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Conferences and Combination Lectures in the Elizabethan Church: Dedham and Bury St Edmunds, 1582-1590

Conferences and Combination Lectures in the Elizabethan Church: Dedham and Bury St Edmunds, 1582-1590

Patrick Collinson
John Craig
Brett Usher
Series: Church of England Record Society
Copyright Date: 2003
Edition: NED - New edition
Published by: Boydell and Brewer,
Pages: 416
https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7722/j.ctt163tbxb
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  • Book Info
    Conferences and Combination Lectures in the Elizabethan Church: Dedham and Bury St Edmunds, 1582-1590
    Book Description:

    At the heart of Elizabeth I's reign, a secret conference of clergymen met in and around Dedham, Essex, on a monthly basis in order to discuss matters of local and national interest. Their collected papers, a unique survival from the clandestine world of early English nonconformity, are here printed in full for the first time, together with a hitherto unpublished narrative by the Suffolk minister, Thomas Rogers, which throws a flood of light on similar, if more public, clerical activity in and around Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, during the same period. Taken together, the two texts provide an unrivalled insight into the minds and the methods of that network of 'godly' ministers whose professed aim was to modify the strict provisions of the Elizabethan settlement of religion, both by ceaseless lobbying and by practical example. The editors' introduction accordingly emphasizes the complex nature of the English protestant tradition between the Tudor mid-century and the accession of James I, as well as attempting to plot the politico-ecclesiastical developments of the 1580s in some detail. A comprehensive biographical register of the members of the Dedham conference, of the Bury St Edmunds lecturers, and of many other important names mentioned in the texts, completes the volume. PATRICK COLLINSON is Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge; JOHN CRAIG is associate professor at Simon Fraser University; BRETT USHER is an expert on Elizabethan clergy.

    eISBN: 978-1-84615-050-0
    Subjects: History, Religion

Table of Contents

  1. Front Matter
    (pp. i-iv)
  2. Table of Contents
    (pp. v-v)
  3. List of illustrations
    (pp. vi-vi)
  4. Abbreviations
    (pp. vii-xii)
  5. Preface and Acknowledgments
    (pp. xiii-xix)
  6. [Illustration]
    (pp. xx-xx)
  7. INTRODUCTION
    (pp. xxi-cxvi)

    The Church of England as redefined by the Elizabethan settlement of religion (1559–70) was a curious concoction, unique among the national churches of the reformation era. Traditionally described by Anglican historians as a compromise church of thevia media, halfway between Rome and Geneva, something lauded as a piece of national pride (in George Herbert’s words ‘A fine aspect in fit array,/Neither too mean, nor yet too gay’),¹ it was really nothing of the kind, unless the combination of strangely discrepant elements makes for a kind of compromise. The official doctrine of the thirty-nine articles, as glossed by leading...

  8. The Texts

    • The Dedham Conference (John Rylands English MS 874)
      (pp. 3-150)

      1. This transcript retains the original spelling, punctuation and capitalization, although all standard abbreviations have been silently extended and modern usage – j for i, u for v, v for u and th for the thorn – has been used. Other abbreviations have been expanded between square brackets.

      2. Emendations made by Parker have been placed in <> and with a line through the text where that text is legible.

      3. Marginal notes have been enclosed with curly brackets {} thus.

      4. In the first few folios of the manuscript, Parker used two different inks. A black ink and a more formal...

    • The Combination Lecture at Bury St Edmunds (Chicago University Library Codex MS 109)
      (pp. 151-180)

      1. This transcript retains the original spelling, punctuation and capitalization, although all standard abbreviations have been silently extended and modern usage – j for i, u for v, v for u and th for the thorn – has been used. Other abbreviations have been expanded between square brackets.

      2. Where parts of the text are missing, the same has been indicated through the use of <>.

      3. Where the meaning of damaged or missing text can reasonably be inferred from the context the same has been supplied in italics and in <>.

      4. Emendations made by Rogers which are still legible have...

  9. Biographical Register
    (pp. 183-272)

    In 1905, R.G. Usher observed that ‘the number of names and persons occurring in the book, their comparative obscurity and often recurrence, have led me to place in alphabetical order in the Introduction such biographical notes as would traditionally have appeared in footnotes’ (p. vi). The present editors, with considerably more evidence at their disposal than Usher believed existed, have followed suit in the following Biographical Register. It includes all those involved in the activities of the two conferences of Dedham and Braintree, either as fully-fledged members or as signatories to documents which the Dedham conference prepared and circulated, as...

  10. Appendices

    • Appendix 1: Dedham Grammar School
      (pp. 275-275)
    • Appendix 2: The Dedham Lectureship
      (pp. 276-276)
    • Appendix 3: A Sermon Preached by Edmund Chapman
      (pp. 277-278)
  11. TOPICAL AND GENERAL INDEX
    (pp. 279-281)
  12. INDEX OF PERSONAL NAMES
    (pp. 282-291)
  13. INDEX OF PLACE-NAMES
    (pp. 292-296)
  14. INDEX OF SCRIPTURAL REFERENCES
    (pp. 297-299)
  15. INDEX OF CLASSICAL, PATRISTIC, MEDIEVAL AND REFORMED REFERENCES
    (pp. 300-300)
  16. Back Matter
    (pp. 301-302)