test the performance of the courts. While the study will capture the interest of lawyers, clergymen, local historians and even sociologists, its primary appeal will be to specialists in Church history. For students and researchers of the seventeenth century, it provides a full account of church court operations. It measures the extent of their control, challenging orthodoxies about excommunication, penance and juries, contextualising ecclesiastical justice within major societal issues of the times and, ultimately, presenting powerful evidence for a ‘church in danger’ by the end of the century.
| Type: | Book |
|---|---|
| Title: | Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England: Ecclesiastical justice in peril at Winchester, Worcester and Wells |
| ISBN: | 9781800083134 |
| ISBN-13: | 978-1-80008-313-4 |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.14324/111.9781800083134 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800083134 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Text © Author, 2022 The author has asserted their rights under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. Any third-party material in this book is not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence. Details of the copyright ownership and permitted use of third-party material is given in the image (or extract) credit lines. If you would like to reuse any third-party material not covered by the book’s Creative Commons licence, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright owner. This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-nc/4.0/. This licence allows you to share and adapt the work for non-commercial use providing attribution is made to the author and publisher (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work) and any changes are indicated. Attribution should include the following information: Thomson, A. 2022. Church Courts and the People in Seventeenth-Century England: Ecclesiastical justice in peril at Winchester, Worcester and Wells. London: UCL Press. https://doi.org/10.14324/111.9781800083134 Further details about Creative Commons licences are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ |
| Keywords: | history, religion, justice, seventeenth century, Early Modern England, church, dioceses |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10155415 |
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