This, the first of two articles, explores the devotional literature and sermons of some of the lesser known figures of 17th century, as well as the more well known writings of Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, and George Herbert. It shows the richness of the devotional life of people in the Church of England during a formative period of its history. The second article on other writings of cathedral clergy will appear in the next issue of the journal.

The seventeenth century has long been recognized as a great period--some would say the great period--for the composition of English religious literature. One has only to mention such names as John Donne, George Herbert, Lancelot Andrewes, John Tillotson, Edward Stilling-fleet, and Thomas Ken to appreciate the high quality and lasting merit of writings by Anglican clergy. The sheer quantity of religious publication was extraordinary. In 1620, for example, more than half of the titles listed in the Stationers' Register were religious in character; in 1640, about 42 percent of the titles listed in the Short Title Catalogue of English books could have been classified as religious.[1]

One can only speculate about the reasons which lie behind this flowering of religious literature. Obviously, the growth of literacy and the great expansion of the publishing trade have something to do with it. The religious controversies of the period were probably also responsible for generating heightened interest. The exceptional literary quality of the age of Shakespeare and Milton may have spilled over into religious writing and may account in part for its uncommon excellence. Whatever the reasons, the seventeenth century forms a particularly interesting period for the study of religious writings, and indeed of all writings published by Anglican clergy.

Since the quantity of published material is so great, some limitation of scope is necessary, especially in a relatively brief survey. One plan of attack is to consider the works of a specific group of writers. The clergy who held positions in the cathedrals perhaps form the most suitable gathering. Unlike the entire body of English clerics, the cathedral population is precisely defined; although large it is manageable. It is not, of course, representative of the entire body of Anglican priests. The cathedral clergy--the deans and canons or prebendaries--enjoyed a higher status than ordinary parish priests. They were exceptionally well educated; virtually all had received degrees from Oxford or Cambridge, and nearly half held doctorates. They were also exceptionally well rewarded. The actual value of their stipends had fallen somewhat in the years after 1540, since this was an inflationary period in which the church's income failed to rise as rapidly as prices, but they continued to enjoy much more comfortable circumstances than the rectors, vicars, and curates of parishes. Free from routine parochial responsibilities, the clergy who held cathedral preferments formed an intellectual elite; their resources and relative leisure made it possible for them to produce a large portion of the writings which can be attributed to English churchmen during the seventeenth century.

During these years, there were twenty-six cathedrals in England and Wales. Nine of the English cathedrals were cathedrals "of the old foundation": they had long been served by a dean and chapter of secular clergy, so they did not require constitutional change at the time of the Reformation. York, Lincoln, Salisbury, St. Paul's, Wells, Exeter, Hereford, Chichester, and Lichfield were establishments of this sort, as were the four small Welsh cathedrals (St. David's, Bangor, St. Asaph, and Llandaff). Eight cathedrals (Canterbury, Durham, Winchester, Ely, Worcester, Norwich, Rochester, and Carlisle) had been served by monks; these were refounded with secular chapters during the reign of Henry VIII.

Henry VIII established five new cathedrals in order to break up over-large dioceses like Lincoln and to provide a continuing use for a few great monastic churches which had not previously enjoyed cathedral status. The new cathedrals (Gloucester, Peterborough, Chester, Bristol, and Oxford), together with the former monastic cathedrals, are the cathedrals "of the new foundation"; all of them received new statutes during the sixteenth century.[2] The number of clergy serving cathedrals of the new foundation was determined by their statutes. Generally, there were a dean and six or eight canons, although Canterbury had twelve and Carlisle a mere four. By contrast, the cathedrals of the old foundation continued to name large numbers of prebendaries, clergy who enjoyed the revenue from specific estates or prebends and were, in the main, not resident at the cathedral itself. Both Lincoln and Salisbury had more than fifty such prebendaries, and all the old secular cathedrals in England could appoint more than twenty men. In all, about four hundred clergy held cathedral positions at any given time.

As part of a comprehensive history of cathedrals during the century of the English Civil War, I have developed computerized files of biographical information for 2531 men who were members of cathedral chapters between 1600 and 1700.[3] These have been analyzed to reveal social background, educational qualifications, life span, mobility to higher offices in the church, and involvement in the political controversies of the age. In addition, they have been collated with the Short-Title Catalogues of English Books printed during this period to produce a list of works published by cathedral clergy.[4] The resulting compilation is not quite complete. The Short-Title Catalogues do not include works written in Latin or other foreign languages and published abroad (they do contain such works if printed in England), and they are limited to works now extant. That a number of publications have vanished is evident from the fact that the catalogues frequently list a fifth or sixth edition but not all of the four or five which preceded it. In addition, there must have been a number of lost ephemera, perhaps mainly such things as individual funeral sermons produced in limited editions and not collected in libraries. Still, the bibliography drawn from the Short-Title Catalogues can be regarded as essentially accurate. While it may miss a few editions, it is not likely to omit titles of any significance.[5]

In all, we know of 716 cathedral clergy who have left published writings. This is just over a third of the total number of men associated with the cathedrals. These writers produced 4265 separate works.[6] A further 2753 volumes represent later editions or reprintings of these titles. The total number of identifiable items attributed to seventeenth-century cathedral clergy is thus 7018.[7] Comparison with the sixteenth century is revealing: only 197 of the 2849 clergy whom we studied for the earlier period (about 7 per cent) were represented in the Short-Title Catalogue, and the tabulation of entries produced only 830 separate titles and 512 reprints or new editions.[8]

In examining the seventeenth-century writings, it is best to begin with a rough classification according to topic or genre. Such an analysis is inevitably somewhat arbitrary and subjective; no doubt other historians would have chosen a different set of headings or would have placed some titles in different pigeonholes. In addition, it is not always possible to determine the character of a work by its title alone, and the sheer volume of publication makes it impossible to examine every book. Nevertheless, I have thought it possible to classify 3965 of the 4265 works, with results set out below.[9]

                          Subject of Published Writings

Popular tracts, devotional literature                     1083
Sermons (individual or collected)                          958
Political or controversial works                           892
Theology                                                   414
Miscellaneous, including language, rhetoric, and drama     221
History                                                     98
Poetry (including funeral odes)                             91
Mathematics, science, logic                                 81
Visitation articles, pastoral letters                       67
Collected works                                             39
Geography                                                   23

