The Two Kingdoms: The Norwegian Seamen's Church in London 1865–1905

The Norwegian church in London began its life as a mission to Scandinavian seamen in 1868, after an evangelical society for this group had been founded in Bergen in 1864. Throughout the period covered, the former was involved in extensive cooperation with the other Nordic missions in the British capital. Yet it was always a congregation rather than just a mission and, as time went by, it became more self‐consciously Norwegian too. Evidence presented here suggests the mission was a place of worship for its domiciled compatriots before 1872, when the church building was completed. In common with many foreign Protestant churches in London, the Norwegian congregation experienced some conflict. There were restrictions on it owing to Norway having entered a forced union with Sweden in 1814. The Swedish church saw itself as catering for both nationalities and would not brook competition from what was officially a service for Scandinavian seamen. The clergy were not natural supporters of Norwegian nationalism. But as their country became more self‐assertive within the union from 1880, they began demanding enhanced rights for their church. It was only when Norway had unilaterally declared its independence in 1905 that the clergy became full‐blown adherents of this.     

A Vision of Mount Holyoke in the Ottoman Balkans: American Cultural Transfer,Bulgarian Nation‐Building and Women's Educational Reform, 1858–1870

American missionaries introduced a project of female educational reform among Bulgarian Orthodox Christians in their attempt to promote a Protestant reformation in the Ottoman Balkans. This case study of American‐Bulgarian interactions in the town of Eski Zaǧora (Stara Zagora) illuminates a hitherto unexplored projection of American culture abroad and highlights the connections between women's education, religion, and national identity. In the face of Ottoman secular reform and American religious reform, Bulgarian women appropriated American educational ideals to demand improved schooling for Orthodox girls in the name of national progress. Ironically, by promoting female education, missionaries ensured the failure of their Protestant reformation and inadvertently contributed to shaping a Bulgarian national discourse during a period of increasing Balkan nationalism.     

Church,State, and the Holy Land: British Protestant Approaches to Imperial Policy in Palestine, 1917–1948

British Protestants had long held to the notion of a legitimate Protestant interest in the Christian ‘Holy Land’, a concept that helped bolster Britain's political claim to Palestine in the aftermath of the First World War. Evangelical Protestant visions of the return of the Jews to their biblical homeland encouraged imperial support for Zionism and helped define the unique conditions of British mandate rule. But once the British actually assumed power over Palestine, British Protestants began to find themselves seriously at odds over their moral and political obligations in the new possession their interests had helped to shape. This article explores three broad Protestant attitudes towards the question of Britain's policy towards Palestine during the mandate period, demonstrating the ways in which Lambeth Palace, Protestant metropolitan mission institutions, and Protestant church workers in Palestine itself developed radically different conceptions of their religious and political responsibilities in what they regarded as their ‘Holy Land’.     

The Millennial Voice in Victoria to 1914

The expression of millennial beliefs in Australia has been little studied, perhaps because of the slight impact of adventism on the general religious experience. This essay surveys the millennial ideas current in nineteenth‐century Victoria. Both Protestant Christian sects and the mainstream churches of British origin are considered; fringe groups which drew inspiration from Christian concepts are also noticed. An outline of the prophetic concerns which emerged in England late in the eighteenth century and refined in detail thereafter is followed by a discussion of the introduction of those ideas to Victoria. Special attention is given to a number of millennial sects that established a presence in the 1850s. This is followed by a consideration of the millennial beliefs employed later in the century by the mainstream denominations, especially as they were faced with threats from liberals, doubters, and freethinkers. In conclusion, the impact of liberalism and moral enlightenment on the Christian faith is discussed and related to the decline in church membership during the twentieth century.     

I,Claudius. Self‐styling in early medieval debate

Historians often have difficulties understanding contrary figures who deviated from mainstream practices and beliefs. In the case of Claudius of Turin, who because of his iconoclasm has been pictured as a proto‐Protestant, this image of a solitary was partly his own creation. Claudius liked to present himself as a truth‐teller, defending God's honour and the unity of the church against all kinds of evils. This article uses the case of Claudius and the response of Dungal, one of his learned opponents, like him connected to the royal court, to reflect on the role of self‐styling in early medieval debate.     

