The discovery that Jeremy Taylor, the ‘Anglican’ divine, wrote much of the text of the Rutland Petition in Defence of Episcopacy in November 1641, and included many of the arguments that appeared in his ‘Of the sacred order and offices of episcopacy’, published in 1642, throws fresh light on the political and ecclesiastical implications of royalist petitioning. These petitions have sometimes been viewed as expressions of support for ‘prayer book Protestantism’. But, in line with other recent work, this article argues that they drew support from a very broad spectrum of religious opinion, which ranged from moderate Puritan supporters of further reform to avant-garde conformists. Each had their own agenda; but they could be mobilised behind the petitions because of the widespread fear of radical sectarian challenges to the established Church in late 1641.

At the end of the eighth century Alcuin of York adapted an Augustinian catechetical programme for missionary use among the Avars of central Europe. This article explores how and why Alcuin went about adapting Augustine's plan, focusing on the place of his effort in the early medieval tradition. Special emphasis is placed on the idea of ‘innovative deference’ whereby Alcuin distinguished his work from that of his predecessors while consciously preserving a Christian tradition. The article also considers the importance of adaptation to the Carolingian world, including the influence of Alcuin's programme upon other Carolingian thinkers.

Although not liturgically mandated, the ostentatious microarchitectural font cover became one of the most significant ecclesiastical furnishings of the later Middle Ages. In fact, as a church fixture it survived well into the seventeenth century, not only in Catholic but also in Protestant regions, even though its eye-catching forms represented an obvious target for radical reformers and iconoclasts. Despite their enduring presence and their obvious importance to the communities that erected them, font covers remain little researched and understood. Revolving around a discussion of their intensely visual nature, this article is an attempt at a first outline of a history of this fascinating genre of church furnishing.

Cyprian attacked the claim of the confessing martyr to give absolution independent of the more formal authority of a bishop on the grounds that this practice was radically new. But Cyprian ignored the antiquity of the martyr tradition. The act of confession that involved acute physical suffering had itself been sufficient for ordination earlier, just as it had been sufficient to replace baptism. Reconciliation of an apostate previously took place by offering and giving the eucharist without a separate, episcopal act in the form of imposition of hands. Cyprian's case thus rested on a fundamental reinterpretation of the theology of martyrdom in the interests of extending episcopal control into new areas of church life.

With one minor exception, it was not much more than a series of coincidences which linked Jowett and Colenso. The one exception was when Colenso was in England after being excommunicated by Robert Gray, bishop of Capetown, as metropolitan. Samuel Wilberforce refused to allow Colenso to function in the diocese of Oxford but Jowett invited him to preach in Balliol chapel, which was not under the bishop's jurisdiction. Apart from this there seems to be no evidence of direct personal contact between the two men.

This article examines British reactions to Stalin's deportation of over one million peasants and religious believers to the Soviet gulag. It follows events in Britain as the evidence mounted and public protests grew, first over the persecution of religious believers and then over the British government's refusal to halt imports of timber cut by camp inmates. It highlights the role played by Prebendary Alfred Gough's Christian Protest Movement and the worldwide protests against Soviet persecution which Gough's campaign inspired. It reveals how Labour ministers and other leading British Socialists obstructed the protest campaign and publicly denied accounts of crimes against humanity which they either privately admitted or, because of their enthusiasm for Soviet Communism, dismissed as right-wing fabrications.