The Affective Communities of Protestantism in North West England, C.1660-C.1740
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The Affective Communities of Protestantism in North West England, c.1660-c.1740 A thesis submitted to the University of Manchester for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Humanities 2017 Michael A. L. Smith School of Arts, Languages and Cultures Contents Abstract | p.3 Introduction |p.7 Historiography: ‘The Reaction against Enthusiasm’, Protestant Pluralism, Community and Religiosity | p.9 Methodology and Approach | p.21 Structure: Concentric Communities of Devotion | p.33 Chapter 1: “Warmth in Secret Duty”; Feeling and Personal Devotional Practice | p.35 Prayer | p.39 Diary Construction and Affective Sequences | p.48 Reading | p.58 Conclusion | p.70 Chapter 2: “A Church in the House”; Feeling and the Corporate Devotions of Protestant Households | p.72 The Shared Culture of Family Religion | p.74 Community | p.86 Family Religion and Feeling | p.100 Conclusion | p.109 Chapter 3: Affections in ‘Public Worship’, Sequential Feeling and Identity | p.111 Sermon and Sacrament: the Affective Sequences of Public Worship | p.115 At Church, Chapel or in Separation: Attendance and Identity | p.133 Conclusion | p.149 Chapter 4: Voluntary Religion; Friendship, Society and Interior Piety | p.152 Friendship as Devotional Exercise | p.155 Cultivating Piety in Voluntary Associations | p.170 Conclusion | p.194 Chapter 5: Cultivating Clerical Communities | p.197 Formal Offices of Ministry: Funerals, Ordinations and Preaching Tours | p.201 Clerical Family Friendships across the Conformist Divide | p.215 Clerical Sociability and Devotional Friendship | p.226 Conclusion | p.233 Conclusion: ‘Myself and Sion’; Affective Piety and the Devotional Nation | p.235 Bibliography | p.254 Word Count: 78,937 2 Abstract This dissertation explores how feeling was of central importance to the religiosity of Protestants in the north west of England between 1660 and 1740. It demonstrates how in their personal, familial, public and voluntary religious practices these Protestants understood the cultivation of emotions, or more precisely ‘affections’, as indispensable for the fulfilment of their devotional exercises. Each of these practices was constructive of communities that were linked by feeling and within which different forms of affective norms were expected. These communities preserved much of that godly culture which had otherwise characterised English Protestantism in the earlier seventeenth century. Moreover, by doing so they frequently minimised in part the importance of conformity to the Church of England. Friendships were maintained between conformists and nonconformists and they shared in a culture of religious feeling, which drew on the same topoi in their religious activities. This thesis will make original contributions to a number of debates. It challenges the prevailing narratives of a ‘reaction against enthusiasm’ dominating the religious discourse of the period. In contrast, it suggests that through the cultivation of feeling, Protestants in the period between the re-establishment of the Church of England and the Evangelical Revival continued to experience a vital religiosity. It thus also questions the suitability of describing some religious movements as inherently more ‘emotional’ than others. A more viable exploration can be found in differing forms of emotionality in different religious cultures. By examining the north west of England the thesis also revises the notion that the region was spiritually impoverished before the rise of Methodism, or that the religion provided by the Church of England and Protestant nonconformity failed to engage its attendants. The thesis is divided into five chapters which explore the affective communities to which English Protestants of the period and region belonged. These communities were concentric and sequential, in that the individual Protestant might pass between all of them depending upon their devotional practice. Chapter One examines personal religious devotion, conducted mostly alone. It demonstrates the unity between feeling and reason in personal experience of God. Chapter Two examines family religion and how it was defined by a meditative affect and engaged in by a broad spectrum of Protestant affiliation. Chapter Three explores public worship and its central role within the devotional economy; being both the affective crescendo of devotional practice and being a source of pious affections. Chapter Four looks at voluntary religious practices, showing how friendship was defined by its devotional nature and how the various religious societies of the period continued to promote an affective religiosity. Chapter Five considers clerical communities and how these were maintained across lines of conformity and also provided significant spiritual succour to the ministers of conformity and nonconformity in the region. 3 Declaration No portion of the work referred to in the thesis has been submitted in support of an application for another degree or qualification of this or any other university or other institute of learning. 