‘But Private Notes for My Own Memory’? Parliamentary Diaries,Parliamentary History and the Politics of Information in Early Stuart England*

Early modern parliamentary diaries are a standard source for historians, and have long been used as a supplement to the official journals in reconstructions of debates and business at Westminster. This article adopts a contrasting approach and examines what diaries – viewed as sources in their own right – reveal about parliament and its members, methods of contemporary note-taking, and the circulation and readership of political information. It begins with a review of the evidence for why, how, and to what ends members kept parliamentary diaries, before exploring the extent of their dissemination in early Stuart England. While recent literature has emphasized the circulation of materials relating to Jacobean and especially Caroline parliaments during the early 17th century, the article recovers the existence of a simultaneous interest in the parliamentary proceedings of the Elizabethan era. At a time when the future of parliament seemed uncertain, it argues that the evident market for, and readership of, Elizabethan material reflects contemporaries’ increasing recognition of parliament's significance within the English state and their changing attitudes towards parliamentary history. Moreover, while Elizabethan parliamentary diaries and journals seemingly reinforced memories of a past ‘golden age’ of parliamentary rule, the article contends that contemporaries’ production, dissemination, and reading of that material was a conscious form of political action in response to the constitutional crisis of their day.     

Missionaries and the Māori Language in Nineteenth‐Century New Zealand: A Mixed Inheritance

The historiography dealing with New Zealand's colonial period (1814 – c.1900) underwent a substantial revision during the second half of the twentieth century. In particular, the role and activities of the missionaries in the country during the colonial era was subject renewed scrutiny, which served as a much‐needed antidote to the largely uncritical depiction of these proselytisers in earlier histories. However, this revisionism sometimes took a reductionist approach to the work of the missionaries, and in the process, overlooked some of their accomplishments in a colonial environment that was at best unsympathetic and often hostile towards the Māori culture and language. Since then, a more nuanced and considered historiography has emerged – one which also incorporates the histories of imperial missionary activity in the realms of literacy and indigenous languages in other parts of the world into New Zealand's experience. This work examines the seminal role that Protestant missionaries and their parent churches played in the colonial era in converting Māori into a written language, in spreading the use of literacy within Māori society, with consideration given to the role of Māori agency in this process, and the challenges in policy and practice that the Protestant missionaries had in this period.     

English Evangelicals,Protestant National Identity,and Anglican Prayer Book Revision, 1927–1928

This paper examines English Anglican and Free Church evangelical reactions to the Church of England's Prayer Book revision proposals in 1927–1928, arguing that their responses reveal the resilience of Protestant national identity and anti‐Catholicism within English evangelicalism during this period. The concept of a Protestant nation, reformed heritage and Protestant constitution remained integral to the English evangelical identity. The robust “no‐popery” response of evangelicals in 1927–1928 points to the durability of the Protestant national narrative in English culture and society beyond the nineteenth century and suggests that the liberal Anglican vision of a broadly Christian national identity had a significant ideological rival in the interwar period.     

Front and Back Covers,Volume 28, Number 2. April 2012

Front and back cover caption, volume 28 issue 2 Front cover A simple, austere cross hangs on the St. Maria‐Magdalena church in the newly constructed Rieselfeld neighbourhood of Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany. Completed in 2004, the building contains both a Protestant and a Catholic church, with moveable partition walls also allowing for the creation of a single ecumenical site when desired. Similarly, a diversity of associations, meanings, and histories are attributed to the symbol of the cross itself in different spaces and times. Its appearance on the wall of a multi‐ecumenical space highlights the theological connections between Protestant and Catholic Christianities; its location near the French‐German border calls attention to the doctrinal disputes and historical violence that have occurred between these two faiths. The significance of the cross – while often presumed to be self‐evident – is complex and ever shifting. Its connotations are produced through processes as diverse as the urban renewal project of the church of Maria‐Magdalena and juridical rulings on its display in public spaces. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a claim that crucifixes hanging in Italian classrooms were an affront to freedom of conscience and a parent's freedom to educate his or her children. As a symbol, the Court declared, the cross does not stand for Christianity alone, but also for ‘European heritage’. While today, signs associated with Islam are treated as a threat to public spaces in countries throughout Europe, anthropologists can explore how claims made about the cross produce it as a flexible sign connoting not only the story of the Passion, but also European history and secular tolerance. Back cover LEGENDARY HOMINOIDS Gregory Forth inspects what villagers in one part of western Flores describe as a burial mound marking the place where their ancestors interred a group of hominoids they killed in a violent confrontation. After receiving details of the mound and its history from Forth, in 2011 several Indonesian and Western palaeoanthropologists began exploring possibilities for excavating the site and hope to gain permission to begin digging in the near future. The 2003 discovery on the eastern Indonesian island of Flores of a small, physically primitive hominin interpreted as a new species, Homo floresiensis, came as a surprise to anthropology. Not only is the find extraordinarily recent in geological terms, but the hypothetical species bears a close resemblance to indigenous images of similarly diminutive, hominoid creatures reputedly encountered by local villagers in an even more recent historical era. The challenge posed by Homo floresiensis to our previous understanding of hominin (or ‘human’) evolution is well documented. But the unexpected find poses challenges for sociocultural anthropology as well. Searches for the physical remains of non‐sapiens hominins are typically motivated by prevailing palaeoanthropological theories and interpretations. However, contextual as well as physical peculiarities of the Flores hominin suggest that future investigations of the new species may be crucially informed by ethnographic evidence, the bulk of which was collected prior to, and independent of, the palaeoanthropological discovery.     

