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This article explores a series of doctrinal disputations held in early Islamic Egypt, and known through the Hodegos of Anastasius of Sinai (fl. c. 670–c. 700). Using the text's prosopographical and contextual cues, it argues that these disputations occurred in the 680s, in the aftermath of Constantinople's Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/1), the decisions of which had thrown the Chalcedonian Christians of the caliphate into conflict and schism. In 686, it is argued, Anastasius had confronted the famed Edessene and Severan Athanasius bar Gūmōyē before the Marwānid prince 'Abd al-'Azīz at Fusṭāṭ, and there been defeated. That defeat is indicative of the new-found position of the Egyptian Severan Church, which now flourished under Marwānid patronage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Presbyterian Review (1831–48) was one of the most important sources for Evangelical thought within the Church of Scotland before the Disruption of 1843, and for Free Church opinion after the schism. However, its views concerning slavery have yet to be subjected to critical evaluation by historians. Initially, it reflected the radicalism of the Evangelical leader, Andrew Thomson, especially in its demand for the immediate, uncompensated abolition of West Indian slavery. It also used slavery as part of its polemics against High Church Anglicans and Tractarians over the legacy of William Wilberforce and in its disputes with the Scottish Voluntaries. Subsequently, during the ‘Send back the money’ controversy, its position moved closer to the moderation of Thomas Chalmers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the De decretis Athanasius claims that Arius ‘copied’ and ‘learned’ from Asterius. This study explores how this could have happened by arguing that in the writing of his Thalia Arius was influenced by Asterius’ Syntagmation. Besides complicating the literary and theological relationship between Arius and Asterius, this reconstruction provides the clearest evidence for the new perspective on Arius which has emerged in recent revisionist scholarship, and which argues that he is best understood as embedded within a theological tradition and as a catalysing participant in its efforts to articulate a theological vision. By dating the Syntagmation to about 322 and the Thalia to about 323 this study also gives qualified support to Rowan Williams's dating of some pre-Nicene events and discredits a recent attempt to position Asterius as having had a formative influence on Arius. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper (a companion to an article published this Journal lxvii [2016]) considers a twelve-year campaign by some Church of England clergy to discredit Nonconformists as irrational enthusiasts. It began in 1668–9, to discourage concessions to Nonconformists through ‘comprehension’ and to prove the loyalty of men suspected of lukewarm attachment to the Church. Congregationalists responded by accusing the conformists of Socinianism. But Presbyterians were less willing to differ from churchmen, and claimed that orthodox Protestants did not disagree about reason. Any differences were exaggerated for polemical advantage, and the controversy drove conformists and Nonconformists further apart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article identifies as the work of Richard Baxter a set of ecclesiastical directions and reading recommendations contained in fos 180–208 of St John's College, Cambridge, MS K.38, once tentatively ascribed to Thomas Barlow, but demonstrably a close analogue of British Library, MS Harleian 6009, which is a copy of a lost Baxter original. Internal evidence of MS K.38 and comparison with MS 6009 and Baxter's Christian directory imply both an earlier date and a wider circulation of Baxter's archetype than hitherto suspected, suggesting a new direction of inquiry into Baxter's scholarly and ecclesiastical associations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Joseph Milner’s ‘History of the Church of Christ’ (1794–1809) was the most popular English-language church history for half a century, yet it remains misunderstood by many historians. This paper argues that Milner’s Evangelical interpretation of church history subverted Protestant historiographical norms. By prioritising conversion over doctrinal precision, and celebrating the piety of select medieval Catholics, Milner undermined the historical narratives that undergirded Protestant exceptionalism. As national religious identities became increasingly contested in the 1820s and 1830s, this subversive edge was blunted by publishers who edited the ‘History’ to be less favourable toward pre-Reformation Christianity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Historians have offered a variety of explanations for Pope Innocent III’s release of King John from the promise that he made to observe the clauses of Magna Carta. None has won general acceptance. This article proposes an alternative by examining the tenets of the canon law as it was understood in 1215. That examination shows that the law of oaths (De iureiurando) played a central role in canonistic thought of the time. It contained the juristic resources that made it possible for Innocent to release John from the oath that he had taken at Runnymeade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the example of the Bohemian Franciscan Province, and its Olomouc convent in particular, this paper analyses mendicancy after the Reformation. In the early modern period mendicancy remained an important practice in the Franciscan Order. Apart from its economic function, begging was also an important means of interaction between the friars and the people. It was a complicated exchange of goods and services, which helped the friars to secure their position in society and export elements of their spirituality outside the walls of their convents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What was the source of authority in the Church in Tudor