The early Stuart Church, 1603-42 (review)

Reviews 169 In the treatment of these issues, Evans provides summaries of numerous sub-topics; for example, the theory of universals and the problem of evil. He also introduces a large cast of thinkers: the majorfiguresof the ancient and medieval world and many lesser known writers. Among the sources, attention is given to the influence of Plato and AristoUe, the Stoics, the Neoplatonists, and the later Arabic philosophers who provided an important link between Greek and medieval thought. Quite properly, major attention is given in this context to the significance of Augustine. Emphasis is also placed on the writings of Boethius (except that his reflections on the consolation of philosophy give way to a rather different aspect of his achievements when his famous work is referred to on p. 79 as his Consolidation [sic\] ofphilosophy). Among medieval thinkers, no one philosopher or theologian is discussed at length, but the ideas of Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas are given most attention. Abelard, Roger Bacon, and William of Ockham are also accorded a fan presence. Duns Scotus is invoked only briefly, inrelationto the debate about universals. The two references to him in the Index are incorrect The author covers a great deal in this litde book in a clear and welljudged way. In the end, however, one is drawn back to lacunae. The main weakness is that the central topic, announced in thetide,is not explored in sufficient detail and depth. W h y did a certain understanding of philosophy become so significant in the Middle Ages in conjunction with the rise of universities? What did it achieve and why did the experiment fail? In the midst of much that isrelevantto these questions, the issues slip away and one looks in vain for a weU formed answer. Paul Crittenden School of Philosophy University of Sydney Fincham, Kenneth, ed., The early Stuart Church, 1603-42 (Problems in focus series), Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1993; paper; pp. viii, 301; R.R.P. £11.99. It was tough being a Protestant under the early Stuarts. The tergiversations of ecclesiastical and foreign policy could leave a whole generation of devout, Bible-centred Christians uncertain from one year to the next whether they were to be abused as 'puritans' or commended as conforming Calvinists. 170 Reviews This collection of essays shows that it is no easier to study the early Stuart Church than it was to live in it. D o we believe Peter White's argument that the Laudian drive for uniformity and obedience against 'puritan' demagoguery in the 1630s represented merely a familiar policy imposed with a new vigour, an analysis implicidy supported here by Judith Maltby's delineation of popular 'Prayer Book Anglicanism'? D o we instead accept Nicholas Tyacke's reassertion that 1625 marked a decisive turning point, as the consequences of Arminian theology emerged in a broadening definition of 'puritan' opposition plotting, eventually to encompass all Calvinist thought, no matter how conformist? Or do we follow Peter Lake's stimulating analysis of Laudianism as a particular aesthetic style and tone, an outlook, like 'puritanism', more distinct in the whole than in the parts, and which in John Fielding's account of Peterborough diocesan politics 1603-42 proved enough to split county societies around the issue of clerical aggrandisement and the acceptance of then ceremonial powers? Certainly, as Kenneth Fincham's synthetic introduction reveals, the contributors' conflicting attempts to distinguish 'Puritan' from 'conforming Calvinist' from 'moderate evangelical bishop', and from 'Arminian' or 'Laudian' prove as frustrating as trying to pick up blobs of mercury with chopsticks, and as dangerous to one's mental health. Those categories exist as contingently in historians' discourses as they did in the minds of contemporaries, whose perspective changed as circumstances changed. As Tyacke points out, Laud himself went through a Calvinist phase before the absurdities of double predestination became too much to swallow. Bishop John Howson told James I that George Abbot was a 'puritan bishop', a charge which James rebutted because of Abbot's support for his current policies, but which carried more weight at other times. Contributors focussing on intellectual disagreements amongst early Stuart churchmen thus fix divisions blurred by more politically-centred essays. Anthony Milton makes...