4 Copyright Statement i. The author of this thesis (including any appendices and/or schedules to this thesis) owns certain copyright or related rights in it (the “Copyright”) and s/he has given The University of Manchester certain rights to use such Copyright, including for administrative purposes. ii. Copies of this thesis, either in full or in extracts and whether in hard or electronic copy, may be made only in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (as amended) and regulations issued under it or, where appropriate, in accordance with licensing agreements which the University has from time to time. This page must form part of any such copies made. iii. The ownership of certain Copyright, patents, designs, trademarks and other intellectual property (the “Intellectual Property”) and any reproductions of copyright works in the thesis, for example graphs and tables (“Reproductions”), which may be described in this thesis, may not be owned by the author and may be owned by third parties. Such Intellectual Property and Reproductions cannot and must not be made available for use without the prior written permission of the owner(s) of the relevant Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions. iv. Further information on the conditions under which disclosure, publication and commercialisation of this thesis, the Copyright and any Intellectual Property and/or Reproductions described in it may take place is available in the University IP Policy (see http://documents.manchester.ac.uk/DocuInfo.aspx?DocID=2442 0), in any relevant Thesis restriction declarations deposited in the University Library, The University Library’s regulations (see http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/about/regulations/ ) and in The University’s policy on Presentation of Theses 5 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my supervisors Dr. Andrew Crome, Dr. Sasha Handley and Professor Jeremy Gregory for your guidance throughout the creation of the thesis. Your advice has been thorough, thoughtful and understanding, as well as timely, which I am greatly appreciative for given the many calls on your time. You have frequently gone beyond the call of duty to make this work the best it could be. I would also like to thank Professor Stuart Jones for agreeing to taking on the role of Independent Reviewer at short notice and offering important feedback at a crucial stage of the writing process. I am indebted to the University of Manchester whose grants and bursary have made this research possible. The research community at the University of Manchester has always been greatly rewarding for my own research and personally enriching. I have worked with an impressive group of scholars and among thoughtful research clusters. I have made lifelong friends among the PhD students of the School. Special thanks go to Ben for being a constant source of support and advice; Jess, Hannah, Sarah and Rachel with whom I have shared the highs and difficulties of the process; and to Gwynne and Kathleen for periodic and welcome distraction. Outside of academia I have been fortunate enough to draw upon a strong support network, for which I am most grateful. To Andrew, Kathleen, Sarah and Timothy Smith as well as Margaret Smith and the late William Lloyd, thank you for the material and loving succour you have offered me over the process. To my friends also, particularly ‘the Commune’, you have been a much needed fount of fun. Finally to my partner Craig, your patience, love and help in keeping me focussed on the bigger picture have been indispensable. 6 Introduction On 18 June 1713 Edmund Harrold, a wigmaker and resident in Manchester, was on the brink of securing his engagement to his third wife-to-be Ann. He used this moment to reflect on his life and on the death of his second wife Sarah: Oh my heart is sorrowful for my sin and vanity. Lord, help and direct me for ye best, not yt I heartily desire to settle, however, thy will be done. Sat in this night and reflected on my life past, and find Ive done sadly amiss. I hope its not too late to amend. I pray God I may repent and forsake ye evill thro Gods preventing grace. Dream’d of death and other things this night thro’ over tho[ugh]tfullnes on ye loss of my wife ½ year ago, and other changes and chances yt dayly befall me. 1 Harrold was a relatively conventional conformist, whose preference for the Collegiate Church in Manchester and sympathy for the controversialist Henry Sacheverell might have qualified him as a high-church partisan. Yet, in this strongly confessional diary entry, not dissimilar to many that he penned, he demonstrated the centrality of feeling to his devotional practice. The sorrowful heart that he described and his sad recognition of his previously immoral lifestyle represented Harrold’s Christian repentance. This seemingly mundane example of quotidian devotion is the central focus of this thesis, which reveals that feeling was central to, and performative of devotion. Narratives of a ‘reaction against enthusiasm’, which produced an inert moralistic religiosity, have dominated accounts of the religious history of the period from the restoration of the Church of England in 1662 to the advent of Methodism from the 1730s.