England? This article traces the use of an ancient symbol of the power of metropolitan archbishops, the woollen pallium, between 1553 and 1603. The later Henrician Church saw this garment as a sign of royal supremacy. Under Mary, however, Archbishop Pole made extravagant claims which led the Elizabethan Church to reject earlier Tudor notions of this symbol. Set against the backdrop of the source of episcopal jurisdiction, this article traces the use of the pallium in England in a Church moving from Roman obedience to a Protestant settlement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Western canonists, husband and wife had a debt towards one another: they were obliged to render sexual intercourse on demand. This article looks at the differences and similarities of the ‘marital debt’ in Byzantium and the West in order to evaluate whether this concept can be applied to Byzantine couples. It argues that, contrary to the West, in Byzantium there was no fixed linguistic terminology or sophisticated rules to describe a sexual obligation between spouses. Ultimately, there was also less need for one as sexual intercourse within marriage was not considered sinful and needed no justification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the use and promotion of contact relics in medieval England. It argues that by the late eleventh and early twelfth century, large English monastic houses were uncomfortable with unauthorised individuals touching high status corporeal relics and so re-introduced and promoted contact relics as alternative objects of veneration. It argues that contact relics were an important aspect of English saints' cults until the Reformation, in a similar manner to Celtic and Brittonic cults. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her seventh-century vita of St Radegund, Baudonivia refers in passing to the attendance of a layman named Leo at an Aquitanian ecclesiastical council. This Leo may be identifiable with the ‘Leo of Poitiers’ named by Gregory of Tours as a partisan of Chramn, the rebellious son of King Chlothar i (r. 511–61). If so, then Leo's attendance suggests that the council assembled during the brief period of alliance between Chramn and Childebert i, 555/8. This long-neglected council thus provides insight into one of the major events of a comparatively obscure decade in the history of the regnum Francorum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leo Tolstoy was one of the most prolific religious figures of his time. Yet his religious thought and its influence have seldom been explored by church historians. Drawing upon themes within his literature, non-fiction and previously unconsidered primary sources, this paper considers Tolstoy's religious position in relation to other similar nineteenth-century religious movements. It exposes Tolstoy's links with British Unitarians and also considers Tolstoy's influence upon the founder of Britain's first interfaith organisation, the World Congress of Faiths. It is argued that Tolstoy provides a paradigmatic example by which to examine the relationship between the legacy of the Enlightenment and changing attitudes towards non-Christian religions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores interactions between Baptist lay theologians and ordained clergy during the first English civil war. Despite their marginalised position outside the national Church, Baptists employed a variety of innovative techniques to coerce ordained ministers into debates which the latter would have preferred to avoid. Though Baptists during the period did not achieve intellectual parity with the members of the Westminster Assembly and others whom they sought to influence, their efforts contributed to an ongoing transition within the early modern English Atlantic whereby religious culture was made more participatory and theological authority democratised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A distinction is often made between magisterial and radical reformers in the early modern period, Luther and Thomas Müntzer being frequently taken as representatives of two quite different reformations, especially in regard to the understanding of Scripture and of the political realm. It can, however, be argued that the Reformation as a whole was radical, and that it is misleading to characterise one aspect of it as mainstream, another peripheral. The comparison between Müntzer and the Scottish reformer, John Knox, appears to support the contention that the chasm between the two camps is not unbridgeable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 1661 Savoy Conference has generally been seen as a failure for which Richard Baxter is principally to blame. While it is true that he must share in the responsibility, it should be shared more widely. This article argues that the failure at the Savoy was the end result of tactical errors made a year earlier by the wider Presbyterian leadership who then left Baxter to shoulder the blame alone; and that the restored bishops never had any intention of offering any meaningful concessions at the Savoy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The distinction between ‘Lithuanians’ and ‘foreigners’ made by the law of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania with regard to eligibility for senior offices was less clear in practice. The protracted dispute, between 1591 and 1600, over the royal nomination of a ‘Pole’ as bishop of Vilna, has traditionally been presented as an expression of Lithuanian particularism after the 1569 union between Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. Using neglected capitular sources, this article re-examines the crucial, but underappreciated role played by the Vilna cathedral chapter in this cause célèbre. The motives for the chapter's opposition to the royal nominee cast doubt on the allegedly overwhelming importance of the defence of Lithuanian ‘sovereignty’. Instead, the case demonstrates the significance of material interests in the actions of early modern ecclesiastical corporations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper reexamines the reform of the cathedral chapter of Sées in 1131. It does so by looking primarily, though not exclusively, at the almost 400 acta – that is, the charters and documents –issued by the bishops of the diocese in the period up to 1220. It shows that this underused material has the potential better to contextualise this key event in the ecclesiastical history of medieval France and radically to improve our understanding of its wider effects. It also looks in detail at the careers of the bishops during this period and shows that these prelates, contrary to popular belief, were often supportive not only of the reform established within their cathedral, but also of the wider Augustinian movement. It concludes by briefly considering what the example of Sées can tell us about the regularisation of cathedral chapters in the Middle Ages. