Enfilade

Published by the University of Wales and distributed by The University of Chicago Press:

Nigel Aston and William Gibson, eds., The Anglican Episcopate, 1689–1800 (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2023), 368 pages, ISBN: 978-1786839763, £70 / $88.

The eighteenth-century bishops of the Church of England and its sister communions had immense status and authority in both secular and religious society. In this volume, leading experts offer a comprehensive survey of all things episcopal between the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 and the early nineteenth century, when the Anglican Church enjoyed exclusive establishment privileges in much of Britain. The essays consider the appointment and promotion of bishops, their parliamentary duties, and their relation to Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and the American colonies.

Nigel Aston is a Research Associate at the University of York and Reader Emeritus in the School of History, Politics, and International Relations at the University of Leicester, where he taught for two decades. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on British and French eighteenth-century religious and political history, including the forthcoming book Enlightened Oxford: The University and the Cultural and Political Life of Eighteenth-century Britain and Beyond (Oxford University Press, 2023).

William Gibson is Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Oxford Brookes University and Director of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History. His most recent book is Samuel Wesley and the Crisis of Tory Piety, 1685–1720 (Oxford University Press, 2021).

C O N T E N T S

Introduction — Nigel Aston and William Gibson

The Politics of Church and State
1  Securing the Mitre: The Promotion and Progress of a Bishop — Nigel Aston (University of Leicester)
2  Lord Bishops: The Episcopate in National Politics — Ruth Paley (History of Parliament)
3  Bishops and the Monarchy — Grayson Ditchfield (University of Kent)

Performance
4  Pastors of Their Flock: Visitation, Ordination, Confirmation — Colin Haydon (University of Winchester)
5  Authority, Conflict, and Consensus: Bishops, Their Clergy, and Diocesan Government — William Gibson (Oxford Brookes University)
6  Bishops and Patronage — Daniel Reed (Oxford Brookes University)

Cultures
7  Wives and Families: The Domestic Life of Bishops — Nigel Aston (University of Leicester) and William Gibson (Oxford Brookes University)
8  Bishops and Eighteenth-Century Intellectual Life — Robert Ingram (University of Ohio)
9  Bishops, Taste, and Culture — Matthew Craske (Oxford Brookes University)

Beyond England
10  Episcopacy in Scotland — Rowan Strong (Murdoch University)
11  Anglican Bishops in Wales — John Morgan-Guy (University of Wales: Trinity St David)
12  The Other Establishment: Bishops in the Church of Ireland — Toby Barnard, (University of Oxford)
13  Anglican Bishops, the Wider World, and the Other Christian Churches — Ted Campbell (Southern Methodist University)

Appendix: Episcopal Incomes — Ruth Paley (History of Parliament)