User:Ltwin/Sandbox History of CofE

History of the Church of England

=History of the Church of England= Proposed outline


 * 1) Middle Ages
 * 2) Anglo-Saxon period (597-1065)
 * 3) Early organisation
 * 4) Post-Conquest (1066-1500)
 * 5) Reformation (1509-1603)
 * 6) Stuart period (1603-1714)
 * 7) James I (1603-1625)
 * 8) Charles I (1625-1649)
 * 9) Interregnum (1649-1660)
 * 10) Cromwellian Church
 * 11) Restoration (1660-1688)
 * 12) 18th century
 * 13) 19th century
 * 14) 20th century

Anglo-Saxon period (597–1065)


There is evidence for Christianity in Roman Britain as early as the 3rd century. After 380, Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire, and there was some sort of formal church organisation in Britain led by bishops. In the 5th century, the end of Roman rule and invasions by Germanic pagans led to the destruction of any formal church organisation in England. The new inhabitants, the Anglo-Saxons, introduced Anglo-Saxon paganism, and the Christian church was confined to Wales and Cornwall. In Ireland, Celtic Christianity continued to thrive.

The Christianisation of the Anglo-Saxons began in 597 when Pope Gregory I dispatched the Gregorian Mission to convert the Kingdom of Kent. The mission's leader, Augustine, became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. The conversion of northern England was aided by the Hiberno-Scottish mission, which promoted Celtic Christianity in contrast to the Latin Christianity of the Gregorian Mission.

The Celtic and Roman churches disagreed on several issues. The most important was the date of Easter. There were other differences over baptismal customs and the style of tonsure worn by monks. To settle the matter of which tradition Northumbria would follow, King Oswiu summoned the Synod of Whitby in 664. After hearing arguments from both sides, the king decided in favor of the Roman tradition, as this was followed by the successors of Saint Peter.

In the late 8th century, Viking raids had a devastating impact on the church in northern and eastern England. Monasteries and churches were raided for wealth in the form of golden crosses, altar plate, and jewels decorating relics and illuminated Bibles. Eventually, the raids turned into wars of conquest and the kingdoms of Northumbria, East Anglia, and parts of Mercia became the Danelaw, whose rulers were Scandinavian pagans. Alfred the Great of Wessex and his successors led the Anglo-Saxon resistance and reconquest, culminating in the formation of a single Kingdom of England.

Early organization


Under papal authority, the English church was divided into two ecclesiastical provinces, each led by a metropolitan or archbishop. In the south, the Province of Canterbury was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was originally to be based at London, but Augustine and his successors remained at Canterbury instead. In the north, the Province of York was led by the Archbishop of York. Theoretically, neither archbishop had precedence over the other. In reality, the south was wealthier than the north, and the result was that Canterbury dominated.

In 668, Theodore of Tarsus became Archbishop of Canterbury. He reformed many aspects of the church's administration. At the Synod of Hertford in 672, canons were adopted to promote greater uniformity, among these that the English bishops should hold an annual council at Clovesho.

A major reorganisation of the English church occurred the late 700s. King Offa of Mercia wanted his own kingdom to have an archbishop since the Archbishop of Canterbury was also a great Kentish magnate. In 787, a council of the English church attended by two papal legates elevated the Diocese of Lichfield into an archbishopric. There were now three provinces in England: York, Lichfield and Canterbury. However, this arrangement was abandoned in 803, and Lichfield was reabsorbed into the Province of Canterbury.

Initially, the diocese was the only administrative unit in the Anglo-Saxon church. The bishop served the diocese from a cathedral town with the help of a group of priests known as the bishop's familia. These priests would baptise, teach and visit the remoter parts of the diocese. Familiae were placed in other important settlements, and these were called minsters. Most villages would have had a church by 1042, as the parish system developed as an outgrowth of manorialism. The parish church was a private church built and endowed by the lord of the manor, who retained the right to nominate the parish priest. The priest supported himself by farming his glebe and was also entitled to other support from parishioners. The most important was the tithe, the right to collect one-tenth of all produce from land or animals. Originally, the tithe was a voluntary gift, but the church successfully made it a compulsory tax by the 10th century.



