Visitation Articles and Injunctions of the Early Stuart Church, Volume 1

The Church of England Record Society was founded in 1992 for the publication of records of national importance of the Church of England. It will be concerned with all periods of the English Church from the 16th to the 20th centuries.This is the first of two volumes which reproduce manuscript and printed documents for the years 1603-1642. The articles issued by archbishops, bishops, archdeacons and others exercising ecclesiastical jurisdiction have been frequently used by historians as evidence of the priorities and concerns of church government, but until now there has been no systematic examination of the structure and contents of articles, nor the relationship between sets issued by different archbishops, bishops or archdeacons. These two volumes attempt to fill this gap, by establishing genealogies of visitation articles through a careful selection and collation of influential sets. Volume 1, centring on the Church of James I, contains no less than sixty-six sets of articles, which are printed either in full or in collated form. The volume also prints injunctions or charges issued during or after visitations. These often emanated from the crown, as well as archbishops, bishops and, occasionally, archdeacons. An introduction will place these documents in their historical and historiographical context, and suggest that visitation articles and injunctions provide essential evidence on the churchmanship of church governors, as well as the shifting interests of their supreme governor. Volume 2 extends the same treatment to the Caroline church up to the civil War. KENNETH FINCHAM is lecturer in history at the University of Kent at Canterbury.