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Journal of Interdisciplinary History 34.1 (2003) 73-74



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The Church in an Age of Danger: Parsons and Parishioners, 1660-1740. By Donald A. Spaeth (New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001) 284pp. $65.00

Spaeth's The Church in an Age of Danger assesses the health of the Church of England after its restoration to authority in 1660 through a discussion of the quality of parish life. Rather than attending to the hierarchy of the Church of England, or its relationships to the Crown or to Parliament, Spaeth's goal is to "investigate the social significance of religion through popular involvement in institutional religion, exploring the extent to which people were committed to the Established Church, the quality of their relations with the clergy, and the role of religion as a focus for social relationships" (6). His approach to gauging the health of national religious life is to focus on the conflicts between clergy and laity in specific parishes and dioceses, at least as they become visible through proceedings of church or secular courts. In Spaeth's view, the Church of England at the time of the Restoration had widespread popular support that dissipated during the next century, chiefly because the clergy, defensive of their own prerogatives, were reluctant to respond positively to lay desire for greater involvement in parish life.

Spaeth rejects the traditional argument that popular and elite cultures in Restoration England were polarized; he counters this argument by demonstrating how members of the gentry cooperated with lower-class laity in the regulation of religion. Nevertheless, Spaeth finds the seeds of later conflict in the Church of England in the tensions of parish life. Laypeople were unhappy with pluralism and the clergy's neglect of pastoral duties; clergy struggled with low salaries and with lay reluctance to pay tithes and to participate in worship. In the long run, however, the clergy's defensiveness prevented it from fulfilling the laity's religious needs, thus preparing for the rise of Methodism and other movements.

Studies of the Church of England during this period and previous ones have been handicapped by lack of information about parish life, but Spaeth analyzes the dynamics of congregations by drawing on clergy diaries and court records, especially for parishes in Wiltshire. Parishioners brought legal actions against clergy for dereliction of duty and for immoral behavior; clergy acted against laity for failure to pay tithes, for refusal to comply with such church disciplines as reception of communion and for unruly behavior during church services.

Spaeth admits the limitations of his approach. Legal records reflect only those conflicts regarded by at least one party as of sufficient seriousness to be worthy of pursuit through the legal system. Without a control [End Page 73] group, one can never know with certainty how much conflict occurred but never rose to that level of seriousness. Nor can one control for individual differences in the willingness to pursue conflict to such a level. Nevertheless, Spaeth's handling of evidence is judicious and his conclusions, appropriate. Many of the stories of the charges brought by clergy and laity against each other, as revealed by the legal records, are exceptionally colorful. A case in point is the account of Robert Randall, vicar of Great Bedwyn, who in 1677 was charged with bursting unannounced into the home of Edward Hall and demanding to go to bed with Mrs. Hall. Mrs. Hall, obviously a woman with great presence of mind, informed the vicar that, "even if she had wanted to go to bed with him, he was not in a fit state" (131). According to court records, the vicar was eventually calmed down and put to bed (presumably alone) with a drink of warm milk.

Especially interesting in Spaeth's study are discussions of such issues as the continuing influence of Puritan and other nonconformist movements (not as extensive as previously thought), lay and clerical attitudes toward reception of the Eucharist (still limited because of lingering concerns about worthiness to receive), and the rise of interest in enriching worship...

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