The Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation: Glory, Laud and Honour (review)

Graham Parry's Arts of the Anglican Counter-Reformation sets out to reconstruct and contextualize the "whole new world of religious art and expression" created by the ceremonialist movement within the Carolinian Church (192). According to Parry, that movement, which he provisionally calls "Laudianism" (a prefatory note acknowledges the deficiencies of the term), is not merely a narrow set of controversial policies about the ordering of public worship, but an all-encompassing aesthetic, with roots in the devotional practices of Richard Hooker and Lancelot Andrews and fruits in both the fine and applied arts of the 1620s and 1630s. Parry's broad survey of the architecture, stained glass, wood carving, sculpture, painting, prose, poetry, and music associated with the Laudian movement lays the groundwork for more integrative studies of the English "Counter-reformation," not only by specifying the stylistic continuities among its disparate artistic expressions, but also (and perhaps more importantly) by demon- strating the complexity of that style's relationship to the theological and political views of its most visible and controversial proponents, William Laud and Charles I.

This complexity is in evidence from chapter 1, which locates the source of the Laudian movement in the Arminian theology and ceremonialist piety of Lancelot Andrewes and his followers. However, the connection between Arminian sacramentalism and "Laudian" ceremonialism is problematized almost as soon as it is established. Parry produces examples of non-ceremonialists with Arminian beliefs and of moderate Calvinists with ceremonialist sympathies, the latter in the tradition of Richard Hooker (whose moderate ceremonialism is portrayed here as having more to do with traditionalism than with sacramentalism). This picture is further complicated by what Parry characterizes as a "general movement within the Church," quite apart from matters of doctrine and polity, to restore the church fabric, which had fallen into disrepair after the Reformation (22).

What emerges from this introductory chapter is a two-fold definition of "Laudianism" that remains operative throughout the book. On the one hand, the term describes a moderate and relatively mainstream movement toward more elaborate expressions of Protestant piety in art, architecture, and worship, a "spirit of renewal running through the Stuart Church" (91) that more or less comfortably accommodated all but the "radical wing" (104) of the Puritan party. On the other, it denotes an "extreme ideological development" of that same spirit, with strong ties to Arminian sacramentalism and to Charles I's notion of sacramental kingship (91). The slipperiness of the term is both a strength and a weakness. Distinguishing among the various species of "Laudianism" is not always easy, and the vagueness of the term tends to render opaque their connections to each other and to the broader cultural scene. What, if not sacramentalist theology and conservative politics, are the common denominators of the Laudian aesthetic? Parry does not address this question, but his rich descriptions of the local pieties and politics informing particular instances of that aesthetic suggest just how complicated the answer might be.

Chapters 2 to 5 focus on the construction, renovation, and furnishing of churches, cathedrals, and college chapels. Here, Parry establishes the Laudian style as a hybrid one, with a "superficial responsiveness to baroque forms" (99) overlying a gothic revivalism or "survivalism" (44). According to Parry, this eclecticism is partly a reflection of the Laudian emphasis on continuity with pre- and Counter-Reformation Christianity (cleansed of superstitious abuses). However, it is also an accident of history, which terminated the style associated with Laudianism "before it had time to settle in its conventions satisfactorily" (99). Parry's impressive survey of the architecture, sculpture, wood- and stone-carving, painting, glass-painting, embroidery, and silver-smithing associated with Laudian reform suggests a large and intricate network of social and economic relationships to the ceremonialist movement. Furthermore, his detailed descriptions of the local politics of particular parish, diocesian, and college renovation projects demonstrates just how complicated (and contradictory) the...