Comparison with the writings of the previous century is again interesting.[10] Sermons loom large on both lists. Proportionally fewer popular tracts or pieces of devotional literature were published under the Tudors, but there was relatively more serious theology. More of the sixteenth-century popular writings were catechisms, setting out the beliefs of the reformed church. Numerous anti-Catholic tracts and a handful of pro-Catholic apologies appeared in the sixteenth-century; some of this controversial or polemical literature was later replaced by works arguing Puritan or Arminian points of view. Writings about politics (not necessarily religious in connotation) increase, especially after 1660. History, poetry, and geography (travel or cosmography) appear on both lists, pointing up the fact that some clergy were scholars in fields other than religion. Cathedral clergy were not involved in producing the cheapest pieces of popular piety, the ballads, "chapbooks," and simple sermons which ran to a few pages and sold for a few pennies.[11] Their writings were intended for readers with higher intellectual aspirations and more ample financial resources--the middle and upper segments of the publishers' market.

We begin our bibliographic journey with the devotional literature for which the Stuart period is so well known. Several works of modest literary or theological merit were enormously popular, while others, reprinted less frequently during the period itself, have become classics of the spiritual life.[12]

The work most often reprinted was The Practice of Piety: Directing a Christian how to walke that he ma6' please God.[13] The author, Lewis Bayly, is now largely forgotten and left no other writings. Born in Wales, Bayly was educated at Oxford. He became treasurer of St. Paul's cathedral in 1611, a prebendary of Lichfield in 1614, and bishop of Bangor in 1616. Unlike most English bishops, he did not resign his other preferments upon ascending to the episcopate; the Welsh sees were poorer than the English ones, and their incumbents tended to retain whatever other sources of income they had. Bayly was also involved in politics. He served as chaplain to James I and his son, Prince Henry. But his Puritan leanings and personal indiscretions brought him into disfavor. In 1621, he was briefly imprisoned in the Fleet and probably lost his post at St. Paul's at the same time. Five years later, a speaker in the House of Commons accused him of simony, bribery, extortion, licensing incestuous marriages, and "incontinence the most palpable proved that ever I heard of"; the Puritan writer, John Bastwick, snidely called him "my Lord Bangwhore."[14] One of Bayly's sons became a chaplain to Charles I; another was subdean of Wells in the 1630's and a royalist officer in the Civil War but was converted to Catholicism while exiled in France and ended his days at Douai. Lewis Bayly himself did not live to see the Civil War; he died in 1631.

The bibliographical history of The Practice of Piety is confusing. It was first published in 1612 and had run through at least fifty printings by the 1750s. Not all of these survive, even in a single copy, perhaps because they were literally worn out by their users. The first edition has disappeared. We have editions 2-5, 7-9,11-15,17-21,23,25-28,30-33,36, and several called "the last edition," but we lack extant copies of editions 6, 10, 16, 22, 24, 29, 34, and 35. Bibliographical difficulties have been compounded by the repeated use of the same engraved title-page and by the reassignment of the copyright to a succession of printers.[15] The Practice of Piety was published in Scotland and the Netherlands as well as England and was translated into French and Welsh. In all, the work may have sold 100,000 copies.[16]

The Practice of Piety is a long work. The first surviving edition runs to 1031 pages, and all later printings, even those in smaller format, exceed 500 pages in length. Its miscellaneous contents include prayers and meditations, lists of obstacles to piety, exhortations to read the Bible, a confession of sin prior to receiving Communion, "comfortable thoughts against despair," directions on making one's will, and "the last speech of a godly man dying." Nowhere profound or involved in theological subtleties, the work emphasizes non-controversial Protestant (sometimes Puritan) beliefs; it does display a sense of social criticism, favoring the poor and industrious.[17]

Although it remained popular, the influence of Bayly's book declined somewhat after 1650 as more men and women began to read The Whole Duty of Man, first published in 1658. Like The Practice of Piety, this work poses bibliographical problems, but for different reasons: The Whole Duty was published anonymously, and at least twenty-seven candidates have been proposed as its author. Most of these can be disposed of easily enough. The only serious contenders are John Fell (1625-1686) and Richard Allestree (1620-1681); recent research clearly establishes Allestree's authorship.[18] Allestree (or Allestrey) was a friend of Bishop Fell's who fought for Charles I in the war and was rewarded at the Restoration with a canon's position at Christ Church, Oxford, and appointment as one of Charles II's chaplains. The son of a commoner from Shropshire, Allestree was a learned man, the holder of an Oxford doctorate, a serious theologian who could read Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, and Chaldean and had traveled on the Continent, probably in France and Italy, to escape persecution during the Interregnum in England. Unlike Bayly, he was a high churchman, and he was a more active author, with at least six other books (also issued anonymously) to his credit. They have such titles as The Art of Patience, The Government of the Tongue, and The Government of the Thoughts.) His complete works were published in at least fourteen editions, and more than fifty of his sermons were printed.[19]

The Whole Duty of Man was very popular during the Restoration period. An edition of 1690 was identified as the twenty-eighth, but there may have been more unnumbered reprintings. The book was translated into Welsh, French, and even (in 1665) into an American Indian dialect.[20] Like Bayly, Allestree avoids theological disputes and concentrates on morality. The virtues stressed include honesty, humility, obedience, submission, and patience. Allestree emphasizes the necessity for servants to obey their masters and for all persons to respect magistrates and the king.[21] The Whole Duty was the dominant book of religious instruction throughout the eighteenth century; most households possessed a copy of it, together with the Bible and the Prayer Book. Samuel Johnson disliked it--his mother made him read it on Sundays--but the American planter, William Byrd, said that it edified him very much.[22] As late as 1778, a Cambridge undergraduate, Charles Simeon, was converted after reading The Whole Duty ("the only religious book that I had heard of," he wrote) and became a popular preacher, especially among young students, who came to be called "Simeonites."[23]

Although he produced no single work as popular as Bayly's or Allestree's, the most prolific popular writer of the age was Joseph Hall. A graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Hall was named bishop of Exeter in 1627 and translated to Norwich in 1641, only to lose the position in 1643 following the Puritan victory: he was expelled from the bishop's palace in 1647 and died in 1656, too soon to witness the Restoration. Many of his works were written while he was a student at Cambridge (before 1611), archdeacon of York (1611-1627), or dean of Worcester (1616-1627).

