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The thesis establishes that the political liberty proposed by the Levellers during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s was derived from a theological doctrine of Christian liberty, rooted in Christology and Ecclesiology, and informed by various legal and philosophical traditions. The work is structured around an examination of the sources of Leveller political thought and a discussion of some implications of this for modern understandings of political liberalism. The thesis argues that a major key to understanding the Levellers is to see the way in which they utilised existing streams of thought, whilst both synthesising and modifying these. These diverse intellectual currents include the English common law, free grace theology, early General Baptist ecclesiology, and natural law and canon law traditions. The Levellers combine these to give rise to the idea that the state should be strictly limited by the individual’s freedom, rights, and contractual consent. The thesis takes great care with the religious sources, in order to avoid a number of current misreadings, especially with respect to theological ideas, ecclesial groupings, and terminology, particularly in relation to Puritanism. The opposition to fundamental elements of Puritanism will be shown to be a hermeneutic key that unlocks our understanding of the Levellers. The research calls into question particular socialist readings of the Levellers. It also implicitly shows that the rejection of liberalism by certain modern Christian thinkers is based on an unnuanced view of political liberalism. Equally, the work provides a corrective to some recent secular accounts of political liberalism that see the historical roots of liberalism in a reaction to the church and religion.

This dissertation examines theological authority in the hymns and spirituals of American Protestantism within the period 1830-1930. It investigates the deuterocanonical status of hymns in hymnic-theological commentary, and demonstrates the functional canonicity of hymns in three case studies (children's hymnody, African American spirituals, and hymns of marginalized groups), and two representative areas of praxis (conversion and missions). This dissertation consults a variety of primary source materials, both elite and popular, including journals, biographies, conference minutes, academic addresses, theological works, hymn prefaces, domestic novels, newspapers, and poetry. These sources are used to situate the hymnal in the cultural context of American Protestantism and determine the status and role of hymnody. As the Bible is acclaimed the exclusive canonical text of Protestantism, consideration of the hymnal's theological authority in canonical terms is at odds with Protestant biblicism. As such, this dissertation's claim that the hymnal shared, to a significant degree, the Bible's place as a textual source of theological authority, is intellectually innovative. In identifying didactic and doctrinal themes in hymnals, primarily through systematic theology, this dissertation shows the role of hymns and spirituals in regulative theology and audible faith. Thus defended in this dissertation, is the hymnal's capacity to adjudicate on matters of faith and praxis. Of additional importance to this dissertation is its contribution toward hymnic theology, as well as demonstrating the hymnal's influence upon historical theology, liturgical theology, cultural theology, and evangelistic theology. This dissertation yields various insights for theology, especially the soteriological efficacy· of hymnody, the role of hymns in regulative theology, and the discussion of antiSemitism and black-liberation theology in African American spirituals. In applied theology and congregational studies the ramifications are critical, with the analysis of hymnic authority, the intersection of singing and doctrine (lex cantandi lex credendi), and the Bible and hymnal as mutually constitutive, all of paramount importance.

This thesis examines the late mediaeval Church in the Hebrides from 1266 until 1472. The late mediaeval Church was culturally significant: it imposed rules and regulations on lay society throughout western Christendom. Hitherto, studies of the Hebridean Church have focused on its organisation and its bishops. My research goes beyond these studies to examine the effectiveness of the Church in bringing Christian religion and piety to mediaeval Hebridean society. This is accomplished through a prosopographical study of the clergy in the Hebrides and analysis of the church and chapel sites. The mediaeval Church transcended countries and peoples and through the provision of parish clergy, it managed to establish and maintain a certain level of Christian faith and belief. The majority of the recorded clergy were Gaels who came from the dioceses of Sodor and Argyll and were therefore able to communicate with their parishioners. Some of the clergy can be identified as belonging to the territorial, professional and ecclesiastical kindreds and can be described as of high social status. Determining educational status is particularly tricky, given the absence of any evidence for any schools in the Hebrides. However, we can reasonably conclude that the high status clergy undoubtedly were educated, although not all to university level. The scarcity of accusations of non-residence implies that non-residence was not widespread. An examination of rectors and perpetual vicars at the parish churches reveals that there was usually one or the other at the parish churches. A more common accusation regarded pluralism, although we have to acknowledge that sometimes the accusations might be exaggerated. Whilst allegations of offences such as simony are rare, failure to comply with canon law on clerical celibacy is clear from all supplications seeking dispensation for illegitimacy as the son of a priest. The churches, chapels and grave-yards were a focal point for these priests and for secular society. As important as the provision of clergy are the adequate numbers of, and maintenance of, church buildings. The church building had enormous significance for both mediaeval theologians and the laity. The parish church, in particular, was very important as the central focus for baptism and burial and therefore access is very important. The key issues are, therefore, access to the parish church, the visibility of the churches and their relationship with secular settlements. Access is determined by location and the location of the forty-three parish churches in the Hebrides can, on the whole, be described as accessible. None of them are inaccessible locations, indeed most can be accessed both from land and from the sea. They are relatively visible, but not outstandingly so. However, their visibility would have been enhanced with use of plaster on the exterior of the buildings. Secular settlements were dispersed and consequently there were always some settlements nearby the parish church and others more distant. A major issue which has arisen is the identification of categories of chapels. Using models established by Orme, there are four main categories of chapel – dependent, cult, locational and oratory chapels. Effectively, the numerous small chapels meant that, in general, it can be said that people were never very far from some kind of church building. Identifying the type of chapel allows us to understand how the parishes functioned. The final two chapters consist of case-studies of the islands of Tiree, Coll and Skye. There are a total of 12 parishes on these islands and within these parishes 68 church and chapel sites. The relationships between parish church and chapel have been analysed in each and we have been able to identify some dependent chapels. It is also clear that we have a number of early mediaeval chapel sites which may have been abandoned by the late Middle Ages. However, other early mediaeval sites may have continued in use, perhaps as cult chapels for particular saints. The cults of saints such as St Columba, St Comgan and St Maelrubha were especially strong in Skye whilst St Columba, St Finnan and St Findoca were popular on Tiree and Coll. Above all else, this study demonstrates the vitality of the late mediaeval Church in the Hebrides; its parish churches were not overwhelmingly appropriated and there were sufficient numbers of apparently educated clergy available to serve the churches. The range of ecclesiastical sites also shows the breadth of provision.

Stigand occupied a place in or near power for at least fifty years and yet has only been studied very peripherally and in reference to others. He has been vilified or lauded by historians ever since the Conquest. His wealth and methods of acquisition of wealth as well as his political activity have been used to paint him as an ambitious prelate interested only in power and motivated by greed. His unusual advancement to the see of Canterbury and apparent disregard for papal strictures caused him to be used as representative of all of the faults of the Anglo-Saxon Church. Other commentators took the opposite approach and portrayed him as a hero and patriot who resisted the Conqueror until he could no longer put off defeat. Neither of these interpretations is likely to be accurate and neither is wholly supported by the surviving evidence. Much of Stigand’s early life is undocumented and must be inferred within reasonable limits. Most of the sources in which extensive comment about Stigand can be found are post-Conquest and contribute their own particular challenges to discovering the facts about a largely pre-Conquest life. Based on monastic chronicles, Domesday Book, legal documents and the writings of Mediæval historians and commentators, in order to define the context in which he lived and worked including the politics of the English church, the kingdom, the Apostolic See and his lay associates this study is an attempt to clarify the life and career of Stigand, the last and extremely controversial Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury.

