1 - Introduction

Summary

I am always very well pleased with a Country Sunday.

This book will consider the practice and social context of established religion in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England. In its detailed description of worship in the parish of Sir Roger de Coverley, The Spectator provides one picture of the manner in which the social relations between the elites, the clergy and the people were expressed through religion. The fictional Tory squire took pains to encourage his villagers and tenants to worship in the parish church in a suitably decent and conformable manner. Sir Roger gave each member of the congregation a Prayer Book and a hassock so that they could kneel and join in the responses. He railed the altar and had religious texts written on the walls, encouraged psalmody, rewarded with a Bible those children who performed their catechism well, and provided the parson with a supply of printed sermons to read in church. Sir Roger also took care to keep the congregation in good order, interrupting the service to chide malefactors, and standing up during prayers to check that his tenants were all present. In his support for the liturgy and scripture, for seemly worship and the edification of the catechism, Sir Roger de Coverley represented one ideal of worship within the eighteenth-century Church of England.