The Cape of Good Hope was discovered by Ba.rtholomew Diaz, a Portuguese navigator, in 1487, but it did not occur to any European nation to make a settlement there until one hundred and sixty.years after that date. On the 6th April, 1652, Jan van Riebeeck founded the earliest settlement at the foot of Tab1e Mountain. Holland was at that time at the height of her political and commercial prosperity. The Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, had acquired a practica~ monopoly of the sea-borne traffic with India and the East, and it was in order to provide a port of call for the outgoing and returning vessels of this Company that a tawnship was established and a castle built at the Cape of Good Hope in 1666, under the nsme and title of "the frontier fortress of India".

In the late eleventh century, the episcopal Church of St Cuthbert at Durham was one of the most powerful institutions in the North of England. Its power was derived from its possession of extensive landed estates which had been acquired since the late seventh century. Whereas the other ecclesiastical corporations of early Northumbria had succumbed to the successive waves of Scandinavian invasions, the Church of St Cuthbert had established a significant franchise and had augmented its landholding. The leaders of the Church were willing to lend their support to any secular ruler who would guarantee the safety of its possessions. The first Norman appointee to the bishopric, Walcher, was in a precarious position relying heavily upon the local Northumbrian aristocracy for his administration. Factionalism within Walcher's regime brought about the Bishop's murder at Gateshead in 1080. This incident forced William I to reconsider his policy in the North-East of England and he appointed William of St Calais to the bishopric and Robert de Mowbray to the earldom of Northumbria. Bishop William launched an attack on the position of the members of the pre-Conquest Congregatio sancti Cuthberti by introducing a Convent of Benedictine monks to Durham in 1083. A re-examination of the early twelfth-century chronicle of Symeon, who was precentor at Durham, challenges the widely held view that there was a complete change in the personnel serving St Cuthbert's shrine in 1083. It is argued that a significant number of the Congregation entered the Convent thus maintaining a strong local presence at the shrine. The Benedictine Convent served as the cathedral chapter and its relationship with its nominal Abbot, the Bishop, is surveyed for the period, 1083 to 1153. During the pontificate of William of St Calais, the Convent enjoyed a privileged status within the see. However, the elevation of Rannulf Flambard to the bishopric marked the beginning of conflict between the two institutions. The monks sought a definition. of their franchise and this prompted them to confect a series of forged foundation charters which multiplied during the pontificate of Hugh du Puiset. The establishment of a French baronage within the Patrimony of St Cuthbert strengthened the Norman presence in the region, although a number of native families maintained their position. The surviving evidence suggests that the feudal structure of Durham was largely the work of Bishop Rannulf. Finally, the relationship between the Church of St Cuthbert and Scotland has been considered and it is argued that, in this period, the Bishop of Durham did not take an active role in the defence of the North of England. The Convent received grants of land from the Scots kings, most notably the church of Coldingham. As it had done between its foundation and the late eleventh century, the Church of St Cuthbert survived weathering the Norman Conquest and thereby ensuring that the cult of St Cuthbert at Durham prospered. By the end of the twelfth century it was rivalled only by that of Thomas Becket.