The survival and success of religious reform groups in the late medieval period was often due to the efforts of an ecclesiastical patron, a powerful and often wealthy individual who exerted their influence on behalf of the group or their leaders and spokesmen. This thesis uses the wealth of documentation available on the Spiritual Franciscans to explore the origin, development and wider effect of the relationships between the most powerful ecclesiastical patrons of the reformers and their clients, spokesmen for the Italian Spirituals at the papal court who were taken into the patrons’ households for years or even decades. During that time, the political fortunes of the different groups of Spiritual Franciscans fluctuated dramatically: in only a handful of years they went from hopeful expectation at the Council of Vienne c. 1311 to heresy trials, imprisoned spokesmen and friars burned at the stake c.1317-1318. Using testaments from the patrons’ families and the patrons themselves, the thesis explores the possible reasons for the patrons’ initial attraction to their Spiritual Franciscan clients. Letters, chronicles and exegetical texts written by the clients during and after their time in the patrons’ households are examined along with papal registers and other narrative and epistolary sources to develop models of the nature and progression of the patronage relationship, and how it survived in the face of periods of intense disapproval and harassment from the papacy, other prelates and some members of the Franciscan hierarchy. After establishing a framework for the progression of the patronage relationship, evidence of art patronage and other religious and patronage interests that the patrons and clients shared is used to develop a deeper understanding of how the patrons’ choice to involve themselves with the Spiritual Franciscans positively or negatively affected others in their orbit, especially their other clients.

This thesis comprises an attempt to re-evaluate the experience and the survival of the indigenous Christian population of al-Andalus. It is a response to two problematic aspects of the historiography, whose authority has only recently begun to be questioned: first, the inordinate focus upon the polemical and problematic mid-ninth-century Cordoban hagiography and apologetic of Eulogius and Paul Albar, whose prejudiced vision has not only been accepted as a source of social history, but also projected onto all Andalusī Christianity to support the second – the assertion that conversion happened early and en masse, and led to their eradication in the early twelfth century. Eulogius and Albar’s account of a Córdoba oppressed and Christians persecuted (a trope herein dubbed the ecclesia destituta) has dominated thinking about the indigenous Christians of al-Andalus, due to its championing by Catholic historians since the texts’ rediscovery and publication in 1574, and by nineteenth-century Spanish nationalists to whose ideological and patriotic purposes it was amenable. The Cordobans’ account is here re-evaluated as regards its value as a historical artefact and its internal problems are outlined. The discrepancies between the picture created by Eulogius and Albar and that of other contemporary reports, and the problematic hagiography, are then explained to some degree by the literary models Eulogius had at his disposal – of primary interest are the classical pagan poetics of Vergil, Horace and Juvenal and the late antique theology of Augustine. Albar’s famous despair at the Arabisation of the Christian youth has, in conjunction with Eulogius’ ecclesia destituta and the relative scarcity of documentary evidence for the Christians of Andalusī territory, formed the crux of assumptions regarding the speed and extent of Arabisation and conversion. In reassessing Richard Bulliet’s ‘curve of conversion’, which seemed on a faulty reading to prove these assumptions, the second part of the thesis seeks to argue that profound Arabisation did not impact until a century later than is thought and resulted not in assimilative decline but in a late cultural flowering, and show the long, and in many places unbroken, survival of indigenous Christian communities in al-Andalus to the early fifteenth century.

The popular millenarian movement founded by Joanna Southcott (1750-1814) enjoyed a complex relationship with political radicalism in early nineteenth-century Britain. Southcott opposed radicalism during her lifetime, encouraging her followers to await a messianic agent of the millennium. Within two decades of the prophet’s death – as Southcott expected to give birth to this messiah – some surviving Southcottians became political radicals, most notably, John ‘Zion’ Ward (1781-1837) and James Elishama Smith (1801-57). Ward was a popular preacher during the agitations around the Reform Bill, Smith a radical lecturer, editor of Robert Owen’s journal Crisis, and ideologue within general trades unionism in 1833-34. The respective influence of each figure drew several hundred Southcottians into engagement with politics. This thesis presents a new interpretation of why such millenarians engaged with radicalism. Utilising a substantial range of Southcottian and radical sources, many previously unstudied, it challenges the existing explanations of Southcottian radicalism of E.P. Thompson, J.F.C. Harrison, Barbara Taylor and others. Through a close study of the religious experience, ideas and practices of Southcottians in 1815-35, it locates an altered disposition towards social activity through the evolving millennial theologies of Southcottian groups and the personal acquaintanceship of individual believers with radical freethinkers. Under the prophetic leadership of Zion Ward and John Wroe (1782-1863), earlier Southcottian notions of the respective roles of divine and human agency in the realising of the millennium were changed by 1830. This led Southcottians to a new sense of agency, where their own actions took on a millennial significance when directed towards the achievement of God’s perceived intentions for the world. For some, this presented engagement with political radicalism, even freethought radicalism, in a new light: as action apposite to their beliefs. This argument features an alternative theoretical framework for millenarian beliefs which takes account of the way conceptions of human agency can vary within religious movements centred on modern prophecy. In exposing the inadequacy of existing pre- and postmillennial categories to explain such beliefs, it demonstrates how visionary religion can inspire expectations of both disruptive and evolutionary change, and require both divine and human agency, in the realisation of the millennium. This is a study in religious history, orientated towards politics. It demonstrates that a sensitivity to how visionary religious ideas influenced individuals involved in political movements, aids an improved understanding of political motivations and ideals.

Hagiography was one of the most popular literary genres in Byzantium. Vitae of Saints and Passiones of Martyrs were produced en masse to meet the spiritual needs of the Christian communities. These texts, modelled on the ancient Greek tradition of Bioi and projecting the Christian ideals of sanctity, were developed through the centuries. The re-working of early hagiographical texts by Symeon Metaphrastes in the tenth century marks a turning point in the Byzantine hagiographical tradition as the Metaphrastic Menologion became the established corpus of hagiographical texts used in the liturgical life of the Orthodox Church, of the monastic communities in particular. The present thesis is a study of the process of the re-writing of earlier material by Symeon, on the basis of an annotated edition of the metaphrastic Passio of St James the Persian, the Passio of Plato, and the Vita of St Hilarion. The aim of the thesis is to explore further the methodology Symeon used in the re-working of these texts, by comparing them with the surviving premetaphrastic sources. The thesis is divided into two Parts (I-II). Part I comprises an Introduction, and three chapters (I-III). The Introduction presents the aims and scope of the thesis, as well as the material used and the methodology employed, and briefly examines the Metaphrastic Menologion in the light of previous research, focusing on questions concerning its authorship and the manuscript tradition. Chapter I is devoted to a description of the manuscripts (Mss) used in the present edition, followed by a palaeographical examination of the texts, before the relations of the Mss is established. This section closes with a note on the conventions and sigla adopted in the edition. Chapter II contains an edition of the three aforementioned texts, accompanied by an apparatus fontium and apparatus criticus. Chapter III is a commentary elucidating the three texts. Part II (Chapter IV) examines the metaphrastic process on the basis of a detailed comparison of the three texts edited in the thesis with their extant premetaphrastic sources in terms of historical information, development of the plot, and a textual analysis including structure, syntax, vocabulary and style (Sections A-C). The Conclusions summarise the findings of the thesis in an attempt to give an assessment of the method and techniques used in the metaphrastic process. The thesis closes with full bibliography and Plates with facsimiles of selected folios of Mss cited.

