Description
Book SynopsisTraces the careers and fortunes of the last priests ordained before the Reformation.A central paradox of the English reformation is that the call to the Catholic priesthood was never more eagerly answered than on the very eve of religious upheaval. In this important new study, based on the records of the third largest diocese in the country, covering six counties of the midlands and north-west, Dr Cooper traces the careers of the pastoral clergy from their preparatory education, through ordination and job-hunting, to the writing of theirwills, often in ripe old age and having served a single parish through the entirety of the main period of reform. In this highly `clericalised' society, in which ten new priests were ordained each year for every arising vacancy, it was those priests without livings who were the main point of contact between the church and its people. This `clerical proletariat', and, indeed, the majority of parochial incumbents, emerge as conscientious servants of their native communities, distinguishable from their neighbours by virtue of their sacramental function rather than their social backgrounds and general concerns. Throughout, the book argues that the parish clergy, whose services were ingreater demand than ever before, were remarkably well integrated into the communities they served and that popular anticlericalism as an explanatory factor of the English reformation is difficult to sustain.Dr TIM COOPER has taught history at the universities of Sheffield, Manchester and Hull.
Trade ReviewA convincing group portrait. ENGLISH HISTORICAL REVIEW Has usefully filled a gaping lacuna in the study of the pre-Reformation parish clergy. CATHOLIC HISTORICAL REVIEW [US] Admirable study. * JOURNAL OF RELIGIOUS HISTORY *
Table of ContentsPart 1 Preparing for priesthood: education; examination; titles; the ordination ceremonies; numbers. Part 2 Acquiring a living - the beneficed: availability of benefices; patronage, preferment and presentation; admission, institution and induction; tenure and mobility; pluralism and non-residence; unions of benefices and pensions; standards of living; ordination and opportunity. Part 3 Making a living - the unbeneficed: numbers and jobs; provenance and status; employment mobility; stipends and standards of living; a "clerical proletariat"?. Part 4 Priests and people: the clerical community - priesthood and status, sacramental priesthood, defenders of faith, the clerical community - caste, status-group or profession?; priests as people - temporal kinship - family connections, spiritual kinship - godchildren, charity and community, pastor and neighbour - the local economy, pastor and neighbour - social integration, pastor and neighbour -social disintegration; construct. Part 5 Appendix - clerical wills and inventories cited in the text.