The scope of Hall's publications is exceptional. More than one hundred separate titles were published.[24] These included pieces of popular piety, for instance Heaven upon Earth, or of true peace, and tranquillitie of mince (1606), The breathings of the devout soul (1648), and The remedy of discontentment (1645); Contemplations upon the principal! passages of the Holy Storie (8 vole., 1612-1626); sermons (preached at court, to the House of Lords, at Paul's Cross, and in hospitals); controversial apologies (against Cardinal Bellarmine, 1609, and Against the unjust challenges of the Brownists, 1610); moderate Anglican defences of clerical marriage (1620) and episcopacy (1640); poetry (The kings prophecie: or weeping joy, written on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth's death and James I's accession in 1603); satires (Virgidemarium, 1597-98, and Mundus alter et idem, 1605); epistles (3 vols., 1608-1610); and social commentary (Quo vadis? A just censure of travell as it is commonly undertaken by the gentlemen of our nation, 1617). Hall's collected works appeared in 24 editions prior to 1799 and have been reprinted in several modern sets.[25]

Of these works the satires and meditations hold the greatest interest. Both of the satires were products of Hall's youth, written while he was at Cambridge. The Virgidemiarum (the Latin title means a bundle or harvest of rods) was Hall's attempt to write social criticism in satirical verse, imitating the style of Horace and Juvenal. The first three books, subtitled Tooth-lesse Satyrs, were published in 1597; the more bitter Byting Satyres followed the next year. Hall's protest is directed mainly against the enclosure movement, in which many agricultural laborers lost their livelihood as landlords converted their fields from crops to pasture for sheep. He also discerns and criticizes a general decline in hospitality. Other targets of his pen are poets, lawyers, doctors, academic life, gluttony, ostentatious tombs, greed, and Roman Catholicism.[26] Mundus alter et idem was evidently not intended for publication, and it was probably brought out without Hall's consent. His name does not appear on the early editions, which were in Latin, or on the English version (not a literal translation) written by John Healey and published in 1609 as The discovery of a new world, or a description of the South Indies. Hall's authorship was nevertheless assumed early on, and Healey refers to the author as "I. H." The work, a burlesque of Hakloyt's Voyages, is an account of a journey to the Antipodes undertaken by "Mercurius Britannicus" in the ship "Phantasia." The writer visits four nations--Crapulia (gluttony), Viraginia (women), Moronia (folly), and Lavernia (deceit), finding nothing but unrelieved depravity in all of them. This is reminiscent of Thomas More's Utopia, but it is a reverse image depicting evil rather than good.[27]

Hall's most influential work, the piece which most commends itself to modern readers, was The arte of divine meditation. Although a staunch Protestant himself, greatly influenced by Calvin, Hall nevertheless borrowed from Catholic tradition in setting out a system for meditation. Loyola and Gerson lurk behind many of his pages. His subtitle identifies the "two large patterns of meditation: the one of eternal! life, as the end: the other of death, as the way" which he would have his readers follow. For him, meditation "begins in the understanding [but] endeth in the affection; It begins in the braine, descends to the heart; Begins on Earth, ascends to Heaven; Not suddenly, but by certaine staires and degrees, till we come to the highest."[28] Following a prescribed route, it travels the road from logic to mysticism.

A striking contrast to the pedestrian works of Bayly, Allestree, and Hall is provided by the classic devotional writings of Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, and George Herbert. Although these men are not always thought of as cathedral clergy, all held appointments in one or more of the English cathedrals.

Andrewes was a prebendary of St. Paul's in London for twenty years (1589-1609) and also served as penitentiary of the cathedral.[29] "While he held this place," Sir John Harington wrote, "his manner was, especially in Lent time to walk daily at certain hours in one of the aisles of the church, that if any came to him for spiritual advice and comfort (as some did, though not many) he might impart it to them."[30] In 1601, he was named dean of Westminster--strictly speaking the Abbey was not a cathedral, although it had been for part of the sixteenth century and continued to function like one--and, in 1605, he accepted appointment as a bishop, holding the sees of Chichester, Ely, and Winchester in succession. (He had been offered

Salisbury and Ely by Queen Elizabeth but had declined the nomination as a token of his opposition' to her custom of holding sees vacant in order to collect their revenues herself.) His tomb is in Southwark Cathedral.

Although most of his published works were sermons, Andrewes' devotional writings are of greater lasting interest. The most important of these are the Preces privatae or Private devotions.[31] It is impossible to know when these were written. Most likely Andrewes gathered them for his own use over a period of years; he is said to have spent as much as five hours a day in prayer. They were not published until 1675, nearly fifty years after his death. The printer, Richard Drake, wrote of the "glorious deformity" of the original manuscript, nearly worn out by Andrewes' pious hands "and watered with his penitential tears."[32] The original version, in Creek and Latin, ran through six further editions, while at least twenty reprints of the English translation had appeared by 1903. A classic of Anglican piety, the Preces invoke a liturgical style similar to that of the Prayer Book itself. Dean Church's comment that Andrewes succeeds in bringing the spirit of the Prayer Book "from the church to the closet" is apt.[33]

Although John Donne is now remembered chiefly as a poet, he was also a masterful author of prose. His place as a devotional writer is firmly established by the Devotions upon emergent occasions which he composed during a serious illness and published in 1623, two years after becoming dean of St. Paul's.[34] These emphasize spiritual sinfulness and physical weakness, both of which can be conquered only through divine grace. Devotion XVII includes what is perhaps Donne's best known passage:

No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; . . . any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee.[35]

George Herbert's cathedral connections were less evident than Andrewes' or Donne's. He did enjoy the revenue from a prebend's stall at Lincoln for a decade (1626-36), but he did not reside there. Indeed, he was not ordained priest until 1630--it was unusual but not impossible for a layman or one only in deacon's orders to hold such a preferment. His earlier life was spent mainly at Cambridge and his later days at Bemerton, the village near Salisbury, where he served as rector for the last six years of his life.