This thesis examines the history of body-soul debates in English, Anglo-Nonnan, Northern French and Gennan from c.1200-1500. Focusing uniquely on the question of contexts rather than origins for the debates, I summarise their roots in apocryphal and pre-Christian myth before turning to close readings of the debates themselves and detailed examinations of their manuscripts. I argue that the various adaptations of the Latin 'Visio Philiberti' should be seen not only within the context of each language's vernacular literature, but also as a reaction to doctrinal changes in Christian theology during the period in which they were written. I also look at how these adaptations reflect the transmission of the debates by the religious orders, and examine the evidence for my argument that each bodysoul debate constructs specific paradigms of body and soul's relationship, focusing in particular on the differences between the hostile debates in England and France on the one side, and the 'friendly' debates in Gennany on the other. Finally, I examine parallel developments in the regulation of vernacular devotional literature in England, France and Germany in the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, using a case study ofBL MS Additional 37049 to argue that these developments are reflected in more repressive and authoritarian adaptations of body-soul debates. Siting this hypothesis within the context of recent discussions of 'vernacular theology', I argue that body-soul debates functioned as literature which sanctioned authoritarian attitudes to vernacular literature and society, while at the same time presenting the possibility of a dialogic response to repressive measures and destabilising the 'topoi' of obedience and subservience that they ostensibly support.

Edward Fisher’s The Marrow of Modern Divinity, first published in 1645 in England, was republished in Scotland in 1718 by Church of Scotland minister James Hog, quickly becoming the focal point of what would be known as the Marrow controversy.  Rival parties developed within the Church of Scotland, the smaller of which were the supporters of The Marrow, or the Marrow brethren.  In the context of the controversy over the book they formulated a defence of it, with particular reference to the doctrines of the atonement, saving faith, and the gospel offer: this was the Scottish expression of Marrow theology. Leading figures among the Marrow brethren included Thomas Boston, Ebenezer Riccaltoun, and Ebenezer Erskine.  In 1733, little more than a decade later, Ebenezer Erskine and several other Church of Scotland ministers separated from the church over the issue of patronage, forming the Associate Presbytery, the beginning of a new Scottish Presbyterian and Reformed denomination.  Historians and theologians, particularly in the 20th century, have suggested that Marrow theology was characteristic of the Secession church movement; however, no thorough examination and analysis of existing historical evidence (ecclesiastical documents and the published sermons and theological writings of Secession ministers and theologians) supporting or challenging this claim have been made. This dissertation, based on research conducted through the years 2006-2009, argues there is evidence for both a general or thematic continuity of Marrow theology as expressed in the context of the Scottish Marrow controversy, and, at points, for direct historical dependence on the published works and distinctive theology and language used by the Marrow brethren.

Recent research has suggested the nullification of tensions between monks and the Church following the official subordination of the former to the latter in the legislation of the mid-fifth-century Council of Chalcedon. This thesis argues, however, that potential tensions between the Church and ascetic groups were perpetuated not only by sustained monastic economic independence, but also, more crucially, by the monastic intellectual tendency to associate spiritual attainment primarily with ascetical self-transformation, to the detriment of sacrament and ecclesial mediation. It explores the gradual reconciliation of ascetical and sacramental themes through the seventh-century works of three closely associated Palestinian monks: John Moschus, Sophronius Sophista and Maximus Confessor. In the wake of the early seventh-century Persian and Arab invasions, and in the face of imperial, dogmatic interventionism, the attitudes of the Moschan circle towards the terrestrial Church began to change. The conceptualisation of Persian and Arab invasion as the product of collective sin not only precipitated a redefinition of Christian community and ascetic social responsibility, it also had the more immediate effect of removing Palestinian monks from their previous economic basis. Increasingly alienated from Constantinople both by eastern economic crisis and imperial religious policy, such monks sought their patrons at a papal court equally ill-disposed to imperial doctrine, and in turn dependent upon eastern ascetics not only for the articulation of Roman theology in Greek, but also for the maintenance of the papal chain to ecumenical primacy. Within that context, Moschus, Sophronius and Maximus urgently propounded models of Christian unity which centralised the Eucharist as the pinnacle of Christian life and recognised the necessity of clerical mediation. At the same time, such models acknowledged papal primacy and denied the religious authority of the emperor.

This thesis attempts to analyse the manner in which various unexamined presumptions have influenced the historical study of Protestant Christianity in Korea. The main argument is that the perspectives and methods utilised by the Korean Protestant historians in their study of Protestant Christian history in Korea simply serve to replicate these presumptions. Despite the purported application of different perspective in their historical study of Protestant Christianity in Korea the actual written histories of the Korean Protestant historians remain identical in nearly all aspects. The first three chapters provide the theoretical basis for a critical and comparative analysis of the five Korean Protestant historians. It will be demonstrated that Korean Protestant historians systematically fail to obtain a coherent understanding of the very context in which their historical studies are undertaken. This failure leads the historians to uncritically appropriate various historical presumptions regarding Protestant Christianity into their histories. This further leads to the actual written histories adopting identical forms and contents. Three examples of how the uncritical appropriation of presumptions distorts the reality of the historical experience show that the failure by the historians to question such presumptions results in distorted narratives and mistaken interpretations of historical experiences. Furthermore, these presumptions function as a master narrative that undermines the appropriate application of the purported historiographical perspectives of the Korean Protestant historians. The final part of the thesis seeks to identify theoretical and methodological alternatives that can inform the historical study of Protestant Christianity in Korea. Developments in methodology and perspective with regard to the historical study of Christianity as a world religion can provide useful insights into how Korean Protestant historical studies can move beyond its present state of entrapment.

This study examines how the two strands which made up Presbyterianism in Scotland in the years between 1830 and 1914 coped with the challenges presented to them by the urban crisis which arose in the 1830s and 1840s. The huge increase in the urban population which experienced the effects of cyclical trade depressions and consequent unemployment posed an unprecedented problem to a system of poor relief unable to cope. That system of poor relief was initially provided through voluntary contributions made by the Kirk Session and Heritors of the Church of Scotland. Even after poor relief became the responsibility of Parochial Boards, these Boards were largely composed of office-bearers in the Church. The study covers the years from around 1830 to the outbreak of the First World War. 1830 was chosen because by then the effect of industrial change was beginning to be felt and from then onwards accelerated considerably, most especially in Paisley where traditional weaving soon began to decline. The immigrant population, drawn to Glasgow by the prospect of work, had settled into the subdivided tenements and partitioned town houses which were to cause social problems for the rest of the century. The population of Glasgow grew from around 274,000 in 1830 to 761,000 by the turn of the century, and the Churches found themselves having to address the social problems which grew along with the size of the city. This study ends with the outbreak of the First World War, by which time the beginnings of the welfare state had been established and the energies of the Church of Scotland and the United free Church of Scotland began to be focussed on the process which was to lead to their union in 1929. 2 The study concentrates largely on the west of Scotland because most of the larger studies of the ecclesiastical history of the period have concentrated on Edinburgh and made use of Edinburgh sources. This study is an attempt to redress the balance, but also to recognise that it was in the west of Scotland, first in Paisley with the collapse of the weaving industry and then in Glasgow with the housing crisis which the increase in population through immigration brought about. This study follows two methods. Because its central argument is that Robert Flint’s book Christ’s Kingdom upon Earth, published in 1865, was of crucial importance in the development of a social theology in the Presbyterian Churches of the 19th century, this is an example of historical theology within the history of ideas, and so the research which reflects this aspect of the study has been based on the examination and critical assessment of theological publications, pamphlets, sermons and speeches of the period, all of which provide a rich vein of material on which the conclusions can be based. Because the effect of Robert Flint’s understanding of the Kingdom of God was found initially in the work of those most closely influenced by him, and then later on the context which the theological matrix of the Kingdom of God provided for debates within particularly the United Free Church, this study examines the narrative of the Church’s engagement with society over the period under review, and has involved the study of original church and municipal sources.