In the late 10th century, the Benedictine Reform movement helped to restore monasticism in England after the Viking attacks of the 9th century. The most prominent reformers were Archbishop Dunstan of Canterbury (959–988), Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester (963–984), and Archbishop Oswald of York (971–992). The reform movement was supported by King Edgar ((r. 959 – 975)). One result of the reforms was the creation of monastic cathedrals at Canterbury, Worcester, Winchester, and Sherborne. These were staffed by cloistered monks, while other cathedrals were staffed by secular clergy called canons. By 1066, there were over 45 monasteries in England, and monks were chosen as bishops more often than in other parts of western Europe.

By 1000, there were eighteen dioceses in England: Canterbury, Rochester, London, Winchester, Dorchester, Ramsbury, Sherborne, Selsey, Lichfield, Hereford, Worcester, Crediton, Cornwall, Elmham, Lindsey, Wells, York and Durham. To assist bishops in supervising the parishes and monasteries within their dioceses, the office of archdeacon was created. Once a year, the bishop would summon parish priests to the cathedral for a synod.

Royal authority and ecclesiastical authority were mutually reinforcing. Through the coronation ritual, the church invested the monarch with sacred authority. In return, the church expected royal protection. In addition, the church was a wealthy institution—owning 25–33% of all land according to the Domesday Book. This meant that bishops and abbots had the same status as secular magnates, and it was vital that king's appointed loyal men to these influential offices.

During the Anglo-Saxon period, kings were able to "govern the church largely unimpeded" by appointing bishops and abbots. Bishops were chosen by the king and tended to be recruited from among royal chaplains or monasteries. The bishop-elect was then presented at a synod where clerical approval was obtained and consecration followed. The appointment of an archbishop was more complicated and required approval from the pope. The Archbishop of Canterbury had to travel to Rome to receive the pallium, his symbol of office. These visits to Rome and the payments that accompanied them (such as Peter's Pence) was a point of contention.

Clergy were virtually the only educated sector of society, and leading churchmen served as important advisors to kings. [citation needed]

Post-Conquest (1066–1500)
In 1066, William, Duke of Normandy, invaded England claiming he was the rightful heir to Edward the Confessor. He appealed to Pope Alexander II who gave his blessing and ordered English clergy to submit to William's authority. The Norman Conquest led to the replacement of the old Anglo-Saxon elite by a new ruling class of Anglo-Normans in both the secular nobility as well as the episcopate. In 1070, three papal legates arrived to oversee the reform of the English church. At a council held at Winchester, Archbishop Stigand of Canterbury, his brother Bishop Æthelmær of Elmham, and the married Bishop Leofwin of Lichfield were deprived of office. At a later council at Windsor, Bishop Æthelric of Selsey was also deprived of his office. Another bishop, Æthelwine of Durham, lost his see when he was declared an outlaw and imprisoned by the king. By the end of the year, there were only two Anglo-Saxon bishops left: Siward of Rochester and Saint Wulfstan of Worcester. Thereafter, William was able to fill the English sees with reformists such as Lanfranc of Bec for Canterbury and Thomas of Bayeux for York. He continued the English custom of recruiting bishops from the royal household and chapel.

In the 1070s, William I issued a writ forbidding ecclesiastical cases (such as relating to marriages, wills, and legitimacy) from being heard by hundred courts or by lay judges. These cases could only be heard in church courts.

As in other parts of medieval Europe, tension existed between the local monarch and the Pope about civil judicial authority over clerics, taxes and the wealth of the Church, and appointments of bishops, notably during the reigns of Henry II and John.

Accord of Winchester

As begun by Alfred the Great in 871 and consolidated under William the Conqueror in 1066, England became a politically unified entity at an earlier date than other European countries. One of the effects was that the units of government, both of church and state, were comparatively large. At the time of the Norman Conquest, there were only 15 diocesan bishops in England, increased to 17 in the 12th century with the creation of the sees of Ely and Carlisle. This is far fewer than the numbers in France and Italy. A further four medieval dioceses in Wales came within the Province of Canterbury.