Although his well-deserved fame rests on his poetry, Herbert did leave an important prose work, published posthumously as A Priest to the Temple, or The Countrey Parson. This is not a devotional work in the usual sense but rather a set of precepts for fellow ministers; it deals with learning, liturgy, and manner of living; with the decency of church buildings, and with the fatherly care which a parish priest should exercise over members of his flock. No doubt because it was intended for a limited audience, it did not enjoy the popularity achieved by some other works. Originally published in 1652, it was reprinted twice (1671 and 1675) and was included in Herbert's Remains.[36]

A few more of the most popular devotional writers may be mentioned, although their works are not of great lasting merit. John Scott's examination of The Christian Life was published in several volumes and parts; in all, it received at least 28 editions.[37] Scott was a prebendary of St. Paul's from 1684 to 1695 and also held several rectories in the City. John Preston, a prebendary of Lincoln from 1610 until his death in 1628, left a number of tracts, treatises, and sermons, a few of which ran through eight or nine editions.[38] Some of Preston's popular writings promote Puritan views, while others concentrate on Christ's humanity and human longing for him. His best-known works emphasize divine love: these include A heavenly treatise of divine love and The soliloquy of a devout soul to Christ, panting after the love of the Lord Jesus.[39]

John Cosin is best known as the Restoration bishop of Durham, but he was a prebendary of Durham as early as 1624 and was appointed dean of Peterborough in 1640. His Collection of private devotions was first published anonymously in 1627 and had been reprinted at least fourteen times by the end of the century.[40] As its subtitle states, it contains "the houres of prayer" as "in the practice of the ancient church"; it is like a medieval breviary or Tudor primer. It may not originally have been intended for publication but rather for the use of a friend, who had a small edition of two hundred copies printed to avoid the difficulty of making manuscript copies for his own followers.[41] The work is remembered chiefly because its Anglo-Catholic character aroused the ire of two intrepid Puritans, William Prynne and Henry Burton. In A brief survoy and censure of Mr. Cozens his couzening devotions, Prynne asserted that the book was "altogether Popish, both in forme and matter"; Burton's Tryall of private devotion likewise demonstrated that most of Cosin's sources were Catholic. Both Prynne and Burton had their ears cropped in punishment for their libels.[42]

If Cosin can be taken as a leader of the high church or Arminian party, John Owen has some claim to be regarded as the greatest scholar and popular writer among those Puritans who were associated in some way with the cathedrals. His name enters our list of cathedral clergy only through a peculiar fluke. Owen was dean of Christ Church, Oxford, during the Interregnum, and, as such, he presided over both the college and the cathedral which lay within its grounds. All the other cathedrals were closed, at least for official, Anglican worship, and lost their dignitaries, during this period. Most of Owen's writings date from the years after 1660, when he was deprived and forced into dissent, but the 1650s did see the publication of popular tracts on such topics as Of temptation, Of the death of Christ, and Of the divine original. None of these works was reprinted, although The advantage of the kingdom of Christ and Of the mortification of sinne both received three editions before 1660.[43] They represent the opposite pole of spirituality from the collected liturgical devotions of Cosin.

A rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer by Anthony Sparrow seems to have been more popular than any of Owen's works. Sparrow was a fellow of Queen's College, Cambridge, ejected when he married in 1644, and a parish priest in Suffolk, ejected when the Puritans won the Civil War in 1647. Ironically, it was during the Interregnum, when public use of the Prayer Book was proscribed, that Sparrow wrote his appreciation of it. The first surviving edition is dated 1655; eight more had followed by 1684.[44] After the Restoration, Sparrow became a prebendary of Ely, provost of King's College, vice-chancellor of Cambridge University, and later bishop of Exeter and Norwich successively. His Rationale explains the liturgical origins of the Prayer Book and suggests ways in which it may be made an effective vehicle for supplication and devotion.[45] Another work frequently reprinted, both during the Interregnum and after the Restoration, was A practical catechisme by Henry Hammond, a chaplain to Charles I, who held a prebend at Oxford before being ejected in 1648. At least twenty editions of his book had been published by 1700.[46] Among the further works in this genre, one may notice Milke for babes (1617) and Meate for men (1622) by William Crashaw, a prebendary of York and father of the better-known metaphysical poet, Richard Crashaw.[47] The earlier of these tracts was subtitled "a north-country catechisme, made plaine to the capacitie of the countrie people." The catechism set forth by Thomas Marshall, dean of Gloucester in the 1680s, went through at least eleven editions and was translated into Welsh.[48] Thomas Ken, the famous nonjuring bishop, also published an exposition of the catechism; his most popular prose work, despite its seemingly limited audience, was a manual of prayers and litanies written for use at Winchester College.[49]

The most active writers of the Restoration era included Simon Patrick, Thomas Comber, Edward Reynolds, and Anthony Horneck. Patrick was dean of Peterborough in the 1680s and later served as bishop of Chichester and Ely. Often regarded as one of the chief instruments of the revival of religious life in the Restoration church, he was a founder of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge and was also active in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. His writings ran to sixty-nine separate titles and eighty-eight reprintings.[50] In fact, there must have been many more editions which have not survived: we have, for instance, only six versions of A boolfor beginners, but the last of these is called the fifteenth edition.[51] Some other popular works were The hearts ease; The parable of the pilgrim; and The Christian sacripee, a treatise on the communion. A number of Patrick's sermons were published, as were some pieces of polemical theology, scriptural commentary, and poetry.