The central investigation ofthis thesis is to examine the role of the Presbyterian . Church in Ireland at a time of proposed major constitutional change. The Home Rule era provides the historical context for this, and an attempt will be made to explore the Presbyterian Church's response, and subsequent action, relative to the three Home Rule Bills. This general investigation will in turn be complemented by a more . specific investigation ofthe individual roles played during the Home Rule era by two leading Presbyterian elders, namely Thomas Sinclair and Thomas Dickson. Their respective positions will indicate why the church was never able to speak with one voice on this momentous issue. In the mid nineteenth century both men were Liberals, politically, but with the introduction ofHome Rule the former was led to espouse the Unionist cause while the latter became a Nationalist. The differences between both men on the Home Rule issue were to be reflected, to some extent, in the Presbyterian Church at large and in its highest judicial and legislative body, the General Assembly. The heart ofthis thesis is to recall the story ofIrish Presbyterianism in the Home Rule era with reference to these two prominent elders. It is not primarily an attempt to draw any definitive conclusions in relation to its responsibility to exercise a prophetic witness within the political realm, and its Biblical imperative to render allegiance to the government, as in Romans 13: 1, although the investigation will allude to it. A comparison ofthe present, and Home Rule periods will be made, and the political aspinitions and attitudes ofPresbyterians today and then will be viewed with parallels drawn, but such is not the main aim ofthis thesis. That aim is primarily to chronicle how the Presbyterian Church reacted to the Home Rule proposals. Looking at the position it took, the alliances it made, the policies it adopted, and to examine the influence. and involvement that Sinclair and Dickson had from their respective political positions.

During the seventeenth century, the episcopate of the Church of Ireland underwent a radical transformation. Bishops from the Old English and Irish communities were replaced by English and Scottish émigrés. This thesis is not only the first survey of the Irish episcopate in the seventeenth century, but it also assess the impact of a church 'governed mostly be strangers'. It analyses the attitudes and episcopal styles of bishops in the church from 1603 to 1660, discovering how the mainly English bishops influenced the development of Protestantism in Ireland and how they responded to the special challenges in the Church of Ireland. The new English and Scottish bishops entered a church with financial and structural problems. The population was comprised of Irish, English and Scottish communities who held a spectrum of religious beliefs, from Catholicism to Presbyterianism. The episcopate attempted to maintain Protestant unity by promoting an ideology that focused on common areas of agreement within the Protestant community, namely, opposition to Catholicism. This anti-Catholic ideology influenced their attitudes and policies towards the Catholic population. For most of this period, the church followed a counterproductive stance that did little to secure the conformity or conversion of the Irish people. Bishops held differing views about their role in Ireland. Some saw administration as their priority, others refining the theology of the Church. One group focused upon secular interests and the establishment of their own financial and social positions in Irish society. These ecclesiastical adventurers contributed to a competitive relationship with the New English community. Rather than protecting the church the New English exploited its resources. The bishops were leaders of a minority church in Ireland and had limited status and political power, in contrast to their counterparts in the Church of England. Consequently, they struggled to make substantive improvements to the church.

The thesis argued is that in the fourth and fifth centuries ecclesiastical authorities in Rome sought to Christianise the city and its inhabitants through the location of new basilicas within the walls. The current consensus argues that all the churches constructed within the city were built where they were due to Christian land ownership of that site, because an area was a particularly populous one, or that there was a pre-Constantinian 'house-church' on the spot. This, for me, is looking at the city on too superficial a level. If we move away from this perspective and more towards a viewpoint that actually sees these fourth and fifth century churches in the context of the buildings that surrounded them, we can then regard them in the way the contemporary population of Rome would have. In this way, I believe we can reveal an intentional programme by the Roman Church of placing many of its centres of worship in strategically useful areas for its own benefit. In other words, the frequent proximity of these churches to other important buildings or public areas I believe had an effect on worshippers at those churches and on general passers-by. The intended effect, I would argue, was to increase church attendance and create visible and memorable Christian markers throughout the city in order to gradually 'Christianise' it. I put forward the idea that there were four main factors that Christian builders of this period consciously considered and looked for when they were building a new church. They were: (i) is it easily accessible or highly visible (ii) is it close to an area of frequent public congregation (iii) is it near to a significant pre-existing pagan structure or (iv) is it proximate to a bath house and therefore having some sort of relationship with it Not all the Christian churches of this period fit these criteria but, I conclude, most do and therefore argue for a conscious strategy by the Church to Christianise and consequently 'de-paganise' the city. The criteria I have described are not however new maxims for religious buildings. Most of these considerations were followed by the builders of pagan structures in the Classical city, although here for the benefit and notoriety of the builder rather than any desire to promote a specific cult. The increased popularity of a deity may have been an unintentional side-effect however, but whatever the case, such considerations certainly made temples the most visible and prominent buildings in a city. As a result, as well as examining Christian case-studies to argue my case, I will also look at the pagan structures that follow the same rules, as their prominence and importance was something the Church wanted to replicate for its centres of worship. This, I hope, will serve as a comparison and show how builders of churches were merely using more ancient techniques to achieve their ends. My thesis begins with a broad introduction including the historiography of the topic, which in fact overlaps many fields, and where I stand within it. My first chapter sets out my reasoning for thinking that the Roman Church controlled its own building programme independently from the state and so could potentially choose sites on which to build for its own benefit. The second chapter begins my discussion of these churches by looking at those where visibility and easy accessibility was a priority. The third section looks at those Christian centres that can claim an association with a pagan temple or shrine and what the implications of this may be. The fourth and fifth chapters examine those churches that have some sort of relationship with a theatre or circus or a bath-house respectively. Finally, I argue against the theory that some intra-mural churches were built on the site of famous martyrdoms by showing how the evidence for this is anachronistic and suspicious. To serve as a comparison, the belief that certain churches were built over a martyr's tomb is justifiable, as here we have reliable and convincing evidence. To complete the thesis I draw together the accumulated evidence and make my conclusions.

