The Clerical Profession in the Long Eighteenth Century, 1680-1840

by Jacob, W. M.

• ISBN13: 9780199213009
• ISBN10: 0199213003
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-10-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

W.M. Jacob focuses upon the clergy of the established Church in England and Wales as a professional group, and investigates their role in their parishes and society during the 'long eighteenth century', between 1680 and 1840. Jacob concentrates on the 'lower clergy', that is parish clergy, and their role within the broader social context of later Stuart and Georgian society. He considers the nature of professions during the period, and examines the social backgrounds; recruitment and selection; education, at school and university or otherwise; career development; and finances of the clergy. He also investigates what they actually did in their parishes in terms of conducting worship, exercising pastoral care, and providing education in the Christian faith, and their relations with the people amongst whom they lived and worked. Jacob takes account of changing expectations during the period, especially the pressure for, and steps towards, 'reform' from the 1780s onwards, and, where possible, offers comparisons with people in other professions, especially doctors, lawyers, and ministers of dissenting churches. The clergy emerge as the most carefully recruited and educated of the 'learned professions' with a strong supervisory role exercised by bishops, in relation to a generally responsive but not uncritical or subservient laity. The book effectively challenges the received view that the majority of the clergy were inappropriately educated, poverty-stricken, and inattentive to their canonical duties. Book jacket.

Author Biography

W. M. Jacob has taught in a number of Church of England theological colleges, and has been a senior administrator in the Church of England. He is currently Archdeacon of Charing Cross in the diocese of London. He has written extensively about religious history in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and has been editor of the journal Theology since 1997.

Table of Contents

List of Abbreviations	p. viii
Introduction	p. 1
Recruitment, Background, and Education of the Clergy	p. 31
The Ladder of Advancement	p. 64
Pluralism and Non-Residence	p. 95
The Incomes of the Clergy	p. 113
Life in a Parish	p. 144
Conducting Worship	p. 173
Pastoral Care	p. 203
Promoting Christian Knowledge	p. 236
Supervision of the Clergy	p. 271
Anticlericalism	p. 291
Conclusion	p. 304
Bibliography	p. 316
Index	p. 341
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