In 1072, following the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror and his archbishop, Lanfranc, sought to complete the programme of reform begun by Archbishop Dunstan. Durham and Rochester cathedrals were refounded as Benedictine monasteries, the secular cathedral of Wells was moved to monastic Bath, while the secular cathedral of Lichfield was moved to Chester, and then to monastic Coventry. Norman bishops were seeking to establish an endowment income entirely separate from that of their cathedral body, and this was inherently more difficult in a monastic cathedral, where the bishop was also titular abbot. Hence, following Lanfranc's death in 1090, a number of bishops took advantage of the vacancy to obtain secular constitutions for their cathedrals – Lincoln, Sarum, Chichester, Exeter and Hereford; while the major urban cathedrals of London and York always remained secular. Furthermore, when the bishops' seats were transferred back from Coventry to Lichfield, and from Bath to Wells, these sees reverted to being secular. Bishops of monastic cathedrals, tended to find themselves embroiled in long-running legal disputes with their respective monastic bodies; and increasingly tended to reside elsewhere. The bishops of Ely and Winchester lived in London as did the Archbishop of Canterbury. The bishops of Worcester generally lived in York, while the bishops of Carlisle lived at Melbourne in Derbyshire. Monastic governance of cathedrals continued in England, Scotland and Wales throughout the medieval period; whereas elsewhere in western Europe it was found only at Monreale in Sicily and Downpatrick in Ireland. I checked this citation and couldn't locate the specific place being referenced since there are no page numbers provided.

An important aspect in the practice of medieval Christianity was the veneration of saints, and the associated pilgrimages to places where the relics of a particular saint were interred and the saint's tradition honoured. The possession of the relics of a popular saint was a source of funds to the individual church as the faithful made donations and benefactions in the hope that they might receive spiritual aid, a blessing or a healing from the presence of the physical remains of the holy person. Among those churches to benefit in particular were: St. Alban's Abbey, which contained the relics of England's first Christian martyr; Ripon, with the shrine of its founder St. Wilfrid; Durham, which was built to house the body of Saints Cuthbert of Lindisfarne and Aidan; Ely, with the shrine of St. Etheldreda; Westminster Abbey, with the shrine of its founder St. Edward the Confessor; and Chichester, which held the honoured remains of St. Richard. All these saints brought pilgrims to their churches, but among them the most renowned was Thomas Becket, the late Archbishop of Canterbury, who was assassinated by henchmen of King Henry II in 1170. As a place of pilgrimage Canterbury was, in the 13th century, second only to Santiago de Compostela.

John Wycliffe (about 1320 – 31 December 1384) was an English theologian and an early dissident against the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. He founded the Lollard movement, which opposed a number of practices of the church. He was also against papal encroachments on secular power. Wycliffe was associated with statements indicating that the Church of Rome is not the head of all churches, nor did St Peter have any more powers given to him than other disciples. These statements were related to his call for a reformation of its wealth, corruption and abuses. Wycliffe, an Oxford scholar, went so far as to state that "The Gospel by itself is a rule sufficient to rule the life of every Christian person on the earth, without any other rule." The Lollard movement continued with his pronouncements from pulpits even under the persecution that followed with Henry IV up to and including the early years of the reign of Henry VIII.

Religious settlement (1559–1563)
When Queen Mary died childless in November 1558, her half-sister became Queen Elizabeth I. The first task was to settle England's religious conflicts. The Elizabeth's Religious Settlement of 1559 established how the Church of England would worship and how it was to be governed. In essence, the Church was returned to where it stood in 1553 before Edward's death. The Act of Supremacy made the monarch the Church's supreme governor. The Act of Uniformity restored a slightly altered 1552 Book of Common Prayer.

Clergy faced fines and imprisonment for refusing to use the liturgy. As Roman Catholics, all the bishops except one refused to swear the Oath of Supremacy and were deprived of office. Recusants were Roman Catholics who refused to attend Church of England services as required by law. Recusancy was punishable by fines of £20 a month (fifty times an artisan's wage). "Church papists" were Roman Catholics who outwardly conformed to the established church while maintaining their Catholic faith in secret.