The thesis aims to show that the Western tradition has its own vibrant, rich, profoundly significant and enduringly relevant concept ofmystery which can best be seen to be present in the evolution of its liturgy and in associated intellectual culture in the first millennium CEo The significance of mysterium in western liturgical texts and theological writing of the second half of this period has been particularly neglected in liturgical and wider scholarship, and in the tendency to assume that the Christian East has the stronger theology of mystery, but it needs to be noticed and acknowledged for its intrinsic value and ifmodem issues in liturgical change and reconstruction are to be properly understood. In this recovery and its interpretation lies the overall originality of the thesis. Part I discusses modern approaches to mystery in the context of liturgy, highlighting and challenging some assumptions and misURderstandings that have arisen in, for example, the translation of liturgical texts. The value of the classic approaches of Baumstark and Casel is acknowledged; that of Casel is argued to be an insufficient response in itself to the importance of liturgical mystery. Three modern writers are deployed to show that mystery has a significance across disciplinary boundaries. There follow discussions of mystery as religious language, in relation to knowledge, revelation and visual art, drawing critically on and originally juxtaposing a diverse range of theological scholarship and literary geme in order to point to a common theme of what is here termed the 'moreness' of God, and the ultimate inability of language to fully describe or make known the initiative and activity of God, and to propose that, paradoxically, mystery is a necessary form of language used to indicate these very limitations. Liturgy is the supreme locus of mystery in these terms. Part II' embeds this argument first in a critical re-evaluation of the origins and background of mystery in its Greek (mysterion) and Latin (mysterium) forms and of scholarly opinion on these in late antique religious and early Christian contexts, including a fresh assessment of the notion that mystery language tended to be avoided in a sacramental context until about the fourth century CE because of its perceived associations with pagan mystery cults. The relationship between mysterium and sacramentum is then discussed and evaluated in the light of existing scholarship and new research which concentrates especially on those instances where the terms appear in the same sentence, in order to dispel the common and hitherto insufficiently challenged assumption that they . are synonymous. Their interplay shows mysterium itself to be a critically important and polyvalent term in emerging sacramental and liturgical discourse. The relatively few instances of mystery as a term in surviving early liturgical forms of eastern and western provenance are evaluated, and the original argument made that the wider use ofmystery language in the Latin tradition from the fourth century needs to be seen alongside the transition of liturgical formulae from the largely improvised to the fixed written text:. mysterium is the link, since it represents in textual terms the divine initiative assumed by the practice of improvisation. The continuing importance, richness and theological significance of the term is shown by a detailed analysis of its use in selected examples of the texts which emerged from this process. It is further shown to be a significant notion in an example of an intellectual context in which texts of this type were used, the Carolingian era and in its theological writers including the liturgist Alcuin and the allegorist Amalarius, in the Expositio Antiquae Liturgiae Gallicanae, in the debate surrounding Adoptionism, and in the so-called, but here argued to be misinterpreted, eucharistic 'controversy' between Ratrarnnus and Paschasius Radbertus. Carolingian responses to visual art lead to the original proposal that in this period text effectively functions much as art does in expressing 'moreness'. This has implications for liturgical text in the modern era and suggests a more creative approach to issues surrounding liturgical change. Mystery is the necessary language which lies at the centre of this approach.

The collection of books assembled for Leofric, bishop of Exeter, during the twenty-two years of his episcopacy has been the subject of sustained scholarly attention, which has just started to uncover the importance that scriptorial materials have in illuminating the life and deeds of the bishop. Due to the lack of a hagiography dedicated to him, Leofric's importance in the eleventh century church has long remained obscure. The following thesis endeavours to shed new light on the activities that underpinned Leofric's episcopacy through an investigation into the books compiled at the bishop's behest. In particular, four homiliaries are here under scrutiny from a perspective that is both physical and textual: these manuscripts contain a selection of texts that Leofric requested specifically for performing his pastoral remit and that, for this reason, represent the bishop's interests. The analysis of some of these texts demonstrates that, when studied in their manuscript context, homilies yield crucial information on the way in which preaching materials were used and on the audiences to whom they were directed in times subsequent to their composition. The way in which Leofric exploited homiletic works dating to the late tenth century was innovative and original in so far as it reflected the administration policies that he adopted for his diocese and the reforms that he activated in restructuring a decaying episcopal see. His pastoral achievements were not only important in the context of the eleventh-century English episcopate but also in a broader, continental perspective and were attained as part of a reforming programme that would later culminate in the Gregorian Reform. Leofric's Lotharingian education triggered the activation of these reforms at Exeter at a time when Lotharingian prelates held prominent positions in the western Christendom.

The following thesis is concerned with reconstructing the life of Eugippius of Lucullanum, abbot of the monastery of St Severinus. We must rely upon written sources for the majority of our information about Eugippius' career as biographer and abbot, and we have three texts from which we must reconstruct the details of his vocation. The texts are useful for a multitude of reasons, and have already been utilized by scholars working on diverse topics. They also reflect three distinct phases and interests of Eugippius' career. First chronologically is his Excerpta ex operibus sancti Augustini, a florilegium dedicated to the virgin Proba; second we have the Vita sancti Severini, Eugippius' most personal work, chronicling the life and miracles of his mentor, St Severinus; finally, we have a monastic regula that has only recently been ascribed to Eugippius; this rule contains extracts from a range of earlier authorities, from Augustine to Cassian to the Regula Magistri. All three sources are problematic, as they are fundamentally lacking in personal details, which makes reconstructing Eugippius' activities a complex and challenging task. For additional information, we must look to both the environment in which he was working, which involves examining the political situation in Italy following Theoderic's rise to power, as well as the religious tensions precipitated by the Acacian and Laurentian Schisms. Finally, it is also necessary to consult the works of Eugippius' circle of contacts, as often their personal details, letters, and written documents provide details that are omitted from Eugippius' own work.

This thesis examines the history and activity of the Western religious orders in medieval Greece, from the time of their transplantation into Byzantine territories, following the Fourth Crusade, until the fifteenth century and the Ottoman conquest. Geographically it focuses on the areas conquered by the Latins during or after the Fourth Crusade, in other words, the lands of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Due to the nature of the sources, particular attention is paid to the insular Venetian dominions and especially the island of Crete. The religious orders examined are the Benedictines, the Cistercians, the Franciscans, the Dominicans, the Crociferi, and the Augustinians as well as other orders, with a smaller involvement in medieval Greece, like the Servites, the Carmelites and the Canons Regular. Each of the thesis's chapters focuses on one particular Order (or group of Orders). By examining a variety of published and unpublished sources, I have attempted to investigate the history of the individual convents and eventually to form a comprehensive picture of the installation of these Orders in Greece. In particular, I have focused on the missionary and Unionist goals of the Orders in Greece, their structure and organisation, their interaction with the newly established Catholic Church and Latin laity of Greece, their relations with the indigenous population and their diplomatic and cultural achievements. Where the sources allow it, I have also tried to establish the financial standing of some of these religious houses and to investigate their sources of income and their land tenure. The conclusion of the thesis draws together the findings of my research and makes comparisons between the structure, activity and success of each of the Orders in Greece. Having shed some light on the monastic landscape of medieval Greece, I argue that, although Latin monasticism in Greece has been regarded as a relatively insignificant by-product of the Franko-Venetian occupation of Byzantine lands, the religious orders played significant social, cultural and political roles both within the Latin communities of Greece and in wider international relations between Byzantium and the West. They largely failed, however, to appeal to the Greek population and thus Latinise the indigenous Greek society, like they had done in other frontiers of Latin Christendom.