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1559 Book of Common Prayer printed by Richard Grafton has been dismissed by bibliographers, who have suggested that Grafton printed it as ‘agent for Jugge and Cawood’ (the Queen’s Printers) and ‘improperly put his name in the imprint’. Relying on evidence from a 1559 Grafton prayer book in the collection of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which contains the signatures of members of Elizabeth i’s Privy Council that can be dated prior to the opening of Elizabeth’s Reformation Parliament, this article argues not only that Grafton’s Book of Common Prayer was legitimate (indeed ‘authorised’), but also that it may have been printed in a limited edition, perhaps to be circulated in association with the Bill for Uniformity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines early Protestant discussion of the historic puzzle in New Testament study known as the Synoptic Problem, which deals with the potential literary relationship between the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. The subject was addressed by John Calvin, pioneer Reformer, and by the early Lutheran Martin Chemnitz. Calvin made a puissant contribution by constructing the first three-column Gospel harmony. Chemnitz contributed nascent redaction-critical assessments of Matthew's use of Mark. Thus, far from simply being a concern to post-Enlightenment critics (as is often assumed), interest in the Gospel sources was present from the earliest days of the Reformation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While historians are familiar with the destruction wrought on the nation's cathedrals during the Civil War, the rather different fate experienced by Westminster Abbey – an important symbolic building that tied together royal and religious authority – has been strangely neglected. This article argues that the Abbey played an important and distinctive role in the religious and cultural politics of the nation during the 1640s and 1650s. It uncovers the Abbey's role in helping to legitimise successive non-monarchical regimes and ultimately explains how efforts to ‘reclaim’ the Abbey at the Restoration formed part of broader efforts to renegotiate and reinterpret the nation's past. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study focuses on fourteenth- and fifteenth-century images, commissioned by the Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini, of Augustine in rapture at the Trinity, revealing a wounded heart. This imagery begins an iconographical trend within the order that portrays Augustine as the Doctor of Love and departs from the image initiated by Possidius of Augustine as the rational thinker and bishop. A comparison with contemporaneous images of Francis receiving the stigmata reveals a new understanding of the relationship of the body to fourteenth- and fifteenth-century mendicant piety, and the importance of the iconisation of the body in the Hermits' understanding of Augustine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the reception of the European Protestant Reformation in the British Atlantic using the early Bermudan Church as a case study. It offers an alternative model for Puritan colonisation which was driven by a reformed vision for godly globalisation and evangelisation rather than flight from persecution in England. By shedding light on ecclesiastical ties between the reformed Churches on the continent and the British Atlantic, it extends the ideological foundations for the establishment of British America beyond the theories of empire and economic opportunism usually addressed by historians. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

According to several distinguished historians Katherine of Aragon could have averted the Henrician reformation by accepting Cardinal Campeggio's suggestion that she take vows of religion and enter a nunnery, thus facilitating her husband's remarriage. Here it is argued that, even if Katherine had agreed, the fulfilment of such a project would pose serious problems. Once he recognised the enormity of what the legate intended, Henry rapidly lost interest: his craving for an undisputed succession could hardly have been satisfied by adding a second potentially contentious papal bull to that which had allowed his first marriage. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper is focused on Elizabeth's Reformation in the Irish Pale around Dublin, the key religious battleground in Tudor Ireland. It highlights the strength of opposition to Elizabeth's religious settlement from the start of her reign. It shows in stark terms that Ireland experienced a Reformation virtually without reformers, and suggests that that was a major reason for its failure. The contrasting experiences of England and the Pale suggest, in turn, that revisionist historians have underestimated the progress of Protestantism in England before Elizabeth's reign. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the early modern age the appointment of Maltese bishops involved conflicts in the management of ecclesiastical patronage, jurisdictional issues and international diplomacy. The procedure for appointment, established by Charles v in 1530 when he granted Malta to the Order of St John, was the result of a compromise: safeguarding rights of royal patronage without undermining the independence of an international military order. It is important, however, to underline the reforming activity conducted by bishops appointed in such political ways, especially through the application of some institutions provided by the Council of Trent, such as diocesan synods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

