We are seeking contributions from social and cultural historians of seventeenth-century England and Wales for an edited collection of essays, provisionally entitled Clerical Lives in England and Wales, c. 1600–1800. We propose to publish this volume with Manchester University Press’s Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Studies series.
Our aim is to compile a volume that includes social and cultural historians, as well as historians of emotion and ecclesiastical historians, all focusing on various facets of the clergy’s lives. We would like to encourage contributors to study the clergy as a social group – one fundamentally tied to their commitments to religion and their profession but also one that was deeply involved in, and shaped by, their social and cultural milieux.
Some key questions to be borne in mind:
- What methodological approaches have been previously used to study the clergy? What are the advantages and pitfalls of these methodologies, and what new approaches can we take?
- What social, cultural, and historical methodologies can be used to better understand the early modern clergy as a social group with diverse identities and lived experiences?
- How do clerical lives play out differently in printed, manuscript, visual, and material sources? How were they represented in visual and material culture?
- How does studying the social and cultural lives of the Protestant clergy enrich our understanding of ecclesiastical, social, and cultural history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries more broadly?
- What are the continuities and changes in clerical lives across the period of study (c. 1600–1800)?
- Which sources and which individuals (e.g. sermons, church records, bishops, and renowned poet-preachers such as George Herbert and John Donne) have been favoured over others (e.g. musical sources, artefacts, curates), and how can we redress the balance?
The last two bullet points outline the two other primary objectives of this volume; namely, to challenge the rigid boundaries between the seventeenth and the ‘long eighteenth’ centuries that have characterised much of ecclesiastical historiography, and to bring neglected voices relating to ‘clerical lives’ to the fore.
We would especially welcome submissions that might explore the early modern clergyman as artist or connoisseur of art; musician; or collector and consumer. We would also be interested in submissions that survey ‘clerical lives’ from a history of emotions perspective, in addition to proposals that shed light on more obscure figures within English and Welsh Protestantism (broadly defined).
We encourage submissions from scholars at all stages, including scholars who may never have published on the clergy or who may not think of the clergy as a primary focus of their work.
Please send a 300-word abstract and a short biography (max. 100 words) to Hannah Yip (University of Manchester, UK) and Ben Jackson (University of Manchester, UK) via clericallives@gmail.com no later than 18 October 2024.