This thesis considers the various church building schemes that took place in Glasgow during the early nineteenth century, focussing upon one particular model – that of church extension – to examine the way in which the Established Church of Scotland negotiated a space materially and culturally within the rapidly shifting socio-spatial dynamics of a city in the midst of processes of urbanisation and industrialisation. In so doing, the study asks what such schemes reveal of the Church’s understanding of both the city and its own role within society. The arguments used to persuade influential actors within the city to support the cause of church building are examined, and it is claimed that these arguments both drew upon and reiterated a series of claims that C. Brown has identified as belonging to a discourse of the ‘unholy city’. The material plans of church extension are next considered, detailing the mechanisms by which it was thought to work and the role of social élites in its establishment. It is claimed that, while clearly in keeping with earlier church-building plans, church extension was fundamentally different in concentrating upon churches not as means of accommodating worshippers but as centre points of a mechanism for evangelism, capable of impacting upon the manners and morals of wider society. Attention is drawn to the key influence of the Reverend Thomas Chalmers in the creation and application this model. Finally, the impacts that this was designed to have upon the city are considered, and used as a means of gaining insight into the shape of society sought by proponents of church extension. The thesis concludes by suggesting that while church extension can be interpreted critically as a tool of the Establishment, it is better conceived as a form of evangelism in which social improvement was a fundamental part, inseparable from the movement’s spiritual aspirations. Thus, it argues for the importance of understanding the Church as a religious community whose task is to engage theologically with society, and as a collection of individuals who are each a part of the very society upon which they seek to impact.

This thesis has investigated the geological origin of diamonds from the Ural Mountains. A set of inclusion-bearing diamonds from alluvial deposits in the western part of the Urals was characterised on the basis of their morphological features, nitrogen contents and nitrogen aggregation states, carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes, mineral inclusion geochemistry and radiometric isotopic ages of the inclusions. The vast majority of the studied diamonds are rounded dodecahedra, which indicates that the diamond population has experienced major resorption after crystallisation. The majority of the diamonds are affected by radiation damage and display evidence of transportation. Non-abraded diamonds exhibit similar surface features to those abraded, so they are probably of similar origin. The studied inclusion-bearing set of diamonds shares some characteristics with the overall, mostly inclusion-free, diamond population from the Ural Mountains. This similarity in physical characteristics strongly suggests that the Ural diamonds are all part of a single population. A Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectroscopy study allowed both the concentration of nitrogen and the aggregation states of this element to be quantified. Diamonds from other known primary deposits in the East European Craton (EEC) have FTIR signatures that do not match that of the studied population. Nitrogen thermometry results suggest that the Ural diamonds probably crystallised under similar pressure-temperature conditions. If a similar overall regime of formation for the Urals alluvial diamonds is considered, then a single primary diamond source or a spatial proximity between primary contributory sources seems likely. The variations in δ15N – δ13C measured in the Ural diamonds of the peridotitic and eclogitic paragenesis suggest derivation from a similar, initially homogenous, mantle carbon source which has been subjected to metasomatic-induced isotopic fractionation. However, for some δ15N-enriched – δ13C-depleted eclogitic diamonds, the possibility of crystallisation from subduction-related metasomatic fluids/melts cannot be excluded. Based on the chemical composition of syngenetic mineral inclusions recovered from the Ural diamonds, the eclogitic paragenesis (60%) dominates over the peridotitic (26%), with a minor websteritic assemblage also present (2%). The remaining 12% are diamonds with sulphide inclusions of unknown paragenesis. The chemistry of the mineral inclusions almost completely overlaps that of previous electron microprobe studies of inclusions in diamonds from worldwide localities. Geothermobarometric calculations show an overall agreement between the equilibration conditions of the three inclusion parageneses. The Ural diamonds crystallised at temperatures of 1050-1300°C, at minimum depths of about 165 km, within a diamondiferous lithosphere extending to at least 230 km at the time of diamond formation. The Re-Os isotope genesis age data for syngenetic sulphide inclusions and the 40Ar/39Ar laser probe eruption ages of syngenetic clinopyroxene inclusions were determined. Six eclogitic sulphide inclusions, two of which coexist in the same diamond, gave an isochron age of 1280 ± 310 Ma which may be associated with rift-related magmatism that affected the EEC at ca. 1.3 Ga. The determined genesis age is also similar to genesis ages reported for eclogitic diamonds from a number of mines in southern Africa, and this is probably indicative of a global diamond formation event at that time. Five eclogitic clinopyroxenes recovered from four diamonds yielded similar 40Ar/39Ar ages averaging 472 ± 28 Ma, which likely approximate the time of source kimberlite/lamproite eruption. This age indicates that the Ural diamonds are not derived either from the diamond-bearing kimberlites of the Siberian craton, nor from presently known Russian and Finnish kimberlite provinces on the EEC. An integrated model for the genesis, eruption and accumulation of the Ural diamonds in the context of the evolution of the EEC is proposed. The Urals placer deposits are mainly confined to 407-397 Ma sedimentary rocks along the western side of these mountains, with diamond size distribution indicating sediment transportation at that time generally from the north-west. The diamondiferous sedimentary accumulation in the Urals is envisaged as being analogous to that presently found along the Namaqualand / Namibian coastal belt in the western margin of southern Africa. During the construction of the Ural Mountains, the diamondiferous sediments became part of the western accretion zone when the EEC united with the Kazakhstan and Siberia plates during late Devonian through to late Triassic times. The evidence presented in this thesis suggests the existence of an undiscovered kimberlite/lamproite primary source, probably on the Volgo-Uralia crustal segment of the EEC, which gave rise to the Urals diamond deposits.

This thesis traces the establishment and development of a functioning reformed church in the parishes of Fife after the official Reformation of 1560. Based principally on archival sources, especially the records of the kirk sessions which governed the church at parish level, it examines how ecclesiastical institutions developed and interacted with laypeople, and evaluates the progress made in the challenging task of inculcating Protestant values and identity in Fife’s parishioners. The first section examines the development of the reformed church in three chapters on the parish ministry, church discipline, and reformed worship respectively. The progress made in providing parish ministers and establishing kirk sessions was hesitant, and it took several decades before the church’s institutions were functioning healthily across Fife. This gradual process of reformation was not what the original reformers wanted, but it may have in fact eased the transition to the more firmly Protestant parish culture that emerged around the turn of the century. The second section looks more thematically at three key aspects of the church, focusing mainly on this latter period. The fourth chapter analyses the ministry as a profession, while the fifth chapter goes on to discuss the efforts made to instruct the laity in more detailed Protestant understandings from the 1590s onwards. The sixth and final chapter returns to the subject of discipline, describing the main targets of the disciplinary regime and evaluating the effectiveness of discipline. The church that emerged in the seventeenth century was relatively healthy, staffed by a stable and well-educated ministry, and was starting to make much stronger efforts to educate and discipline the laypeople of Fife. The thesis concludes that while the Scottish Reformation still emerges as an ultimately successful transformation, the path to religious change was more complicated than has been appreciated by historians.