During the last century there have been many discoveries that have reshaped our understanding of early monastic texts and their authorship. The writer of these two substantial volumes proposes new ones. In The real Cassian revisited he argues that the Latin monastic works traditionally ascribed to an early fifth-century monk named John Cassian, later resident in Gaul, are actually a medieval ‘augmented interpolated product originating in a far shorter Greek original by Cassian the Sabaite’, whom he identifies as an early sixth-century monk of Mar Saba in Palestine (The real Cassian revisited, 152; cf. A newly discovered Greek Father, p. xii). This Greek text, edited with substantial commentary in A newly discovered Greek Father, has historically been considered a condensed translation of selections from the Latin works. In reversing this view, Tzamalikos announces the ‘rediscovery’ of a forgotten Greek genius. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using John Trusler's unpublished memoirs, this article seeks to reconsider his trade in printed sermons using imitation manuscript print, which clergy could pass off as their own. While the trade smacks of corruption and dishonesty, and attracted considerable scorn for Trusler, it was in some respects a reflection of late eighteenth-century sermon culture. Trusler's defence to Bishop Terrick of London of trading in imitation manuscript sermons suggests that he was not embarrassed by the enterprise. Trusler's talents as a preacher were considerable, but Victorian Britain came to regard his commerce as reprehensible. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article explores the presentation of English national identity in literature surrounding the 1655 Whitehall Conference on Jewish readmission to England. Writers in the 1650s suggested that England was suffering providential punishment for sins against the Jewish people. This combined with the idea that God had selected England to restore the Jews to Palestine. This form of ‘chosen’ nationhood complicates understandings of links between Jews and English national identity formation. Jews were recognised as ‘other’, but also as superior to Gentiles. England was therefore ‘chosen’ for a special purpose, but in no way replaced ethnic Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Giles of Viterbo (1469–1532), cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church during the High Renaissance, was not merely a scholar influenced by the humanism and renewed Platonism of his day but a phil-Hellene according to various associations of Hellenism ranging from literary to political, ancient to modern. He embraced Hellenism in its many senses despite his belonging to the generation born after the fall of Constantinople. This is significant, for although Giles's interest in ancient Greek language and letters is generally acknowledged, insufficient scholarly attention has been paid to Giles's inclusive interest in Byzantine Hellenism and Orthodox Christian doctrine. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article offers a new perspective on Eusebius' understanding of Christian identity by demonstrating that in the Praeparatio evangelica he presents human and demonic genē as comparable. Although the prominence of the language of ‘ethnicity’ to describe human groups in the Praeparatio has previously been highlighted, Eusebius' presentation of demons in similar terms has not yet been examined. Eusebius' descriptions of the demonic genos show that he held ‘ethnic’ identity, including Christian identity, to be linked above all to a creature's moral condition and to require the maintenance of particular patterns of behaviour. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper investigates the origins of Anglican Anglo-Catholic missions, through the missionary theology and practice of the founder of the Society of St John the Evangelist, Fr Richard Benson, and an exploration of its initial missionary endeavours: the Twelve-Day Mission to London in 1869, and two missions in India from 1874. The Indian missions comprised an institutional mission at Bombay and Pune, and a unique ascetic enculturated mission at Indore by Fr Samuel Wilberforce O'Neill ssje. It is argued that Benson was a major figure in the inauguration of Anglo-Catholic missions; that his ritualist moderation was instrumental in the initial public success of Anglo-Catholic domestic mission; and that in overseas missions he had a clear theological preference for disconnecting evangelism from Europeanising. Benson's approach, more radical than was normal in the second half of the nineteenth century, was a consequence of envisaging mission's being undertaken by a religious order, an entirely new phenomenon for Anglican missions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The long acknowledged Mediterranean character of the early modern Inquisition(s) has recently been positioned within a global context. This article aims to integrate the Habsburg Low Countries into this newly emerging picture. Firstly, it argues that the Inquisition there should be understood as an office rather than as a tribunal: only individual inquisitors were called upon as specialised judges for offending clerics, or for judicial procedures de fide conducted by laymen. Secondly, this article emphasises that the inquisitorial office underwent continual redefinition in the four decades of its existence. Hence, the situation in the Low Countries offers a contrast to the religious persecution in France and England, where secular courts more clearly monopolised jurisdiction over heresy, and to the institutionally organised tribunals on the Iberian and Italian peninsulas. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 1640 General Assembly of the Kirk, dominated by Covenanters, was keen to discover something amiss in the doctrine of the Episcopalian John Forbes of Corse. Ultimately they were forced to admit his orthodoxy, even while deposing him for his refusal to subscribe the National Covenant. Modern scholars have succeeded where Forbes's contemporary antagonists failed, representing Forbes as the champion of a party that was, to one degree or another, out of step with the Calvinist orthodoxy of the day. This article examines Forbes's theology at points where his disagreement with contemporary reformed thought has been claimed, and draws implications from its findings for our knowledge and understanding of seventeenth-century Scottish theology more broadly. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

‘Ineffabilis et summi patris’ (1 June 1497), a little-known letter from Alexander VI to Manuel i, king of Portugal (1495–1521), plays an important role in Joel Panzer's The popes and slavery (1996). For Panzer, ‘Ineffabilis’ clarifies the voluntary nature of submission by newly-encountered peoples to Iberian monarchs. A new and complete translation of ‘Ineffabilis’ shows that it is part of a legal tradition wherein voluntary subjection was one mode of enslavement. ‘Ineffabilis’ also reflects Manuel's broader attempt to gain an advantage over Spain in light of Vasco da Gama's impending voyage to India in July 1497. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Evangelical awakening which took place in the province of Ulster during 1859 was one of the most important events in the religious history of the north of Ireland. Although it has received virtually uncritical acceptance by modern Evangelicals in Northern Ireland, few are aware that there was a significant minority of Evangelicals who dissented from offering the movement their wholehearted support. This article examines why one of nineteenth-century Belfast's most controversial Anglican clerics, the Revd William McIlwaine, was very critical of the movement. Not all critics were outright opponents of the revival, however. McIlwaine was one of the revival's moderate critics, who believed that it was partially good. Nevertheless, the awakening's physical manifestations and its impact on theology and church order deeply disturbed him. The article also explains why 1859 was a turning point in McIlwaine's ecclesiastical career, which saw him move from Evangelicalism to a moderate High Church position. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The Society of Jews and Christians drew on relationships formed before 1918 in urban social work, the suffrage campaign and pacifist organisations. Its career was much less smooth than that of its successor, the Council of Christians and Jews, because Liberal Judaism's founding role largely antagonised the Orthodox Jewish mainstream, and Christian affiliates sometimes failed to observe the agreement not to proselytise. This paper discusses the influence of the Revd James Parkes, and the exceptional circumstances of the rise of Nazism, in changing views on both sides, and also reflects on why historians may have ignored a pioneering initiative. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article is based on the sermons of the moderate Puritan minister Richard Culverwell, preached in his parish of St Margaret Moses, London, from the mid-1620s to the early 1630s, and recorded in detail by one of his leading parishioners, the fishmonger John Harper. It uses this material to discuss the reception of demanding Calvinist divinity, and to contribute to scholarly debates on the nature and impact of the Laudian regime in London. Although Culverwell continued to preach a Calvinist message, his sermons show a process of adaptation to changing times, and reveal the constraints and tensions that he was facing. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

John Wesley required detailed records to be compiled of Methodist society members. One extant list is that of the Keighley circuit for 1763–5. This article, breaking new ground in Wesley studies, argues that symbols in this and other catalogues recorded members’ spiritual condition. These symbols are used to analyse recruitment, losses and spiritual change on a quarterly basis. They reveal that although recruitment in the circuit was high during a revival at the start of a new preaching regime, it fell quickly, many members departed and there was little overall improvement in spiritual condition. Recruitment and changes were not uniform across the circuit, pointing to local rather than regional or national influences. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

A sense of an ending dominates accounts of African Christianity after the Vandal conquest of the 430s, not least as a result of the apparent disappearance of the Donatists in an Africa now ruled by Homoian Christians. In fact, the transfer from Donatist schism to new ‘Arian controversy’ more closely resembles the broader picture of Vandal Africa which has emerged from recent scholarship: significant continuity amid dynamic transformation. The cultural and rhetorical legacies of the Donatist schism were used by both parties (Catholic and Homoian) in Africa's new church conflict to present themselves as the true African Church. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article examines English attitudes towards a moderate solution to the confessional struggles in France in the 1560s. It uses the activities of the scholar and advocate of concord, François Baudouin, as a point of focus, demonstrates, for the first time, the full extent of his English connection, and shows that he proposed to use English Protestant worship as the basis for negotiations between Catholics and Huguenots in France. The article advances our understanding of England's place within the international Reformed movement, and sheds further light on the difficulties of achieving religious compromise in this period. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