Gallican Liberties and the Catholic League

Summary

Theorists of Gallican liberty took as their premise the idea that France had an exceptional status amongst the national Christian churches. However, as contemporaries had noted, the precise definition of Gallican liberties remained at stake; Antoine Hotman noted in his treatise on the subject that ‘it is a strange phenomenon that everyone talks of the liberties of the Gallican Church and, most of the time, very few people know what they are and cannot account for their origins or for their progress’. Within the context of French reactions to the papal excommunications of Henri III and Henri de Navarre, and reception of the Tridentine decrees, the question of how to define Gallican liberty was an extremely pertinent one. This article examines the treatment of Gallican ideas in Catholic League treatises as they negotiated a balance between arguments for Gallican independence and indirect papal power. Despite accusations from their contemporaries that they were attacking the Gallican church, Leaguer discussions of Gallican liberty frequently proved to be an integral part of the argument that Catholicity was a ‘fundamental law’ of France.     

Religious Reforming Currents in Sixteenth‐Century Italy: The Spirituali and the Tridentine Debates over Church Reform

The history of religious reform in sixteenth century Italy has been the subject of much scholarly debate in recent decades, as well as uncertainty about how best to conceptualise the period, so indelibly marked by epoch‐changing events, such as the Protestant Reformation (from 1517) and the Council of Trent (1545–1563). Reforming currents in Italy were swept along by these events, and indeed appear to have been overwhelmed by them. Commonly, these currents are explored for their theological nature and especially their heterodox, even Protestant, character. Less well studied is their role in the debates over organisational church reform. It is here that we can discern the tenacity of these currents well into the Tridentine period. This article explores key protagonists of reform, known as the spirituali, with particular reference to the humanist bishop, Ludovico Beccadelli, and his role in the debate over episcopal residence. Through an analysis of his contribution to this divisive debate at the Council of Trent, the article seeks to shed light on a strand of the spirituali that was both resilient and prominent in the battle for the future direction of the Catholic Church.     

The Protestant working class in Belfast: education and civic erosion – an alternative analysis

This paper explores and reassesses the issues of social decline, educational underachievement and civic erosion in relation to the Protestant working class in Belfast. Prior to the ‘Troubles’ the Protestant working class in Belfast had at its heart a civic-mindedness which was in tune with working-class communities across the UK at the time. This civic-mindedness encouraged the growth of extended communities and placed an importance on church attendance and educational achievement; something which has been conveniently ignored in most analyses. Owing to population movements in Greater Belfast which followed the violence that followed the introduction of internment without trial in August 1971 Protestant church congregations dwindled and school attendances dropped significantly. The paper ultimately seeks to provide a ‘long view’ of the Protestant working-class experience in order to assist those who are concerned with the problems facing it in the current era.     

The Forgotten History of the Protestant Crusade: Religious Liberalism in Ireland1

Irish historians do not generally identify religious liberalism as a feature of the 1820s. Instead, they have mapped religious conflict onto increasingly binary conflicts in the socio‐economic, cultural, and political spheres. The “Second Reformation” missionary movement put evangelicals and Catholics on a direct collision course and, consequently, historians have argued that it was a key factor in the emergence both of Irish Catholic nationalism and Protestant defensive co‐operation. However, the Crusade also produced a strong Protestant backlash alongside the growing sectarian conflict. In County Limerick, for example, two versions of Church of Ireland opposition emerged during 1820, among high church clergy including Bishop Jebb and among liberal Protestant gentlemen. Instead of closing down debate into rigid binary opposition along sectarian lines, the Limerick evidence shows that the Crusade produced a much more complex religious, social, and political debate than historians have recognised which, in turn, made possible a wider range of responses to key Irish problems.     

‘A Wigwam to Westminster’: Performing Mohawk Identity in Imperial Britain, 1890s–1990s

This article examines the travels and appearances of Canadian Mohawk writers, lecturers, and performers E. Pauline Johnson and John Brant‐Sero, who appeared in Britain as self‐identified Mohawks, Canadians, and members of the British Empire during the late‐Victorian and Edwardian years of heightened imperial sentiment. The article draws upon feminist scholarship on performance, imperialism, and culture and consumption for the late‐Victorian and Edwardian period. It argues that, while Johnson and Brant‐Sero challenged stereotypes of Mohawk gender relations, they also were part of imperialist modernity; their gendered ‘performances’– on and off‐stage – must be analysed within the context of the gendered cultures of consumption and performance of late‐Victorian and Edwardian British society.     