This thesis is an examination of the eucharistic doctrine of ten Scottish theological writers in the tradition of Scottish Episcopacy; five from the seventeenth century, two from the eighteenth century, and three from the nineteenth century. The doctrine espoused by each one throughout the stated period, 1620–1875, is found to agree with the other writers considered herein, because each writer turned to many of the same Church Fathers as the source of his doctrine and his interpretation of Holy Scripture. The argument of this thesis is that all of the writers, rejecting the Tridentine, Lutheran, Bezan-Calvinist, and Zwinglian definitions of the Eucharist, maintained a material sacrifice in the Eucharist, which is an offering to God the Father of bread and wine as the propitiatory memorial of Christ’s death on the Cross, commanded by Christ himself at the Last Supper. The sacrifice is propitiatory because it is the means of representing the one sacrifice of Christ on the Cross to God the Father, thereby pleading the benefits of the Cross for the communicants. The bread and wine do not change substance, but become effectively the body and blood of Christ. Three of the ten writers produced eucharistic rites, one in the seventeenth century, and two in the eighteenth century. It is argued that each of these rites is expressive of the Eucharist as being a commemorative and representative sacrifice. Each rite explicitly offers bread and wine to the Father, invokes the Holy Spirit’s action over the elements, and prays that by receiving the consecrated bread and wine as the body and blood of Christ, the communicants will receive the forgiveness of sins, the continuing grace of the Holy Spirit, and eternal life.

This thesis is concerned with the Order of Deaconesses within the Church of Scotland, which has been largely ignored or misrepresented in social, religious and culhrral history. It considers the role and status of the 'brown deaconess' (socalled because of the colour of her unifonn) and explores what made her different from other women workers in the Kirk. The thesisis organised in five thematic sections. The first section considers the rationale for studying deaconesses and the value and limitations of using a biographical approach. Section II places the Church of Scotland deaconess within the context of the wider deaconess movement and within the social, religious and culhrral changes that occurred in Scotland during the nineteenth century. The role of A. H. Charteris in the 'revival' ofdeaconesses within Scottish Presbyterianism is also considered. Section III assesses the selection and training ofdeaconesses and examines the religious symbolism, protocols and display associated with the setting apart ofdeaconesses. It also considers the semantics of language associated with this ceremony which reinforced notions of subordination. Section IV focuses upon the variety of service undertaken by deaconesses. It also explores the gender relationships between deaconesses and male office-bearers and how this affected their daily work. The final section considers how deaconesses perceived themselves by exploring their possible motivation for joining the diaconate, their aspirations and outlook. The sense of identity ofthe deaconess is assessed in the symbols, protocols and material culture associated with the order. The problems and difficulties facing deaconesses are also considered. This research suggests that the unrealistically high expectations placed upon deaconesses, that frequently resulted in serious breakdowns in health, combined with the vague, subordinate and anomalous position of the deaconess within the Kirk, contributed to the decline of the brown deaconess movement in the 1930s and 1940s.

This study investigates the development of Yoruba women's spirituality as it interacted with mission Christianity between1842 and 1930, highlighting three major concerns. The first is that conversion ofYoruba women to Christianity did not automatically transform their traditional beliefs, attitudes and practices as the missionary evangelists thought it would. Rather, the discovery made through this study is that conversion marked the beginning point for Yoruba women's spiritual transformation from their primal understanding of self, the family, the society and the Transcendent. Secondly, the dearth of women's perspectives on religious developments in Africa has led to the portrayal of the experiences of both women and men as being uniform. On the contrary, this study delineates fundamental issues relating to women that hindered them from moving away from their traditional values to embrace Christian attitudes and practices. These first two concerns above lead to the third argument that Yoruba women's spiritual transformation was closely tied to their cosmological worldview; thus precluding them from fully becoming Christians until Christianity was adapted to their cultural context. This study therefore highlights the primacy of Yoruba culture and worldview in women's interactions with missionaries who propagated the Gospel in Yorubaland. While most authors have relied on ethnographical approach, this study follows the examples of scholars such as J. D. Y. Peel and Ade Ajayi to derive the responses of Yoruba women to Christian spirituality from archival records in the form of journals, reports and correspondences of missionaries to Yorubaland, stored iii the archives. Out of a total of twenty four missionaries and their spouses who consistently interacted with Yoruba women in ways that significantly influenced their spirituality, twenty-one were from the CMS, two were Baptists and one was from the Methodist mission. Although Yoruba women, including wives ofYoruba missionaries did not document their religious encounters, the Church Missionary Society (CMS) had an effective arrangement by which its missionaries recorded and sent in details of their daily encounters with the Yoruba from the 1840s to the early 1900s. Similarly, the memoirs of some European women such as Miss Sarah Tucker and Mrs Anna Hinderer are also veritable sources used to evaluate Yoruba women's spiritual transformation. While:; Yoruba women were not deliberately targeted by missionaries, out of eight hundred and forty journal entries evaluated, forty eight per cent recorded encounters with women, either in the market, on the streets, in the blacksmith shop or in shrines where ritual proceedings were carried out. Although the Methodist Missionary Society's archive was consulted, unlike the CMS, the journal entries of their missionaries lacked details of their daily interactions with Yoruba people, especially women who are critical to this study, thus limiting its value for investigating contacts with women. However, other Methodist sources, such as the official magazine, The Gleaner, compensate for this shortfall. While the journals of Thomas Jefferson Bowen, which were later published in book form, are important sources for investigating Baptist work in Yorubaland, it is not clear how they survived while those of other Baptist missionaries such as Edwin Clark and Joseph Harden did not survive. The most critical finding in this thesis is that neither did Yoruba women become fully Christian, nor did Christianity become a Yoruba religion until the periods of absence of many foreign missionaries, first as a result of the American Civil War of the 1860s and then during World \Var I between 1914 and 1918. The first major sign of Yoruba women's spiritual renewal is traceable to the spiritual experiences of Abiodun Akinsowon and Sophie Odunlami who not only revived- aspects of Yoruba women's primal spirituality, but also adapted Christianity and gave it a Yoruba image. Some distinctive features ofYoruba women's spirituality that turned Christianity into a Yoruba religion include re-introduction of their leadership role, introduction of water as a healing agent, acceptance and interpretations of dreams, visions and revelations, and the resuscitation ofYoruba mode ofpraying. Secondly, this thesis establishes the link between African women's primal religious beliefs and practices and the form of their adapted Christian spirituality. While Yoruba women's spirituality went through various stages of quarantine, confrontation, assimilation and adaptation as it interacted with mission Christianity, Yoruba culture and worldview remain prominent features of each stage. Although religious conversions were made at each stage, the attitudes, beliefs and practices which define meaningful relationship with humanity and the Transcendent, were not totally transformed until Christianity was adapted to incorporate significant aspects of the culture and worldview of the Yoruba. The implications to be drawn from this is that for Chiistianity to survive as an indigenous religion, women in each Yoruba generation, will need to look back at Yoruba history, culture and worldview to satisfy their search for meaning.

