It is a surprising fact that, despite all the energy that has been devoted by medievalists to the relations between the king and the Church, no one has attempted to answer the question: what was the extent of the king's authority in his own parish churches? Naturally the English crown, like the lay lords and like the monasteries and like the bishops, possessed the patronage of churches. How did the triangular relationship of king/bishop/pope operate in practice in the royal churches? Others have addressed themselves to the sacred nature of kingship, to the spiritual capacity of the priest-king. Some have been concerned, for example, with the changing concept of kingship, as was E. H. Kantorowicz, or with the claims that the king possessed the power of healing and could cure scrofula, as was Marc Bloch. These issues and their like pose the problem of bridging the gap between the concept or the claim and the exercise of authority or power. An examination of the history of royal churches provides abundant evidence of claims and counter-claims, but our concern in the end must be with the actual extent and nature of the king's control and jurisdiction.

Dislike of foreigners is an important feature of thirteenth-century English history, and nowhere more so than in the delicate question of ecclesiastical appointments. Feelings frequently ran high and hostile demonstrations, in which both clergy and laity took part, were not uncommon. Among the more violent of these demonstrations were those led by Robert Tweng against foreign clergy in Yorkshire in 1231 and by Roger Clifford against the then bishop of Hereford and his so-called hangers-on in 1263. It is about the object of the latter demonstration that this article is concerned, in an attempt to re-evaluate this bishop's contribution to the English Church and to defend him against the onslaught of some previous critics.

The archimandrite Photius of Russia, one of the most unusual figures to appear in a national history hardly lacking in the bizarre, played a unique role in the development of the modern Russian State. Possibly no other Russian churchman in modern times enjoyed so much power, however briefly, and used it for such unfortunate purposes as Photius. Through his influence upon the emperor Alexander i he determined the history of the Russian empire in such a manner that beneficial trends of growth were terminated and salutary movements aborted, to the great disadvantage of later generations. Had he lived during the reign of Nicholas ii, not a century earlier, Photius would undoubtedly have garnered something of the immortality accorded to those who brought Russia to its final dissolution; yet his role in the decline and fall of the Romanovs was no less than that of those who followed later.

The link between religion, politics and education forms one of the major themes of Victorian history. Until the end of the 1820s only Churchmen had full political rights in England, and long after that time Dissenters were stern opponents of such Anglican privileges as the claim to levy church rates. Church of England feeling contributed greatly to Tory strength. Dissenters were prominent among Liberals and Radicals. As the State came to take a greater share in the control of education, sectarian bitterness was one of the main obstacles to official measures, because almost any plan for State intervention was bound to cut across some religious interest. In elementary education men like G. A. Denison resisted State policy in the name of the traditional teaching authority of the Church. In higher education there were forty years of debate and controversy before the universities of Oxford and Cambridge were finally freed from religious tests in 1871.