14 - The revival of the parish

Summary

Research on the lower, local levels of government suggests that, constitutionally, late sixteenth-century England differed from its neighbours, in Britain and on the continent, in that a sophisticated and dedicated culture of governance was present, and practised, in localities all over the country. How it was structured and practised varied greatly, but at certain key periods of English history one institution, the parish, came to the fore. This had happened at Cirencester before the period that concerns us now: the parish had been the magnetic centre of communal life throughout the fifteenth century. There are also signs of an even earlier parish revival in the prosperous thirteenth century, centred on the Guild of St Mary. The parishcentred movement that replaced the Strange ascendancy at Cirencester, associated with ‘puritanism’, revived and recycled an old institution, the townspeople's enduring alternative to the hegemony of the manor.

Of all institutions of early modern England, the parish alone enjoyed religious and secular legitimacy and concerned the government of all the inhabitants. Parish constitutions varied greatly across and between districts, regions and the nation as a whole. They can be classified according to Aristotle's system. Some were ruled by a single big man, classically a gentleman who owned the parish and the right to appoint priests. A second category is rule by a few: oligarchies consisting of a few dominant and/or public-spirited households, classically yeomen.