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The foreign missionary impetus generated by Britain's eighteenth century Evangelical Revival included a concern for Francophone Europe. Seeds of this concern had been sown by the influx to Britain of Huguenot refugees after 1685, royalist sympathizers after 1789 and prisoners captured in conflicts with Napoleonic France. British supporters of agencies for Gospel extension, whether missionary, tract or Bible societies, viewed Francophone Europe as blighted successively by political absolutism, Enlightenment scepticism and Revolutionary upheaval. Viewing its indigenous Christianity as downtrodden and largely nominal, they embarked on schemes to renovate Francophone Christianity. In these initiatives, some British persons and agencies mistakenly proceeded on the assumption that their own efforts were the solitary reliable efforts underway in pursuit of evangelical renewal. In fact, a considerable segment of Francophone Protestantism, aided by Pietism and Moravianism, had retained a vital Christianity; spiritual awakening was in progress in advance of any British initiatives. The failure of some British individuals and agencies to accept this reality ensured that a substantial portion of their endeavour would tend to sectarianism. While the outflow of British aid to Francophone Christianity in the period 1816-1849 was massive, British Christianity itself received the impress of a renewed Francophone Protestantism. Preachers, dogmaticians and historians from within France and Switzerland became highly influential voices in Britain's Victorian era.

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Robert Morrison, sent alone to China by the London Missionary Society in 1807, spent his missionary career planting a foothold in China for the benefit of evangelicalism and constructed the foundation upon which the Protestant religion in China rested. Although he planted British Protestantism in China, surprisingly. scholarship has failed to produce a critical examination of his life or mission. My thesis addresses this gap, but while it seems sensible for one to approach such a study with a hagiographical framework (and there are a number of such studies on Morrison), I am employing a critical methodology in order to ask what led to Morrison's goals and outcomes. Consequently, my research concerns itself with illuminating the preparations, assumptions, and strategies that influenced the planning of the first China Mission and, consequently, that shaped Morrison's goals and achievements in China. Such a concern leads me to assess the influence of David Bogue, who served as the tutor at Gosport Academy, where Morrison received his missionary training. This thesis, thus, analyses Bogue's influence upon Morrison's mission in order to expose the intellectual and theological foundations upon which Morrison's efforts rested and, therefore, to question his creativity and to problematise the generally accepted notion of Robert Morrison as the 'beginning' of the Chinese Protestant religion. My research confines itself to archival materials from libraries in London, Edinburgh, and Hong Kong - some of which (particularly those that relate to Gosport Academy but also Morrison's Anglophone library in Hong Kong) have never been exploited for academic research. The thesis demonstrates the value of these newly discovered archives by exploring the ways in which they call into question conventional understandings of Robert Morrison's pioneering efforts and contributions; rereading Morrison's mission through the lens of these resources I will provide a new and fruitful way of understanding early Protestant missions in China.

This thesis analyzest he development of the contvrspor oblem during the reign of Enrique IV of Castile (1454-1474) through the study of a work of religious polen-ýc entitled Fortalitiumfidei, Written by the Observant Franciscan Alonso de EspMa between 1458 and 1464. Chapter 1 studies the life and background of the author drawing a picture of his social network within the Observant branch of the Franciscan Order and the royal court. It also identifies the main purpose of the Fortalitiumfidei as a collection of sources for preachers. Chapter 2 provides a study of the structure and arrangement of materials in the Fortalitiumfidei, the text provides a warning to society of the danger posed by its non- Christian enemies (heretics, Jews, Muslims and demons) and proposes a series of remedies to deal with this problem: first the reform of Christian society and second the isolation and elimination firom its midst of its enemies. Chapter 3 studies the depiction of conversoins particular, arguing that it creates a group identity for them as judaizing heretics. They are placed in a separate category from Christians and the establishment of a Papal Inquisition is proposed to investigate their activities. Chapter 4 places these findings in its historical context, arguing that the Fortalitium fidei contributed to the development of the converspor oblem by placing notions about the discrimination of neophytes within an orthodox context.

This thesis is concerned to investigate the impact of Methodism on the developing industrial region of South Staffordshire and North Worcestershire which during the course of the nineteenth century became commonly known as 'the Black Country'. The period under consideration extends from the first visit of John Wesley to Wednesbury in 1743 to the year 1860 by which time Methodism had experienced the last of its s ec ess ionary upheavals, Attention is given in the first instance to the changing character of economic life and to the new units of society which came into being with the spread of industrialisation. After an examination of Methodism's initial impact and. of the difficulties which it encountered during the early stages of its establishment in the district, the fortunes of the individual Methodist bodies, namely, the parent Wesleyanism, the Methodist New Connexion, Primitive Methodism and the United Methodist Free Churches, are studied in turn. Special reference is made to the social composition of their membership, the distinctiveness of their appeal, the scope of their chapel building programme and the secession of Wesleyans in Dudley and Stourbridge which proved so advantageous to the hew Connexion. In the final chapter, the analysis is widened and some assessment is attempted of Methodism's involvement in political and working-class movements, its contribution to Sunday and Day School educational provision, its charitable undertakings and its moral influence in the area at large. It is 'concluded that Methodism exercised a many-sided if not wholly pervasive impact and that it was one of the dominant elements in shaping the ethos of the new industrialised society.

In this thesis an attempt is made to re-examine the factors which led to the creation of the Primitive Methodist connexion in the first twenty years of the nineteenth century; to explore the movement's success in those circuits vhich covered Cheshire and south Lancashire; and to describe its major characteristics, as the denomination grew and matured, in the period from its creation to its jubilee year, 1860. The origins of Primitive Methodism can be traced partly to the nature of English revivalism in the early nineteenth century, partly to strains in north Staffordshire Methodism. To a large extent these difficulties were a product of the readjustments taking place throughout Wesleyan Methodism after the death of its founder. That the tensions on the Staffordshire-Cheshire border resulted in the emergence of another distinct Methodist denomination was due, hovever, to the particular personalities involved, and to special local circumstances. These are examined in Part I. Between 1811 and 1821 Primitive Methodist missionaries advanced from Tunstall in several directions; but the first major gains in Cheshire and south Lancashire were made betveen about 1818 and 1821. This missionary 'explosion' north and vest from Tunstall is examined in Part II. No attempt has been made to look at the work of the Primitive Methodist preachers from Hull, who crossed the Pennines into north Lancashire about the same time. This study is limited to circuits in the Tunstall and Manchester Primitive Methodist districts vhich included places in the tvo counties of Cheshire and Lancashire. But new circuits vere created without regard for county boundaries, and to reach a clear understanding of the early development of Primitive Methodisa (especially in south-east Cheshire) it is necessary to trace the evolution of the vhole of the home branch of TUnstall circuit, rather than to try to treat the Cheshire places in isolation from the rest. In little more than twenty years, the Primitive Methodists spread over the tvo counties, craated eighteen new circuits, and built more than a hundred chapels. This period of expansion has therefore been examined in some detail. As Primitive Methodism evolved fro. a revivalist sect into a religious denomination, change was inevitable. Some of the major characteristics of the early years and the trands vhich vare evident by 1860 are exaained in Part III. Many of the conclusions reached in the thesis are based on statistical material compiled from a vide variety of sources. In order to enable the theories adY&nced here to be tested and folloved up, it has been felt desirable to include .uch of this evidence in the form of Appendices which are bound in a separate volume.

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