This study is an examination of the differing and competing representations of the Scottish Covenanters that emerged from the signing of the National Covenant in 1638 to the publication in 1835 of The Tales of the Wars ofMontrose, by James Hogg. The disserttion researches representations of the Scottish Covenanters in thee centuies offictional and non-fictional texts, for example, seventeenth-centu sermons, eighteenth-centu chapbooks, and nineteenth-centu Scottish literatue, and it notes and examines the discordance in the various modes of literar discourse. The disserttion is aranged chronologically as the most logical method of tracing and demonstrating the discordance. An historical context is provided to each chapter and also within each chapter as necessar to explain and to situate the discourses under scrutiny within their contemporar climate. Chapter One examines representations of the Scottish Covenanters from the first signing of the National Covenant in 1638 to their disappearance from Scottish mainstream thing with the 'Glorious Revolution' in 1688-9. The chapter begins by examining the document known as the National Covenant and reveals how radically different it was from previous Scottish bonds of allance. The early Covenanters or 'Politick Chrstians' who attempted to promote and to live up to the spirtual and secular aims of the National Covenant were concerned to present a tre image of what it was to be a Covenanter. The Royalists and anti-Covenanters counteracted by detracting the movement though irony which revealed the inconsistencies of Covenanting priciples. The paper war of words included contemporar news sheets, privately circulated letters, broadsides and ballads. After 1660, when Episcopacy was reintroduced into Scotland literar representations of the Scottish Covenanters were, on the whole, denigratory as the Scottish Privy Council, with the full support of the English governent sought to prevent a repeat of the events of 1638. The satirical work of George Hickes is revealed as a crucial factor in the demise of the popularty of Covenanting. As the Covenanting movement became defensive rather than offensive the Covenanters counteracted with books and pamphlets such as Naphtali, that included declarations and 'last testimonies' of those convicted for treason after the Pentland Uprising in 1666. This chapter closely examines one of the published Covenanting sermons and reveals that it is inauthentic propagandist literatue. The representation of Scottish Covenanters in the crucial post-Bothwell/opish plotÆxclusion Crisis altered significantly. A comparison of the draft manifesto published by Royal Warant under the title, 'The Fanaticks New-Covenant', with a later document published by the 'United Societies' reveals that there were moderate Presbyterians after Bothwell Bridge who proposed upholding the Covenants. Their 'manifesto' was published alongside of the more violently rhetorical 'Sanquhair Declaration', which led to them being wrongly associated with the Cameronians. The final representation to be examined in this period is of the Cameronian historian, Alexander Shields. He portayed the Covenanters of the 1680s in apocalyptic tropes as a 'suffering remnant' in exile within their own countr. Chapter Two examines the discordant discourses of the eighteenth centu. The 'Revolution Settlement' of 1688-9 re-instated Presbytery and as the tables were tued, so the Episcopalian satirsts denigrated the Presbyterians by implying that all Covenanters were of a similar violent propensity as the Cameronians had theatened. The move towards Enlightenment away from the enthusiastic raptue of the seventeenth centu can be traced though these satircal representations which concentrated an accusation that Presbyterian preaching was ineffective and ridiculous. As Covenanting fell out of favour historians such as Robert Wodrow, and also the 'United Societies' as the Cameronians became known tued to apologia. Their accounts portayed the Covenanting movement of the later seventeenth-centu as entirely defensive. This was disputed by satirsts such as Pitcaire and Swift, and Enlightened historians such as David Hume. Towards the end of the eighteenth centu Reformed Presbyterians, as the Cameronians were now called, published major works which promoted positive images of the Covenanters. John Howie's Biographia Scoticana significantly altered the perspective of Covenanting. He depicted Covenanting as the natul successor of the Reformation in his hagiogrphical collection which begins with the mardom of Walter Mil in 1550. Overall, this chapter examines the way that representations of the Scottish Covenanters altered in the changing political, religious and intellectual climate of the eighteenth centu. Chapter Thee examines the literar representation of the Scottish Covenanters in the early nineteenth centu to 1807. Using Gerard Genett's Paratexts as a model the chapter examines the interplay between the text and the anotation in John Leyden's poetr and in his editing of John Wilson's poem entitled, Clyde, in the anotation and introductory material that Scott appended to five Covenanting ballads in the third volume of The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, in the anotation to James Grahame's long reflective poem entitled, The Sabbath, and finally, to the imitation ballad entitled, 'Mess John' in James Hogg's collection of 'traditional' material entitled, The Mountain Bard. The chapter situates the subjective editing practices of Scott into the contemporar political climate of a heightened revolutionar atmosphere engendered by the threat of war between the United Kingdom, and France and Spain. This chapter offers a revision of the poet, James Grahame. A close reading of The Sabbath, that is taen in context with his earlier suppressed anti-clerical and anti-Enlightenment poetry reveals that it is an anti-Establishmentaan, as opposed to purely reflective poem. Finally, in this chapter the notion of James Hogg as Scott imitator is rejected. A close reading of his ballad, 'Mess John' indicates his move from imitator to independent author. Overall, this chapter reveals that Scott revised representations of the Scottish Covenanters though an appropriation of eighteenth-centu pseudo-Covenanting and anti-Covenanting works. Chapter Four is a study ofScott's series of novels entitled, Tales of My Landlord that he published between 1816 and 1819. The chapter begins with a close examination ofScott's satirical representation of Reformed Presbyterians and dissenters in his first novel entitled, Waverley. After establishing Scott's anti-Covenanting tropes the chapter then proceeds to an examination of the novels from the series which constituted his most intensively derogatory treatment of Covenanters and their descendats. Takg Par's study of Don Quixote as an exemplar the chapter discovers the extent of Scott' s anti-Covenanting satire. As in the previous two chapters the contemporar political and religious climate is also discussed. Chapter Five examines the literar response to Scott's anti-Covenanting satire, and to the subjective editing practices of Charles Kirkpatrck Share. It suggests that the battle over the documenta evidence of Covenanting material signified the battle for authorial control that became the central concerns ofHogg and GaIt. The prose fictions of James Hogg, John Galt, Allan Cuningham and John Wilson are compared and contrasted. This reveals that Hogg had developed an entirely new paradigm of positively representing the Covenanters by acknowledging their heroism and fortitude while rejecting their violence and wild rhetoric. John GaIt's anti-romantic novel Ringan vu Gilhaize offered an inovative interpretation of historical reconstrction that appears to have been deliberately aimed at counterig Scott.

