The role of indulgences in pre-Reformation English religion remains incompletely studied. Centred on material contained in the Lincoln episcopal registers dating from c. 1290 to c. 1340, granting indulgences for prayers for the souls of named people and often specifying their burial locations, this article argues that their place in medieval spirituality and charitable activity has been under- appreciated. Examining the mechanisms and implications of the Lincoln records, it suggests that under-recording of actions considered normal and routine, rather than lack of popularity, lies behind the failure to give indulgences their due place in assessment of English medieval religious life.

With particular attention paid to the experience of the Marian exiles, this paper analyses the sixteenth-century Protestant debate about the rectitude of flight from persecution. It suggests that, although this debate must be located in a centuries-old Christian discussion about flight, contemporary understandings of the nature of God's will and providence were equally important. The paper contends that the Marian exiles largely succeeded in justifying their flight to their brethren, and that this success had a significant impact on the subsequent historical accounts of the period.

This case study of the Alsatian community of Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines argues that although negotiating religious differences at the local level was essential to defining community, the political context was essential in setting the framework. Straddling the Lorraine/Alsace border, Sainte-Marie was divided among Catholics, Lutherans, Calvinists, Zwinglians and Anabaptists as well as between French- and German-speakers. After the Thirty Years' War, the changing demographic balance among the confessional groups, especially the immigration of Catholics necessitated a re-evaluation of Catholic/Protestant coexistence. The Peace of Westphalia established a legal framework in the imperial territories based on cuius regio eius religio. France's 1648 annexation of most of Alsace, meant that French centralising authority collided with this seigneurial territorial system. The French crown could not, however, govern without the co-operation of the local authorities: religious groups at Sainte-Marie exploited the resulting ambiguities. In uneasy coexistence Catholics enjoyed royal favour and Protestants had the protection of the local seigneurs. This local outcome mirrored the imperfect process by which the French monarchy imposed itself on the imperial system of Alsace.

Josephine Butler waged an unremitting campaign against the ‘state regulation of prostitution’, both in Britain and on the continent, from 1869 until her death. She was a convinced feminist, appalled by the double standard inherent in state regulation, and also, as this article demonstrates, a devout Anglican Evangelical whose spiritual experiences inspired her work. She argued for the right of ‘inspired’ Christian women to preach and teach and developed a radical feminist theology, claming that Christ had treated women as of equal importance to men and had ‘liberated’ them. Her belief in her individual mission enabled her to assume the leadership of a notoriously contentious and emotionally draining campaign.

This article examines conflict between spiritual and temporal power in nineteenth-century West Africa – the uneasy relationship between the Church Missionary Society in Yorubaland and the official British presence in the nearby port of Lagos. Having encouraged Britain to intervene in Lagos in order to extirpate the slave trade, the mission soon found itself disagreeing with the policies of the colonial government concerning both the expansion of the Lagos colony and relations with the largely Christian Egba tribe. The dispute developed into a concerted attack on the colonial governors both from missionaries in the field and from the CMS headquarters in London.

To regularise and strengthen female monastic life in his Winchester diocese, in the early sixteenth century Bishop Richard Fox made a new translation of the Rule of St Benedict explicitly for women. He had it printed by Richard Pynson in 1517, thus taking advantage of the ability of the printing press to provide multiple copies for all the members of the four Hampshire womens' houses he addressed: St Mary Winchester (Nunnaminster), Wherwell, Romsey and Wintney.

In addition to these printed copies Bishop Fox provided additional manuscript books for each of the four houses, as his preface to the Rule tells us: ‘And by cause we wolde not/that there shulde be any lacke amongis them of the bokis of this sayd translation/we haue therfore/aboue and besyde certayne bokes ther of/which we haue yeven to the sayde monasteris: caused it to be emprinted’ [italics mine] (sig. Aiiv).