The Thirty-nine Articles were produced by the Convocation of 1563 as a revision of the Forty-two Articles issued before Edward's death. The Queen vetoed Article 29, which stated that even though wicked and unworthy communicants consumed the bread and wine in the Lord's Supper, they were not "partakers of Christ". This was a point of disagreement between Calvinists and Lutherans, and Article 29 affirmed the Calvinist view. In 1563, however, Elizabeth was concerned that such a theological slight would hurt diplomatic ties with Lutheran nations. She may also have been personally sympathetic to the Lutheran view. Nevertheless, this article was later restored, and the Thirty-Nine Articles were given parliamentary approval in 1571.

The settlement ensured the Church of England was definitively Protestant, but it was unclear what kind of Protestantism was being adopted. The Queen enjoyed liturgical music and Catholic composers William Byrd and Thomas Tallis worked in the Chapel Royal. Royal injunctions issued in 1559 reinstituted processions at Rogationtide and bowing at the name of Jesus. Clergy were not to preach without a license from the bishop, otherwise they were to read from the Book of Homilies. It did not help matters that the royal injunctions sometimes contradicted the prayer book. The injunctions specified traditional communion wafers should be used for Holy Communion even though the prayer book said to use regular bread. There was also confusion over the location and positioning of the communion tables. According to the injunctions when not being used for communion, the tables were to be moved where the stone altars once stood.

The prayer book's eucharistic theology was vague. The words of administration neither affirmed nor denied the real presence. Perhaps, a spiritual presence was implied, since Article 28 of the Thirty-nine Articles taught that the body of Christ was eaten "only after an heavenly and spiritual manner". Nevertheless, there was enough ambiguity to allow later theologians to articulate various versions of Anglican eucharistic theology.

Conformists and Puritans
During Elizabeth's reign, a Calvinist consensus prevailed within the Church of England. By 1600, a majority of the clergy and educated laity were Calvinists. Calvinists believed in double predestination, which held that God had arbitrarily divided humanity into the elect destined for salvation and the reprobate destined for hell.

The Queen's conservatism was often at odds with the reforming impulses of her bishops, most of whom had been Marian exiles and were familiar with trends in the Protestant churches of continental Europe. At the 1563 Convocation, the bishops proposed a new reform agenda, including the abolition of offensive ceremonies. But the Queen was unconvinced. Tasked with enforcing the settlement, bishops were often seen as part of the problem among reform-minded Protestants.

Archbishop Grindal pushed for more preachers but was prevented by the Queen, who objected to prophesyings.

Most Calvinists were willing to conform to the terms of the religious settlement. Others wanted further reforms to make the Church of England more like the Continental Reformed churches. These nonconformist Calvinists became known as Puritans. Some Puritans refused to bow at the name of Jesus, to make the sign of the cross in baptism, use wedding rings or organ music in church. They especially resented the requirement that clergy wear the white surplice and clerical cap. Puritan clergymen preferred to wear black academic attire (see Vestments controversy). Many Puritans believed the Church of England should follow the example of Reformed churches in other parts of Europe and adopt presbyterian polity, under which government by bishops would be replaced with government by elders. Conformists, such as John Bridges and John Whitgift, agreed with Puritans, like Thomas Cartwright, on the doctrines of predestination and election, but they resented Puritans for obsessing over minor ceremonies. In any event, all attempts to enact further reforms through Parliament were blocked by the Queen. There were anti-Calvinists, such as Benjamin Carier and Humphrey Leech. However, criticism of Calvinism was suppressed.

Gradually, England was transformed into a Protestant country as the prayer book shaped Elizabethan religious life. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, most people were Protestants, and Roman Catholicism was "the faith of a small sect", largely confined to gentry households. Not in article

While contested from the very beginning, certain provisions—royal governorship, episcopacy, the Book of Common Prayer–have become essential markers of Anglican identity.

James I (1603–1625)
The Jacobean Church