Marshall, Peter (1997) The shaping of a community : the rise and reformation of the English parish c.1400-1560. Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol.48 (No.1). pp. 166-168. ISSN 0022-0469

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Abstract

Churchwardens' accounts are fast threatening to oust wills from their position as
the first port of call for historians seeking to recreate the religious and social
experience of'ordinary' English people in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
In a book brimming with graphs, tables and pie-charts, Beat Kiimin demonstrates
how a systematic analysis of the income and expenditure described in surviving
churchwardens' accounts (in particular those for ten sample parishes) can be
used to substantiate the now increasingly familiar emphasis on the vitality of late medieval religious life. The seductive lore of these fascinating documents should
not blind us to their limitations: little over 200 often incomplete sets survive from
this period from nearly 9,000 parishes, and this book is understandably not able
to tell us whether any principle more dependable than happenstance accounts for
the pattern of survival. Why, for example, do Devon and Somerset between
them provide 16 per cent of all surviving sets? None the less, in analysing these
sources more rigorously than any previous commentator, Kumin paints a
compelling picture of how churchwardens (here convincingly demonstrated to
have been drawn overwhelmingly from the broad middle swathe of parish society)
were able to extract from their communities, and apply to communal purposes,
very substantial sums of money, usually considerably more than the crown was
able to raise from the same communities in direct lay taxation.

Item Type:	Book Review
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BR Christianity D History General and Old World > DA Great Britain
Divisions:	Faculty of Arts > History
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	England -- Church history -- To 1500, England -- Church history -- 16th century, Parishes -- England -- History -- To 1500, Parishes -- England -- History -- 16th century, Churchwardens' accounts -- England -- History -- To 1500, Churchwardens' accounts -- England -- History -- 16th century
Journal or Publication Title:	Journal of Ecclesiastical History
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
ISSN:	0022-0469
Book Title:	The shaping of a community : the rise and reformation of the English parish c.1400-1560
Official Date:	January 1997
Dates:	Date Event January 1997 Published
Volume:	Vol.48
Number:	No.1
Number of Pages:	3
Page Range:	pp. 166-168
Identifier:	10.1017/S0022046900012288
Publication Status:	Published
Access rights to Published version:	Restricted or Subscription Access

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

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