Excavations of the 16th-century Protestant church and graveyard in Govče,north-east Slovenia

Summary

Archaeological excavations carried out in Gov?e ??near ?alec, Slovenia, have confirmed the location of the 16th-century Protestant church, destroyed by the Counter-Reformation Commission in 1600. These excavations have revealed the foundations of a polygonal nave, remains of the enclosure and part of a graveyard. This article focuses on the results of analysis of the burials, providing new information on 16th-century material culture. It provides historical background of the area and of the construction of the church, and presents the results of the excavation with emphasis on the graveyard, providing new information on Protestant burial customs employed in the late 16th century.     

Down and Out in Leiden and London: The Later Careers of Venceslaus Clemens (1589–1637), and Jan Sictor (1593–1652), Bohemian Exiles and Failing Poets

This paper addresses the later careers of two almost entirely forgotten Bohemian Neo-Latin poets, Venceslaus Clemens (1589-1637), and Jan Sictor (1593-1652). These men were among the many Protestant academics displaced by the Thirty Years War, but unlike some of their better-known contemporaries, Clemens and Sictor were abject failures. Nevertheless, their failure illustrates the miserable lot of the displaced continental academic in the period, unable to adapt fully to new and challenging circumstances. This aspect of the literary and intellectual impact of the Thirty Years War has been understandably underplayed, but stories of failure are nevertheless instructive and indeed essential for a balanced picture of the intellectual impact of war. This study employs archival and bibliographical evidence to reconstruct the biographies and fortunes of these two men as they tried their luck, with very limited success, in the Low Countries and England in the 1630s.     

The Basis of Union: New Zealand Baptists forge a Denomination in the 1940s

This essay examines a crucial period in New Zealand Baptist life. During the 1940s Baptist leaders sought to establish a more centrally organised denomination than had previously existed. Motivated by a desire to position Baptists closer to the mainstream of Protestant religious life, this centripetal dynamic was tested by a cluster of crises and debates. Some of these reflected theological tensions that had been present in the denomination for decades. Others, more immediate and linked to particular personalities, exposed key issues of control and authority. The leadership of the largest church, Baptist involvement in the Ecumenical movement, and the principalship of the theological college were contested. Despite the considerable potential for division, the outcome was a more connectional denomination, able to maintain unity under stress, though one not as centrally driven as some in the Executive desired.     

‘Poor Gordon’: What the Australian Cult of Adam Lindsay Gordon Tells Us About Turn‐of‐the‐Twentieth‐Century Masculine Sentimentality

The popularity of the British‐born Australian poet and sportsman, Adam Lindsay Gordon (1833–1870), flowered after his death. Between 1870 and 1920, he was widely extolled as an exemplar of the Australian bushman and of British imperial masculinity alike. Fans lauded Gordon as a daredevil horseman who had lived in the bush in the Australian colonies’ roaring days. Fascinatingly, though, they expressed their enthusiasm for him in sentimental terms. This article shows that sentimental expressions of devotion to Gordon were part of a distinctive form of masculine sentimentality emerging in Western culture at the turn of the nineteenth century. The proponents of this sentimentality encouraged the members of Western imperial and settler‐colonial publics to sympathise with rugged bushmen such as Gordon – to collectively experience their sorrows, griefs and joys. In so doing, they helped to reinforce masculine and settler‐colonial power, since they elevated the sentiments of hardy masculine types at the expense of feminine ones. In Australia, sentimental representations of Gordon also helped divert attention from the violence committed by settlers against Aboriginal peoples. Based on the insight that masculinity and sentiment were profoundly intertwined in the day, this article calls for a new way of thinking about the relationship between these two phenomena in the turn‐of‐the‐century era.     

Patriot Graves: American national identity and the Civil War dead

The Civil War was America’s defining conflict, the war that made the nation and the fulcrum for the development of American national identity in the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet the role that the Civil War dead played in this process has only begun to be explored. Although the monuments raised to honor the dead, along with the battlefields on which they fought, attract considerable interest, the cemeteries constructed to inter them have been integrated into the landscape – literal and figurative – of the American nation so fully that the need they answered, the manner of their development, the form they took, and their longer‐term symbolic message has been relatively neglected. Yet the Civil War dead were a crucial – indeed, the crucial – component in the construction of American national identity. Although scholars interpret American attitudes toward the Civil War dead within the context of the mourning rituals of the antebellum era, the war required, and produced, a different approach to death, for which antebellum precedent had ill‐prepared Americans. Removed from its antebellum religious and societal framework, death in the Civil War acquired a new and more potent national meaning that not only validated American nationalism through warfare, but anticipated the response to fallen soldiers in future European conflicts.