The study examines the history, operation and growth of Legitimate ('lawful') Commerce in Yorubaland, and its utilization as a missionary strategy for abrogating the Slave Trade and empowering indigenous Christians in Yorubaland. It examines also the decline of Legitimate Commerce after some three decades. This study hence explores theory and practice from the neglected angle of theology and argues that the absence of such consideration has given too negative an image to modern mission in Africa. The traditional idea of portraying the missionaries' commercial experiment as a continuity of British enterprise in Africa, or as a prelude to imperialism, is here rejected on the basis of the documentary evidence. Rather, although Legitimate Commerce lost its vitality as an economic alternative for Africa, its operation shows that it stood out as a missionary strategy for abrogating the unlawful Slave Trade. This thesis critically examines the experiment from the period of the influence of Legitimate Commerce in the 1840s to the time of its decline from the 1870s. Such an evaluation of the vital missionary economic emancipation strategy in Yorubaland is the main concern of this thesis. This research uses primary materials in missionary archives to investigate three key issues that distinguish missionaries' economic initiative from the indiscriminate enterprises of nineteenth-century traders in Yorubaland. It fills some of the missing links in missionary sources with information from resolutions and minutes of selected English Chambers of Commerce, the Liverpool Journal of Commerce, the Manchester Guardian, the Liverpool Daily Courier, the John Holt Papers and some official papers of the Foreign and the Colonial Offices. Contrary to the popular view that missionaries were agents for advancement of imperial nations' social, economic and political interests, it is argued that Legitimate Commerce was genuinely beneficial to those to whom it was directed.

This thesis is the first large-scale study of the mission of the Anglo-Saxon Saint Boniface to Hessia, a region in the centre of modern Germany, between 721 and 754. The aim of the study is to explore in more detail than has so far been achieved three aspects of the Bonifatian mission in Hessia: first, his fonnative years in Wessex and the political context of Hessia before his arrival; second, the ways in which the Anglo-Saxon missionaries represented certain aspects of mission in their literary discourse with Insular and Roman contacts; third, the specific challenges of the mission and the methods used by the missionaries to overcome them. The thesis takes an interdisciplinary approach that has not yet been attempted in Bonifatian studies. The historical sources chiefly include the surviving letters of Boniface and his associates as well as the later vitae of Boniface and several other figures connected to his mission. The archaeological sources include furnished burials, fortifications, settlements and ceramics. These sources are brought together with the aid of a considerable amount of original toponymical and topographical research within Hessia itself. The thesis is divided into three parts. In Part I, after an introduction and historiography (chapter 1), the theoretical and methodological foundations of the thesis are established (chapter 2). In Part II, Boniface's early years in the West Saxon church (chapter 3) and the development of Frankish rule in Hessia between the early sixth century and the beginning of Boniface's mission (chapter 4) are contextualised more fully than previous studies have attempted. In chapter 3 several features of the church and kingdom of Wessex are identified that would fundamentally inform Boniface's approach in Hessia. In chapter 4 a new model for the development of Frankish influence in Hessia up to 721 is outlined, and its significance for the Bonifatian mission discussed. Part III focuses attention on the Bonifatian mission in Hessia. Chapter 5 offers a broad overview of the mission: important cronological matters are discussed and clarified and the progress and development of the mission between 721 and 754 is outlined. It is argued that Boniface made a concerted attempt to evangelise Saxony from 739 onwards, but that his efforts were thwarted by growing political instability 2 on the Hessian-Saxon borderlands and the opposition of elements of the Rhineland Frankish church to his mission. Chapters 6 and 7 explore two important aspects of the mission. First (chapter 6), the letters of Boniface and LuI are subjected to careful textual analysis. Second (chapter 7), several specific features of the Hessian mission are explored in more detail. In chapter 6 a distinction is identified in the nature of the literary discourse between the missionary community and papal Rome on the one hand, and the missionary community and the Insular Anglo-Saxon church on the other. The argument is made that the literary representation of the mission in letters between Anglo-Saxons, in contrast to letters between Anglo-Saxons and Rome, reflected a distinctive conceptualisation of continental mission that combined emotive themes of peregrillatio, suffering and the concept of Germallia as an ancestral homeland that had been ensnared by Satan. In chapter 7 the Bonifatian mission In Hessia is examined from several viewpoints. Using topographical and toponymical evidence, an original argument is put forward for the existence of numerous pagan cult sites within Hessia that together constituted part of a pre-Christian 'sacred landscape'. This is followed by an examination of the earliest ecclesiatical foundations of Hessia. New observations and arguments are proposed concerning the development of Hessia's early ecclesiastical landscape during Boniface's mission, and this landscape is then discussed in relation to the 'pagan' landscape which it was intended to supplant. This is followed by a detailed discussion of Boniface's attempts to gain material support for his mission through his dealings with the Frankish clerical and lay elites, with a special emphasis, using original charter-based research, on his relationship with the local secular elites of Hessia. Finally, the ways in which Boniface evangelised and instructed the population of Hessia and attempted to maintain control of his mission territories are examined. By taking a broad, contextualising, interdisciplinary approach, this study illuminates the ways in which Boniface, strongly influenced by the structure of the West Saxon church, made practical attempts to establish a coherent ecclesiastical network in a politically volatile region where pagan customs and identity were deeply inscribed in the landscape. Through the textual analysis of the letters, the dissertation also presents the argument that the conceptualisation of mission as an inherently painful peregrinatio encouraged Boniface and his fellow missionaries, despite circumstances of extreme adversity in Boniface's final years, not to abandon their largely thwarted evangelisation of the Hessian-Saxon borderlands. In doing so, the study offers invaluable new perspectives on and insights into the Bonifatian mission in Hessia. The second volume of the thesis contains: three appendices giving the results of the textual analysis of the letters of Boniface and Lul discussed in chapter 6; two appendices listing the grantors of property to Hersfeld and Fulda referred to in the discussion of charter evidence in chapter 7; and all figures and plates referred to in the first volume.

This thesis examines the ways in which mid-nineteenth century evangelicals imagined and talked about the concepts of time and eternity, focusing particularly upon the eschatological position termed 'historicist premillennialism'. Although often seen as indicative of a reactionary or pessimistic tum in nineteenth-century evangelicalism, this study argues that historicist premillennialist thought was closely related to ideas that are usually viewed as progressive or optimistic within nineteenthcentury religious life. Historicist premillennialism is understood as part of the development of Victorian theology in which the temporal sphere (or 'time') came to receive new emphasis as an important and enduring element within the purposes of God, rather than as a simply a place of preparation for heaven (or 'eternity'). Drawing on sermons, tracts, and religious periodicals, this thesis examines four aspects of historicist premillennialism which exhibited this growing emphasis upon the temporal-spatial sphere. First, it demonstrates that historicist premillennialists believed that God manifested his purposes in history, working gradually through nations to enact his plan of redemption. Secondly, it examines their belief that God would establish his eternal kingdom on earth, not in an immaterial heaven, thus creating the conditions in which resurrected human beings could continue to live in society forever. Thirdly, it suggests that this high view of the physical universe led some historicist premillennialists to hope that intimate communion with the 'eternal' could be experienced even within the present dispensation, thus prompting some reconsideration of whether 'eternity' was best understood as a quality of existence, rather than as a future state. Finally, the thesis examines the commitment shown by some historicist premillennialists to ameliorative social reform. It suggests that their eschatological commitment to materiality, and also a belief that God was concerned with behaviour of communities as well as with individual morality, explains the growth of reforming sentiment within the movement.