It is notable that, in contrast to Ireland, there was no religious question in the decennial censuses of Great Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Parliament debated and determined the contents of the enumeration and the inclusion of religion was keenly disputed until 1914. The debates raised issues of religious liberty, church establishment and practical applicability. However, census-taking required broad public cooperation and the possibility of widespread opposition to the question led to its repeated exclusion. Only in the twenty-first century was the religious question reconsidered and included, as a result of changes in British society. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Few biblical episodes have generated more theological interpretation across the centuries than that of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, where he appears fearfully to resist the divine will in the moments before the passion sequence is initiated. Scholars of the early modern period, however, have tended not to notice how central the scene became in the wake of Protestant and Catholic reformation developments, renewed calls for spiritual self-examination and the resurgent phenomenon of martyrdom. This article addresses this lacuna by arguing that, in the case of England, Jesus in Gethsemane not only held acute resonances across different confessions, but resulted in interpretations that perpetuated a new kind of subjectivity, and one that influenced modernity and its notions of the divided self in a state of faith and doubt. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Despite the prominence of religious issues in the historiography of Restoration Scotland, understanding of the position of the Kirk in the Highlands remains sparse. This article seeks to address this lacuna through analysis of two related themes. Firstly, it looks at provision, discussing the Kirk's financial, material and manpower resources, as well as the challenge posed by Gaelic. Secondly, it traces the extent of Nonconformity, both Presbyterian and Roman Catholic, with a view to judging the degree of adherence to the established Episcopalian structure. It concludes that the Kirk, while facing challenges, retained a position of unrivalled religious dominance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The term ‘Semipelagianism’ is usually taken to refer to fifth- and sixth-century teachings of Hadrumetum and Massilian monks. The term originated, however, with sixteenth-century Protestants who used it to describe a view of salvation by human effort in combination with grace. Theodore Beza invented the term in about 1556, applying it to the Roman Catholic view of grace and human will. The Lutheran Formula of Concord (1577) used it to designate Lutheran synergists. Initially, therefore, the term referred to contemporaneous teachings. Starting with Nicholas Sanders (1571), however, Roman Catholics introduced a shift of meaning, with fifth-century Massilians becoming the central connotation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The importance of canon law collections to Anglo-Saxon legal culture has long been thought negligible, especially in comparison to the considerable importance of an alternative genre of canonical literature known as the penitential handbook. Over the past several decades, however, evidence for the use and circulation of continental canon law collections in pre-Conquest England has been mounting, to the extent that it could challenge traditional notions about the dominance of penitential law in the early English Church. This study presents new evidence for the reception in Anglo-Saxon England of a major continental collection known as the Collectio vetus Gallica. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the early years of the fifth century a significant step in the development of the Roman Church's claim to a universal jurisdiction was taken as it clarified its relationship with the Churches of Eastern Illyricum. Among the letters of Innocent i, bishop of Rome from 402 to 417, there are a half dozen addressed to the churches within that prefecture, politically now in the East but ecclesiastically still looking to Rome. Yet the authority exercised by the Roman bishop was not all-encompassing, being restricted primarily to judicial matters. This article considers Innocent's epistula xviii, written to a group of Macedonian bishops, headed by Rufus, bishop of Thessaloniki, Innocent's vicar, in which Rome acts as a court of appeal in the matter of Bubalius and Taurian. What is fascinating is the role that forgery played in the appeal process. It is argued that the evidence should be considered in its own historical context and not in the light of later ecclesiological understandings. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article discusses one specific way in which Protestant communion was, and still is, celebrated: the ‘Wandelabendmahl’, or ‘walking communion’, in which communicants receive bread and wine at the two sides of the altar, walking around it in between. After a general discussion of the ‘Wandelabendmahl’ in Lutheranism, the article examines how this rite was and is reflected in material culture, especially in today's northern Germany and southern Denmark. The rite was physically enshrined in church buildings by special furnishings at and around the altar. This study argues for a more holistic approach to sources: the inclusion of material culture in the study of religious practices allows for consideration and analysis of the experience of parishioners on a day-to-day basis. It is argued that it was by such means – visible, tangible, and to be experienced by each individual parishioner – that complex theological concepts were made accessible to congregations. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]