The problem of this study was to determine whether Kenyan Bible college students who receive instruction using a modified (highly structured) mastery learning model will demonstrate greater achievement in knowledge of Christian Church history as compared to Kenyan Bible college students who receive instruction using a traditional (minimally structured) non-mastery learning model. The subjects were 17 second-year Kenyan Bible college students enrolled in a course on Christian Church history, and they were randomly assigned to the two treatment conditions. The researcher served as instructor for both groups. The experimental group used a textbook, detailed syllabus, 200 page study guide (featuring an advance organizer to provide an ideational scaffolding), and a lesson-development feature (providing an enabling objective, congruent questions, and informative feedback for each lesson segment). The control group used a textbook and a less-detailed syllabus. Both groups shared the same classroom lectures, class discussions, required assignments, examinations, and review of examination items. Five tests of Christian church history were administered, including a pretest, three unit tests, and a comprehensive course examination. Test data were analyzed using a 2 x 5 (treatment x testing occasion) repeated measures analysis of variance (RM ANOVA). The percentage of students performing at mastery level (80% correct) on each test was also calculated. Results indicated that, from the second unit test to the comprehensive examination, the modified mastery learning group achieved slightly but consistently higher mean percentage correct scores than the traditional group, but there was no significant main effect for treatment. In contrast, the main effect for testing occasion did reach statistical significance. Across the five test occasions, 8% to 51% more students in the modified mastery learning group attained mastery level as compared to the traditional learning group.

There seems to be, among other things, a vivid reflection of church life in the Gospel According to Matthew. It is my purpose to point out the outstanding characteristics of the Gospel of Matthew and in so doing present what appears to me to be a definite portrait of an early church. As the environment seems to become clear in what we read, the church takes form and we can see many interesting aspects of it.

This thesis is the first study of 'Christian radicalism' in the Church of England between 1957 and 1970. Radicalism grew in influence from the late 1950s, and burst into the national conversation with John Robinson’s 1963 bestseller, Honest to God. Emboldened by this success, between 1963 and 1965 radical leaders hoped they might fundamentally reform the Church of England, even though they were aware of the diversity of their supporting constituency. Yet by 1970, following a controversial turn towards social justice issues in the late 1960s, the movement had largely reached the point of disintegration. The thesis offers five central arguments. First, radicalism was fundamentally driven by a narrative of epochal transition, which understood British society in the late 1950s and early 1960s to be undergoing a seismic upheaval, comparable to the transition between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Secondly, this led radicals to exaggerate many of the social changes occurring in the period, and to imagine the emergence of a new social order. Radicals interpreted affluence as an era of unlimited technology, limited church decline as the arrival of a profoundly secular age, and limited sexual shifts as evidence of a sexual revolution. They effectively created the idea of the ‘secular society’, which became widely accepted once it was adopted by the Anglican hierarchy. Third, radical treatment of these themes was part of a tradition that went back to the 1940s; radicals anticipated many of the themes of the secular culture of the 1960s, not the other way round. Fourth, far from slavishly adopting secular intellectual frameworks, radical arguments were often framed using theological concepts, such as Christian eschatology. Finally, for all these reasons, Christian radicals made an original and influential contribution to the elite re-imagination of British society which occurred in the 1960s.