A prebendary of York in the 1680s and dean of Durham in the 1690s, Thomas Comber produced several studies of the Prayer Book, following in Sparrow's footsteps. His largest work, A companion to the temple, was designed to persuade dissenters to reunite with the state church.[52] It goes through the Prayer Book nearly line by line; it has been characterized, fairly enough, as laborious and deadly dull,[53] but it did help foster appreciation of formal Anglican liturgy. Edward Reynolds, briefly a prebendary of Worcester before becoming bishop of Norwich in 1661, wrote meditations on comfort, healing, and Mary Magdalens love to Christ as well as An explanation of the hundreth and tenth psalme which was reprinted five times despite the fact that it spent more than five hundred pages explicating a mere seven verses of Scripture.[54]

Anthony Horneck is of interest because he was born in Germany and held degrees from Heidelberg as well as Oxford and Cambridge. A prebendary of both Exeter and Wells, he offended some of his superiors by advocating social reform. For a time, he produced a new devotional tract each year. His works include The happy ascetic (1681), Gods providence (1682), The pre of the altar (1683), Delight and judgment (1684), The exercise of prayer (1685), The crucified Jesus (1686), and The nature of true Christian righteousness (1689).[55]

It is a pity that Jeremy Taylor's classics Holy Living (1650) and Holy Dying (1651) cannot be included in this list, since Taylor never held an English cathedral position. A friend of Archbishop Laud and a royalist in the Civil War, Taylor might well have expected preferment in England following the Restoration, but instead he was named Bishop of Down in Ireland. As John Booty has written, Taylor speaks to us "through the veils of time to remind a world gone mad that there is hope, justice and forgiveness[56],

Sermons were in general intended for the same audience as devotional writings and were published in nearly as great quantity. Horton Davies was clearly right when he wrote of a "passion for preaching' which reached its highest peak during the 1640s and 1650s. He commented that sermons were never read more avidly than in seventeenth-century England.[57] "Every book-seller's stall groans under the burden of sermons, sermons," wrote a contemporary observer in 1680.[58]

The sermons selected for publication were originally preached in a variety of locations. St. Paul's Cathedral and Paul's Cross provided the most public forum, while the royal court (at Whitehall, Greenwich, or Hampton Court) drew forth some fine preaching by John King, Robert South, and John Preston as well as Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne.[59] Sermons were delivered in Parliament, at the Inns of Court (especially Lincoln's Inn), at the Spittal Cross (an outdoor pulpit on the site of the former hospital), at Lambeth, and even to investors in the Virginia Company.[60]

A number of the published sermons commemorated special events. James I's accession day (March 24) was observed in a sermon preached by John King at Oxford in 1608.[61] King, who was dean of Christ Church, also left sermons celebrating James I's recovery from illness (1619) and the marriage of James's daughter, Elizabeth, to the Elector Palatine (1613).[62] Thomas Sprat preached on Charles II's accession day in 1684.[63] Earlier, the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 had been celebrated in sermons given by John Hacket (probably in London) and John Bramhall (in Dublin).[64]

Less happy events were also noted in pulpits. There were a number of funeral sermons.[65] The death in 1612 of James I's promising son, Prince Henry, was widely lamented. Accepted Frewen and Edward Chetwynd wrote laments while they were still students at Oxford; both achieved prominence later.[66] Lionel Sharp probably preached his Oration funebris at Salisbury, where he was archdeacon.[67] Daniel Price, who was Henry's chaplain, was involved more deeply. He published two sermons at the time of Henry's death, followed by a "first anniversary" in 1613 and a "second" in 1614. Earlier he had preached at the youth's investiture as Prince of Wales.[68] The funeral sermon for James I was delivered by John Williams, then bishop of Lincoln, and was immediately printed.[69] It bore the title Great Britains Salomon. A groane at the funeral! of Charles I, following his execution in 1649, was published by Henry King, bishop of Chichester.[70] Earlier, in 1621, while he was a prebendary of St. Paul's, King had delivered an unusual sermon at Paul's Cross to deny the "supposed apostacie" of his father, the bishop of London, who had been accused of a deathbed conversion to Rome.[71] Many surviving sermons were preached in time of plague and pestilence. (Modern churchgoers may need to be reminded that the petition in the Litany, "From plague, pestilence, and famine, Good Lord, deliver us," spoke to very real concerns in earlier centuries.) Their authors included Lancelot Andrewes (1603), John Sanford (1604), Joseph Hall (1625), Thomas Fuller (1626), Sampson Price (also 1626), Oliver Whitby (1637), and John Featley (1665).[72] Especially in the earlier decades of the century, the Gunpowder Plot was regularly remembered. Andrewes preached ten sermons for Guy Fawkes' Day; John King delivered similar orations at Oxford (1607) and Whitehall (1608).[73] In 1641 (just before the outbreak of the Civil War), William Sclater preached a Guy Fawkes sermon which pictured Charles I defending established religion against novelty, while, in 1659 (just before the restoration of the monarchy), Ralph Brownrigg invoked the text from Daniel, "O King, live forever."[74] Commemorative sermons were still being preached on November 5 in the reign of Charles II. William Lloyd (who held positions at St. Paul's, Salisbury, Lichfield, Bangor, St. Asaph, and Worcester) and Gregory Hascard (an obscure prebendary of Salisbury) were among their authors.[75]

The greatest of the Jacobean and Caroline preachers--perhaps it is not too strong to say the greatest Anglican preachers of all time--were Lancelot Andrewes and John Donne. Andrewes preached mainly at the court; all but four of his 96 published sermons were delivered there. Many of Andrewes' finest sermons celebrate the great events of the liturgical year. His collected works include 18 sermons for Easter, 17 for Christmas, 15 for Pentecost, 8 for Ash Wednesday, and 3 for Good Friday. The most famous of Andrewes' homilies is the Nativity sermon on the Wise Men, delivered in 1629, which formed the basis of T. S. Eliot's poem "The Journey of the Magi." Andrewes' preaching was characterized by verbal brilliance, sophistication, and wit. Some critics have felt that its literary craftsmanship led to artificiality, and James I is supposed to have complained that Andrewes "did but play with his text, as a Jack-an-apes does, who takes up a thing and tosses and playes with it, and then he takes up another, and playes a little with it: here's a pretty thing, and there's a pretty thing."[76] T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, greatly admired Andrewes and accorded him "a place second to none in the history of the formation of the English Church."[77]

John Donne's own spiritual struggles are reflected in his sermons, which display greater understanding of human psychology and speak more directly to the condition of his listeners than do Andrewes'. What is perhaps the most revealing of Donne's lines--"Batter my heart, three-personed God"--comes from a poem rather than a sermon, but, when preaching on the conversion of St. Paul, he included what might be considered a description of Donne himself as well as the saint: "Poor intricated soul! Riddling, perplexed, labyrinthical soul!" Only six of Donne's sermons were published during his lifetime, but collections of them were issued shortly after his death. LXXX sermons appeared in 1640, to be followed by Fifty sermons in 1649 and XXVI sermons ("the third volume") in 1661.[78] Izaak Walton described Donne as preaching "like an angel from a cloud," carrying listeners "to Heaven in holy raptures."[79] Donne's style depends heavily on elaborate imagery, analogy, metaphor, and paradox. His last sermon, about death, draws a parallel between the alchemist transforming base metal to gold and Christ transmuting Christian souls as they leave their bodies. Like Andrewes and Richard Hooker, Donne helped establish the classic case for the Anglican wa media.

