Reviews of Books
1214
proofreading and some more substantial mistakes, for
example in the discussion of statute law (p. 185).
SCOTT MANDELBROTE
University of Cambridge
and University of Oxford
DONALD A. SPAETH. The Church in an Age of Danger
Parsons and Parishioners, 1660-1740. (Cambridge
Studies in Early Modern British History.) New York:
Cambridge University Press. 2000. Pp. xiii, 279. $64.95.
Donald A. Spaeth's account of the Church of England
in Wiltshire between 1660 and 1740 has been eagerly
awaited and does not disappoint. Recent revisionist
studies of the eighteenth-century church present a
more optimistic and sympathetic portrayal of its pastoral work than previous literature. Spaeth's monograph is particularly timely, as it reverts to a less
optimistic interpretation, but one argued out in full
awareness of the opposition's case.
Spaeth's argument is pithily summarized in his closing sentences: "The defensiveness and mental rigidity
of the Church . . . and its clergy [by 1740] did not bode
well for the future . . . [T]he main danger to the
Church came from within" (p. 259). Yet in 1660, he
argues, few wished to pursue their spiritual life outside
the confines of the established church: in effect, the
church had profligately alienated a fund of popular
goodwill, with the key to its travails found "in the
nature of relationships between the people and the
clergy"; indeed, the problems it faced were "more
psychological than structural" (pp. 9, 10).
Spaeth's argument is pursued through a close reading of the parochial history of the diocese of Salisbury,
where conditions favored the church's pastoral efforts.
His early chapters vividly portray the Wiltshire clergy
(a variegated constituency, many of whom were positioned uncomfortably somewhere between the lay elite
and rural poor), and the "arenas of conflict" in which
the parish disputes that are his main theme were
played out, the ecclesiastical and secular courts.
Spaeth's sure-footed account of the often complex
jurisdictional framework in which conflict was structured distinguishes his work. Few accounts of parochial dissension are illuminated by so clear an understanding both of the exact standing of clerical
participants and of the various choices in terras of
litigation open to the contending parties. These analyses inform a chapter on "The Management of Disputes" that is especially enlightening in its account of
the role of different elements in parish communities in
sustaining clergy/lay antagonism.
Subsequent chapters investigate the issues that generated significant tensions, often illustrated by wellchosen analyses of individual disputes. Spaeth makes
much of presentments concerning pastoral neglect as
evidence of lay demand for due Anglican provision. He
argues that these were ultimately more significant than
the more familiar and lurid charges involving clerical
scandal, although the latter often formed part of more
AMERICAN HISTORICAL REVIEW
complex disputes, sometimes with sectarian dimensions. The central importance of tithe in disrupting
relations between cleric and parish is reaffirmed, not
just as a grievance in itself but as the origin of legal
cases that won the clergy an unenviable reputation as
litigious termagants. Another key theme is the negative impact of the church's drive for uniformity, not
just on nonconformists but on the very sense of parish
community it sought to restore. Moreover, a fear of
sectarian overtones discouraged pastoral initiatives
that might have bolstered the church and, as a chapter
on popular religious observance argues, distanced
clerics from a lay understanding of Anglican practice
that "owed as much to the Interregnum as to the
Prayer Book." The laity stijl demanded clerical legitimation of rites of passage but found clerical efforts to
assert control over worship in the church, in particular
over the role of lay musical participation, objectionable: here clerical reaction resulted in a missed opportunity for building on popular commitment.
How convincing is Spaeth's overall thesis? He demonstrates the ubiquity of clergy/lay disputes but does
not always convince that these should be understood as
so directly affecting lay attitudes to the church as an
institution or as being as fraught as the examples
highlighted. As Spaeth is well aware, legal sources are
problematic both in terms of representativeness and as
the basis for accounts of the motivations and roles of
participants. Historians of the late Hanoverian church
may find Spaeth's account of the situation by 1740
overly pessimistic, perhaps because as with many other
studies it implies too monochromatic an understanding
of the dynamics of a successful popular religion. But
this is a book to enjoy arguing with: the revisionists
must now raise their game.
ARTHUR BURNS
King's College London
FRANK M. TURNER. John Henry Newman: The Challenge
to Evangelical Religion. New Haven: Yale University
Press. 2002. Pp. xii, 740. $35.00.
Based on impressive research in primary sources including manuscripts, this book portrays John Henry
Newman's challenge to evangelical religion during the
Tractarian Movement from 1833 to 1845. Frank M.
Turner depicts the movement as being in opposition to
the Erastian influence of the English state between
1833 and 1836, and to evangelical religion. From 1836
to 1839, it went from criticisms of contemporary
evangelical religious practices to criticisms of historic
Protestant doctrines such as supremacy of the Bible.
After 1839, Newman, the Tractarian leader, went
through a gradual conversion to Roman Catholicism
that culminated in 1845, and he engaged in ascetic
practices. Turner rightly observes that Newman's own
account of his religious opinions in Apologia Pro Vita
Sua (1864) is an intellectualized one and that his
emotions are largely absent from it.
Turner's portrayal has considerable strengths but
OCTOBER 2003