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[The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the debates on church government at the Westminster Assembly of Divines, 1643-1646. The major primary sources are the official minutes of the assembly and the personal memoirs of three participants: John Lightfoot, George Gillespie, and Robert Baillie. This is a historical, descriptive, and critical study. The Westminster Assembly was summoned to advise the Long Parliament on reforming the doctrine, liturgy, and government of the Church of England. For more than a year the ministers struggled to devise the best form of church government--one that would conform both to the Bible and to the practice of other Reformed churches. Their recommendations were supposed to provide the basis for parliamentary legislation on the church.]

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Symeon of Durham's history of the church of Durham, a number of earlier narratives and the fine collection of twelfth century Durham charters formed the basis for this history of the Community of Saint Cuthbert before 1150. They generally concentrated upon the acquisition and maintenance of the community's lands, the changes in which reflected the major events in northern history. The survival of the sources and the story they tell bear witness to the remarkable resilience and continuity of the community. At no time did it suffer the destruction characteristic of northern monasticism, often flourishing at times of upheaval, as during the Scandinavian and Norman Conquests. In its first days the acquisition of land was, predictably, associated with early Anglian settlement, especially royal sites. Throughout the period the growth of the patrimony was largely dependent upon royal patronage, though some bishops were also avid acquirers of land. Royal and other lay patronage can be directly associated with the need to gather support in the north. Rulers secure in the north, as native northern earls, or strong enough to subdue the area were unlikely to be great benefactors and were inclined to despoil the church. For the Cuthbertine community jurisdictional rights were important and there is evidence to suggest that there existed a substantial jurisdictional immunity within the patrimony by the tenth century. The rights of sanctuary of a mother church and the immunities of church land in the seventh century seem to have been important factors in its establishment, rather than, as has generally been suggested, the alienation of comital rights to Durham in the late eleventh century. The combination of landed wealth, jurisdictional privilege and survival accounts for the immense power of the community in the north from the seventh century onwards.

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