LAUDIANISM IN THE NORTH: THE IMPACT OF LAUDIANISM IN THE ARCHDEACONRY OF NOTTINGHAM

The early to mid-seventeenth century was a time of great religious tumult and upheaval across Europe, including in England, where the tensions and debates first set in motion by the Reformation period continued to prove a source of disquiet and unease within the established church. This study examines a particular place in the less studied north of England, the Archdeaconry of Nottingham, during a particular period commonly associated with such turbulence, the ascendance of so-called “Laudianism” during the 1620s and 1630s. It aims chiefly to develop a fuller understanding of the ways in which Laudianism materialized at the parish level, and to probe common assumptions that Laudianism was heavily enforced and highly divisive in the large majority of English parishes—assumptions based largely on studies of more southerly localities. Although not principally concerned with the consequences of Laudianism as they may have related to the coming Civil War, many of the work’s findings carry implicit suggestions for future research on that more specific topic. While the Archdeaconry of Nottingham has been examined in some depth in previous studies, those works have primarily focused on the relationship between the archidiaconal administration and the various puritan ministers who lived and preached within its jurisdictional boundaries. Building on these important findings, this work seeks to focus on the even larger number of non-puritan ministers at work in the region to gain a better idea of the preconditions for Laudianism’s impact in parishes that were more representative of the archdeaconry as whole. From there, the work conducts systematic investigations of continuities and discontinuities between the 1630s and the decades preceding it—especially as regards ecclesiastical discipline, and the financial and material manifestations of Laudianism. These investigations reveal that Laudianism, while clearly a tangible reality for many, was hardly as uniform or disruptive as many have assumed. In the course of describing these findings, this study also highlights the extent to which local factors mediated the experience of Laudianism in a diverse array of settings, suggesting that further research must be done in order to properly evaluate Laudianism’s impact on the country at large.