These great sermons came from the firs,t forty years of the century. During the Civil War and Interregnum, preaching had greater political significance; many sermons were delivered in Parliament and at army gatherings. The "Fast Sermons" given in the House of Commons were particularly important.[80] These, however, do not figure in our account, since they were not delivered by cathedral clergy or, indeed, by those in sympathy with the Anglican establishment. Only a little Anglican preaching from this period survives. Ralph Brownrig, a prebendary of Ely, Lichfield, and Durham and bishop of Exeter, continued to preach after he was ejected from his positions in 1645. More than one hundred of his sermons were collected and printed following his death in 1659.[81] A number of the "choice sermons" by Thomas Westfield, prebendary of St. Paul's and bishop of Bristol, were also published some years after his death in 1644.[82]

Anglican sermons were again very popular during the Restoration era The homiletic style of the Restoration was quite different from that of the pre-war years. Clarity, rationality, and relative brevity replaced the sophisticated elegance and literary fireworks of Andrewes and Donne, no doubt in part because of the influence of the scientific revolution and the new Royal Society.

The best known preachers of the later seventeenth century were Edward Stillingfleet, John Tillotson, and Thomas Tenison. Stillingfleet became a canon of St. Paul's in 1667 and was dean from 1678 to 1689. He spent the last decade of his life (1689-1699) as bishop of Worcester. At least eighteen of his sermons were printed separately; four volumes of collected sermons appeared between 1669 and 1700, and six volumes of collected works were published posthumously in 1710.[83] Stillingfleet's prodigious literary output also included religious treatises and historical works. A Latitudinarian, Stillingfleet remained on good terms with Nonconformists. He was friendly with Hobbes but entered into controversy with Locke over the matter of the Trinity.

Tillotson followed Stillingfleet as dean of St. Paul's, where he had been a canon since 1675. Like Stillingfleet, he was a chaplain to Charles II. After the Glorious Revolution, William and Mary named him archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held until his death in 1694. He is one of the few archbishops to have been regarded as an outstanding preacher in his own time. Sermons account for almost all of Tillotson's published work. Large numbers appeared during his lifetime, both singly and in collections. Most have political implications. Some suggest compromise with the Presbyterians, while others oppose Roman doctrines, especially transubstantiation. The eighteenth-century, Augustan rationality of Tillotson's outlook is perhaps best seen in his most famous sermon, on the text "His commandments are not grievous."[84] Tenison followed Tillotson at Canterbury. His sermon preached at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields on Good Friday 1687 moved John Evelyn greatly and, according to the diarist, "drew tears from many eyes."[85]

During the 1690s, a number of strongly Protestant sermons were preached by William Wake. A prebendary of Oxford from 1689 to 1701,

Wake was also chaplain to William and Mary and preacher of Gray's Inn; he was dean of Exeter early in the eighteenth century, then bishop of Lincoln (1705-1715) and finally archbishop of Canterbury (1716-1737). He first took his seat in the House of Lords on November 5, 1705, and seized the occasion to preach a Gunpowder Plot sermon to the House, praising the realm's deliverance from the Catholicism of James II as well as James I's deliverance from Guy Fawkes. Much of Wake's writing, especially concerning the projected union with the Jansenists, falls outside our period, but he can be included here as continuing the tradition of Stillingfleet and Tillotson into the eighteenth century.[86]

All in all, these popular devotional writings and sermons speak to the importance of religion in the lives of ordinary English men and women during the seventeenth century and to the diversity of this audience. The writers and publishers provided something for almost everyone, naive or sophisticated, beginner or scholar, Puritan or Arminian, excepting only those who could spend only a few pennies for a few pages. Those who would understand the temper of the time--the mentalite of the age--would do well to spend some time immersed in this flood of printed words.

Not all the published works written by cathedral clergy fell into these categories. There was an outpouring of religious poetry as well as a large quantity of controversial literature, and cathedral clergy also produced works of theology, history, science, and grammar. Their writing in these genres will form the basis of a companion study.

[1] Helen White, English Devotional Literature 1600-1040 (Madison: University of Wisconsin Studies in Language and Literature, No. 29, 1931), p. 11; Edith L. Klotz, "A Subject Analysis of English Imprints for Every Tenth Year from 1480 to 1640," Huntington Library Quarterly, 1(1938): 418.

[2] Westminster Abbey was also turned into a cathedral by Henry VIII, but it lost its cathedral status under Mary Tudor and became a "royal peculiar" under Elizabeth.

[3] Their names have been obtained from Le Neve's Fasti Ecclesia Anglicanae (both the 1854 edition, 3 vole., ed. T. Duffus Hardy and the revised version, not yet complete, edited for the Institute of Historical Research by Joyce M. Horn) with additions from the manuscript records in the archives of the several cathedrals. I am grateful to my research assistant, Alice Keeler, for help in compiling these biographical files.

[4] Short-Title Catalogue of English Books, 1475-1640, compiled by A.W. Pollard and C. R. Redgrave, 2nd ea., rev. by W.A. Jackson, F. S. Ferguson, and Katharine F. Pantzer, 2 vols. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1976, 1986); Short-Title Catalogue of English Books, 1641-1700, compiled by Donald Wing, 2nd ea., rev. Wing, Timothy J. Crist, John J. Morrison, and Carolyn W. Nelson, 3 vol. (London: Bibliographical Society, 1972, 1982, 1988). Numbering in STC 1475-1640 is in one continuous series, but STC 1641-1700 has a separate numerical sequence for each letter of the alphabet.