This study examines Reformed identity as an aspect of religious identity formation during the early Reformation period. It contributes towards an understanding of the character of the English Reformation by examining the reception of Swiss theology. The research is principally focussed upon the theological concept of covenant which blossomed in a distinctively bilateral and conditional form in early Reformation Switzerland. Patterns of thought discerned in English theology are related to this Swiss pattern, thereby assisting the process of identifying individual reformers according to continental models and elucidating an important theological development of the period. The concept of covenant had implications for contemporary discourses regarding the doctrines of justification and sanctification. It also made an impact upon sacramental theology in the way that sacraments were viewed as covenant signs. Despite the essential uniformity of the Swiss Reformed concept of covenant, three distinct emphases arose in Swiss Reformed sacramental theology with regard to the efficacy of the sacraments as means of grace. Having identified cases of English reception of the Swiss concept of covenant, their specific influences are determined using patterns of sacramental theology. Chapter one considers the problems involved in discerning different forms of religious identity in this period. Evidence for Reformed identity in England from the 1520s to the 1550s is surveyed from various different angles. The transmission of Swiss ideas through the Low Countries is considered, and alternative explanations for the failure of English Lutheranism are evaluated, particularly Lollardy and humanism. Chapter two demonstrates the essential consistency of the concepts of covenant espoused by leading Swiss reformers. Chapter three examines the concepts of covenant of four English reformers. Chapter four highlights different patterns in Swiss sacramental theology, and chapter five analyses English cases in light of those Swiss models.

This thesis shows that patristic interpretation of the Transfiguration had a sensitivity to visionary and ecstatic motifs within the synoptic Transfiguration narratives, and particularly Luke’s, which prompted a rich breadth of hermeneutic interaction with our texts. I offer the evidence of my survey of the reception history of the Transfiguration in the first 900 years of Christian history as a way of filling a number of gaps in knowledge in modern biblical scholarship concerning the Transfiguration narratives. This thesis begins, in Chapters 1, 2, and 3, with an appraisal of interpretation offered by modern biblical scholars, patrologists, and art historians. Critical comment often overlooks a series of ambiguities in the narratives, particularly the distinct characteristics of Luke’s version. These include the question of whether the disciples enter the overshadowing cloud, the presence of priestly or cultic imagery, visionary motifs frequently found in apocalyptic texts, such as the disciples’ drowsiness, and Peter’s confusion at not knowing what he said. Chapters 4-7 examine the earliest reception in 2 Peter, the Apocalypse of Peter, and the Acts of Peter, explore at some length Origen’s and Tertullian’s interpretation, and also look at Latin and Greek comment after Origen. I show many ancient writers to understand the disciples as experiencing ecstatic vision. Some also use cultic language appertaining to the Jerusalem Temple in their exegesis of the Transfiguration. They also employ the narrative to interpret other prophetic or visionary texts. Many of these distinguishing features of interpretation frequently stem from their attentiveness to the Lucan narrative. Chapter 8 examines the earliest artistic depictions of the Transfiguration from the sixth century onwards. This chapter indicates that many of the visionary and cultic themes we have outlined in previous chapters are frequently overlooked by art historians, and also that Luke’s narrative exercised a greater influence on representation of the Transfiguration than many people have imagined. This thesis concludes with a reconsideration of the visionary character of the Transfiguration narratives. Many of the ambiguities, overlooked details, and distinctive traits we pointed to in our opening chapters will be seen to have had much greater significance through many centuries of early hermeneutic tradition and artistic depiction than is the case in modern historical critical scholarship.

St. Adalbert's Church in Jílové by Prague is one of the oldest monuments in the city and its story is essentially connected with the history of the city and its role as a significant gold deposit. Therefore, in research of his past we should distinguish between two lines of studies - the fate of the church as a parish benefice and the history of this remarkable building and as a historical monument. In the introduction of the thesis we meet the history of the royal city of goldmining, watch the beginnings of his fame, the great boom in the 14th century, the change of conditions after the Hussite wars and the gradual withdrawal of its significance, despite the apparent efforts to restore his position. In following chapter, we see the development of the parish, staffing the benefices, pastors' personalities and their little stories. An interesting point in this chapter is the construction of a Franciscan monastery in Jílové, which temporarily took over the management of the entire parish. In the second section of the thesis we see the establishment of the church-building and its initial form, as well as its reconstruction and modifications to the current appearance. The last part is especially devoted to the main altar and another interesting inventory. Keywords church, history, Jílové by Prague,...

The theme of the work is the role of the lower clergy in Czech society sixties of the 19th century. Against the backdrop of broader social-context situation is approached in Sedlčany Vicariate, where the writer and patriotic priest Beneš Metod Kulda was a vicar in the years 1860-1870. The work deals with the identity of national Czech lower clergy, his sentiments and activities. Special emphasis is placed on coping with the liberalization of society, to work in the education and attitude to national issues. The work shows thought and action clergy to specific examples, which can often be called typical. At the same time, we describe the events that were beyond the average, and in some cases have resonance beyond vicariate. In conflict situations is confronted with the sight of clergy ideological opponents of view. Analysis of the relationships and mindsets of actors reveals the background multifaceted social events in the years when deciding on the future direction of the Habsburg monarchy and the Catholic Church.