Over the last fifty years or so, historians have largely neglected Gilbert Foliot, the man who was Bishop of London during the 1160s and 1170s, as representative of any larger theoretical position, dismissing his famous polemic letter Multiplicem nobis as the product of envy and thwarted ambition. In this dissertation I argue that Gilbert Foliot was neither out of step with the attitudes of his contemporaries nor driven blindly by anger and envy. Rather, his position was the result of legal training combined with his experience as a cleric in the tumultuous years of twelfth century England. Foliot’s legal training inculcated in him a political theory stressing a bifurcated authority structure in which the clerical and lay “swords” would be drawn to complement one another, but were at the same time necessarily separate and independent. Thus he believed that the Church’s success in its goal of saving souls was reliant on the goodwill and protection of an effective and powerful king. During the Anarchy of King Stephen’s reign, Foliot urged his clerical brethren to unleash the sword of excommunication against barons who committed crimes, and he was frustrated by the lack of coercive power he felt King Stephen ought to have exercised over the rebellious knights who terrorized the countryside. Later, during the reign of Henry II, Foliot feared that the archbishop’s new insistence on clerical superiority would limit the king’s lawful coercive power, while pushing the king to work against the Church rather than with it. Foliot, the jurist, found the archbishop’s argument not only ill-advised, but legally illegitimate and dangerous. Thus Foliot’s diatribe in Multiplicem should be understood not simply as a moment of anger, but as representative of a valid strain of thought in the English clergy, and that the attitude toward the crown on the part of churchmen was more dynamic than historians have recognized. / text

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To the Englishmen of the sixteenth century the structure of the universe seemed clear and logical. God had created and ordered it in such a way that everyone and everything had a specific, permanent place which carried with it appropriate duties and responsibilities. Primary among these requirements was obedience to one's betters, up the Chain of Being, to God. Unity demanded uniformity; obedience held the universe together. Within this context, the excommunication of Elizabeth Tudor in 1570 both redefined and intensified the strain between the crown and the various religious groups in the realm. Catholics had become traitors, or at least potential traitors, with the stroke of a papal pen.

The term, Elizabethan Settlement, when applied solely to the adoption of the Prayer Book in 1559 or the Thirty-nine Articles in 1563, is misleading. The final form of the Settlement was the result of a creative struggle which involved Elizabeth and her advisers, together with the bishops and the local populace. The bishops introduced the Settlement in their dioceses and began a process of change which involved the laity and the local clergy. Through the ensuing implementation process the ultimate form of religion in England was defined.

This thesis considers how religious literature represented sickness and disability in Anglo- Saxon and post-Conquest England. Based on Gospel accounts of Jesus's healings, narratives of miracle-cures were highly valued within medieval Christian culture. By analysing a selection of miracle-cure narratives from the main period of miracle writing in England, from the age of Bede to the late twelfth century, this project considers the social significance of such stories. All miracle-cures followed the pattern of a spiritual triumph over the material world, but this thesis focuses on how hagiographers represented human experiences of sickness and disabilities. The first two chapters of this thesis address the conceptual structure of the project. The first explains the two areas of scholarly theory that underpin this thesis. These are the use of narrative sources for historical study; and sociological conceptualisations of bodily difference. The second chapter orientates the case-studies selected for this project in their context. Miracle-cures were recounted in relation to other aspects of the culture of medieval England, most importantly the theology of sainthood and of sin. The remaining three chapters of the thesis provide detailed thematic analysis of selected miracle-cure narratives. The third chapter asks how the spiritual experience of bodily difference was understood. The next chapter considers the physical understandings of a body that was affected by either sickness or disability, and the links between miracle-cure narratives and contemporary medical theory. The fifth and final chapter addresses the representation of social aspects of sickness and disability in these texts, in particular the moralising rhetoric of such texts in favour of community support. This thesis concludes with a discussion of how modern Disability Studies and scholarship on medieval culture benefit from interaction with one another.

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The Church Growth movement, originating with Donald McGavran in 1955 and popularised principally by C Peter Wagner since 1971, has influenced evangelical mission internationally. Though originating in the context of cross-cultural `missionary' work, it is perhaps now identified as a typically American approach, apparently relying on method and technique to accomplish its objective, which as the name implies, is the growth of the church, both locally and world-wide, since this is understood as the requirement of the `Great Commission' (Matthew 28: 18-20). The Salvation Army (founded 1865) has been in decline in Britain certainly since the Second World War, and probably since the 1930s. In 1986 the Army formally Espoused the Church Growth approach to mission. There has been little published research into the effectiveness of Church Growth methods, especially in the UK, despite voluminous outpourings of inspirational and motivational literature. Virtually the only test of the principles (Turning the Tide) was produced in 1981 by Paul Beasley-Murray and Alan Wilkinson, investigating the reliability of Wagner's` Vital Signs' in larger Baptist churches in England. This thesis follows Beasley-Murray and Wilkinson by testing the principles in the specific context of The Salvation Army in the UK. The approach adopted, a questionnaire survey with reference to statistical trends, follows the pragmatism of Church Growth itself, asking whether the approach works, rather than whether it is theologically sound, though such issues are considered where relevant. The opportunity has also been taken to consider specific Salvation Anny issues (uniform, music etc. ) and their effect on growth and decline. The work falls into four sections: - The Salvation Army; - The Church Growth Movement; - The Questionnaire Survey; - Conclusions and Recommendations.

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