[5] It should be noted that this list of publications includes all the works written by clergymen who held cathedral office at any time in their lives. No attempt has been made to exclude items published before an individual had received a cathedral appointment or after he had relinquished his cathedral position, for instance when appointed a bishop. Nor has it been thought desirable or possible to make adjustments in the case of men who were ejected or sequestered from their offices during the Interregnum, when Anglican service s were suspended after the Royalists lost the Civil War.

[6] This figure includes items described as "Part II" or "Part III" of larger works, When first published at different dates.

[7] These figures do not include new editions of works by cathedral clergy who died before 1603, nor do they count works or editions printed after 1700. (Because there is no published Short-Title Catalogue for the eighteenth century, it is difficult to control the bibliography after 1700.) The actual volume of publications written by men associated with cathedrals is thus somewhat larger than these numbers suggest

[8] See my book The Reformation of Cathedrals: Cathedrals in English Society, 14851603 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988), pp. 241-242. When doing the research for the sixteenth century, I relied on the original edition of A.W. Pollard's catalogue, published in 1946. Use of the revised edition would increase the number of editions, perhaps fairly substantially, but would not add very many additional titles. Clergy whose careers lay in both the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are counted in both lists, as are the titles of their writings, so that one cannot simply add the figures for the two centuries to obtain a total for the period 1985-1700.

[9] The distinction between popular tracts and theology is based on the audience for whom the work appears to be intended; by "theology" I refer to books written for other clerics or scholars.

[10] See Reformation of Cathedrals, p. 242, for a table of Tudor publications by topic.

[11] For discussion of this sort of publication see Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).

[12] For general studies of this literature, see White, English Devotional Literature, and Louis L. Martz, The Poetry of Meditation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954). White deals only with prose and deliberately excludes writers such as Lancelot Andrewes, John Donne, and Jeremy Taylor whom she judged to be sufficiently well known. There is also an interesting discussion of Restoration piety in john Spurr, The Restoration Church of England, 1646-1689 (New Haven and London Yale University Press, 1991), pp. 279-375.

[13] STC 1475-1640, 1601-1624.

[14] Christopher Hill, A Tinker and a Poor Man (New York: Knopf, 1989), p. 163. See also J. E. Bailey, Bishop Lewis Bayly and his Practice of Piety," Manchester Quarterly, 11 (1883), 204-216.

[15] See Harry Farr, "Philip Chetwind and the Allott Copyrights," The Library, 4th ser., XV (1934), 135-160.

[16] In 1635, the Stationers' Company set 2000 copies as the maximum press run (it had earlier been 1500). It seems likely that such a popular work would have been issed in as large a nun as possible. Cf. H.S. Bennett, English Books & Readers 1603 to 1640 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970), p. 227.

[17] See Horton Davies, Worship and Theology in England From Andrewes to Baxter and Fox, 1603-1690 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975), pp. 112-114, C.J. Stranks, Anglican Devotion (London: SCM Press, 1961), pp. 36-63, and Hill, op. cit., p. 164.

[18] Paul Elmen, "Richard Allestree and The Whole Duty of Man," The Library, 5th ser., VI (1951) 19-27.

[19] His writings are STC 1641-1700, A1081-1195.

[20] Cf. Davies, p. 112.

[21] Cf. Stranks, pp. 123-148 and A. Tindal Hart, The Man in the Pew 1558-1660 (London: John Baker, 1966), p. 201.

[22] Stranks, pp. 125-26, 143.

[23] Laurence and Helen Fowler, eds., Cambridge Commemorated (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), p. 193.

[24] STC, 1475-1640, 12635-12719; STC, 1641-1700, H361-422.

[25] Ed. Josiah Pratt, 10 vols. (London: Williams and Smith, 1808); ed. Peter Hall, l! vols. (Oxford: D.A. Talboys, 1837-1839); ed. Philip Wynter, 10 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1863, reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1969).

[26] For a modern edition see The Poems of Joseph Hall, ed. Arnold Davenport (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1969), pp. 1-100.

[27] There is further discussion of these work in Richard A. McCabe, Joseph Hall, A Study in Satire and Meditation (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), and Leonard D. Tourney, Joseph Hall (Boston: Twayne, 1979).

[28] Works, ed. Wynter, I, 103. There is a newer edition of The Art of Divine Meditation and of Hall's Occasional Meditations (1633) in Frank Livingston Huntley, Bishop Joseph Hall and Protestant Meditation in Seventeenth-Century England (Binghamton, N.Y.: Center for Medieval & Early Renaissance Studies, 1981), pp. 65-200.

[29] The most useful of the several books on Andrewes are Paul A. Welsby, Lancelot Andrewes, 1555-1626 (London: S.P.C. K., 1K8), and Florence Higham, Lancelot Andrewes (London: SCM Press, 1952). A recent study views Andrewes as a link between Hooker and Laud: Peter Lake, "Lancelot Andrewes and John Buckeridge," in Linda Levy Peck, ea., The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 113-133.

[30] Quoted in Welsby, p. 60.

[31] STC 1641-1700, A3149-50.

[32] Quoted m Welsby, p. 265. Shortly before his death, Andrewes gave another manuscript to William Laud which is now in the library of Pembroke College, Oxford.

[33] Richard Church, Mastere in English Theology, quoted in Welsby, p. 267. Welsby himself called it 'the most popular and widely used of all Anglican devotional works" (p. 274). One of the translators of the Preces was John Henry Newman; his version appeared as No. 78 of Tracts for the Times. The best modern translation is that by F. E. Brightman (1903,reprinted New York: Living Age Books, 1961).

[34] Donne's Catholic upbringing and the spiritual struggles of his earlier life are too well known to require elaboration here; of the several modern biographies, the best are R.C. said' John Donne: A Life (Oxford Oxford university Press, 1970) and Frank J. Warnke, John Donne (Boston Twayne, 1987). see also Annabel Patterson, "John Donne, Kingsman?, in Peck, Mental World, pp. 251-272.

[35] Devotions upon Emergent Occasions, ed. John sparrow (Cambridge Cambridge university Press, 1923), p. 98.

