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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]

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]

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]

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 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]

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]

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 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]

Notwithstanding the many precedents for economic boycott before the crusader period, the first evidence of a Christian offensive other than on the battlefield appears only in the second half of the twelfth century, almost seventy years after the Council of Clermont. This paper aims to complement Moore's theory about the emergence of the Christian persecuting society with an additional case that, from a medieval Christian point of view, associates two of the Devil's main partners: first and foremost Muslims but also Christian merchants who profited from trading with them. It is the premise of this study that the many bans on trade with the Muslims in the crusader period – both in their essence and timing – and the reactions that they aroused reveal conflicting attitudes toward Muslims and Islam, thus contributing new perspectives for the study of the crusades. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]