Charles W. A. Prior

Charles W. A. Prior offers a careful reconstruction of a number of printed debates on the nature of the relationship of church and realm: the introduction of altars into the Church of England; the Scottish National Covenant, and the legal consequences of the assertion of clerical power in a system mostra'n més of ecclesiastical courts. He reveals that these debates were concerned with the ambiguities of the relationship of civil and ecclesiastical power that were contained in the statutes that carved out the Church 'by law established'. Instead of being clearly separated as part of an 'Erastian' Reformation, religion and law were bound together in complex ways, and debates on the relationship of church and realm emerged as a vital conduit of political and constitutional thought. A Confusion of Tongues offers a synthetic and nuanced portrait of the politics of religion, and recovers the texture of contemporary debate at a vital point in early modern British history. mostra'n menys