[36] STC 1641-1700, H1508-1511. A Priest to the Temple is included in Louis L. Martz el., George Herbert and Henry Vaughan (Oxford Oxford university Press, 1986), pp. 189-243.

[37] STC 1641-1700 S2043-2061A.

[38] STC 1475-1640, 20208-20282; STC 1641-1700, P3298-3308.

[39] Cf. Davies, pp. 76-77.

[40] STC 1475-1640, 5P15-5819; STC 1641-1700, C6350-6363.

[41] Cf. Stranks, pp. 66-69.

[42] Cf. Davies, 92-97. There is a modern edition of Cosin's Devotions in the ' Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology": The Works of John Cosin (5 vole., Oxford: J. H. Parker, 184355), 11, 83-331. 'The Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology' played a significant role in popularizing seventeenth-century writings; eighty-eight volumes of works by Stuart divines were published in this series between 1841 and 1863.

[43] STC 1641-1700, 0711-825.

[44] STC 1641-1700, S4827-4834.

[45] Cf. Stranks, pp. 150-155.

[46] STC 1641-1700, H581-196. On catechisms, of which three-quarters of a million copies were in circulation in the early seventeenth century, see lan Green, "'For children in yeeres and children in understanding: the emergence of the English catechism under Elizabeth and the early Stuarts," Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 37 (1986): 397-425.

[47] STC 1475-1640, 6019-22.

[48] STC 1641-1700, M800-807A.

[49] STC 1641-1700, K261, 266-275A. The catechism was translated into Welsh (260B).

[50] STC 1641-1700 P737-868.

[51] STC 1641-17W P751 - 753A.

[52] STC 1641-17W, C542-5458.

[53] Davies, p. 117; Stranks, p. 156.

[54] STC 1475-1640, 20927-20938; STC 1641-1700, R1234-1302; Cf. Bennett, pp. 99100.

[55] STC 1641-1700, H2815-2847.

[56] John E. Booty, "An Anglican Classic: Jeremy Taylor's Holy Living and Holy Dying, Anglican Theological Review 73 (1991): 198-204.

[57] Davies. p. 133.

[58] Quoted in Spurr, pp. 229-230.

[59] Andrewes occasionally preached in Latin; cf. Concio Latine habita coram regia majestate, quinto Augusti 1606, in aula Grenuici (STC 1475-1640, 586). On preaching at Paul's Cross see Millar MacLure, The Paul's Cross Sermons, 1534-1642 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1958).

[60] Examples are: Parliament: John Owen, 1652; Lincoln's Inn: Donne, 1623, and Preston, 1635; Lambeth: William Loe, 1645; Spittal: Andrewes, 1588; Virginia Company: Richard Crashaw, 1610, and Donne, 1622.

[61] STC 1475-1640 14987.

[62] STC 1475-1640 14983, 14989.

[63] STC 1641-1700, S5060.

[64] STC 1641-1700, H172, B4235.

[65] On this genre, see David d'Avray, "The Comparative Study of Memorial Preaching," Transaction, of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., XL (1990), 25-42.

[66] STC 1475-1640, 19047, 5128.

[67] STC 1475-1640, 22375.

[68] STC 1475-1640 20290, 20294, 20299, 20300, 20304.

[69] STC 1475-1640 25723

[70] STC 1641-1700, K500.

[71] King came from a long line of clergy; he was descended from a nephew of Robert King, the last Abbot of Osney, who was named the first Bishop of Oxford in 1542. For Kings life, see Margaret Crum, ed., The Poems of Henry King (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), pp. 1-27.

[72] STC 1475-1640, 610, 21739, 12713, 11467, 20332, 25371; STC 1641-1700, F597A, F600A.

[73] STC 1475-1640, 624, 14985-14986. Andrewes' other sermons are in his collected works but were not published separately.

[74] David Cressy, Bonfires and Bells (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1989), pp. 161, 169.

[75] STC 1641-1700, L2709, 2712-2713; H1113.

[76] From John Aubrey, Brief Lives, quoted in Trevor A. Owen, Lancelot Andrewes (Boston: Twayne, 1981), p. 144.

[77] T. S. Eliot, Selected Essays (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1932), p. 301. Eliot's essay on Andrewes accounts for much of Andrewes' popularity in the twentieth century. On Andrewes' sermons see Nicholas Lossky, Lancelot Andrewes the Preacher (1555-1626) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991) and Davies, pp. 142-184. The 96 sermons were reprinted as vols. 1-5 of The Works of Lancelot Andrewes, ed. J.P. Wilson and James Bliss, 11 vols. (Oxford: J.H. Parker, 1841-1854, reprinted New York: AMS Press, 1967).

[78] STC 1475-1640, 7038; STC 1641-1700, D1862, D1872. The standard modern edition is The Sermon' of John Donne ed. George R. Potter and Evelyn M. Simpson, 10 vols. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953-62).

[79] Quoted in William R. Mueller, John Donne: Preacher (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962), p. 209.

[80] The Fast Sermons to Parliament were reprinted in the series "The English Revolution" (London: Cornmarket Press, 1970).

[81] STC 1641-1700 B5204-5214.

[82] STC 1641-1700, W1414A-1420.

[83] His works are STC 1641-1700, S5556-5679.

[84] Cf Davies, pp. 181-184; Norman Sykes, Church and State in the XVIII Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1934), p. 262; Louis G. Locke, Tillotson: A Study in Seventeenth-Century Literature (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1954). Tillotson s Works were edited by Thomas Birch, 10 vols. (London: Richard Priestly, 1820).

[85] John Evelyn, Diary, ed. E. S. de Beer (5 vole., Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), IV, 544-45.

[86] Twenty-two of Wake's sermons were published in a two-volume edition, 1737. His manuscript correspondence fills 31 volumes at Christ Church. His career has been studied by Norman Sykes, William Wake, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957).

~~~~~~~~

By STANFORD LEHMBERG[*]

[*] Stanford Lehmberg is Professor of History at the University of Minnesota. His most recent book is The Reformation of Cathedrals: Cathedrals in English Society, 1485-1603, published by Princeton University Press in 1988.