Introduction

Summary

both long overdue and timely. Nearly seventy years ago Frere and Kennedy completed their indispensable volumes on the articles and injunctions of the reformed Church of England between 1536 and 1603, but hitherto no one has taken the project forward into the reigns of James I and Charles I. This omission is the more striking in view of the current controversies over the character of the early Stuart Church, in the course of which several scholars have drawn on visitation articles to substantiate their claims. These include studies of ecclesiastical justice, Sabbatarian discipline, episcopal government and the Laudian reformation. However, important issues of authorship, derivation or influence of visitation articles have rarely received extensive treatment.

This collection is the first of two volumes of articles and injunctions for the Church of England from 1603 to 1642. Volume 2 will concentrate on the years 1625 to 1642. The focus here is on the Church of James I, but in tracing the popularity of select groups of visitation articles, sets from the later 1620s and 1630s are included, albeit in abbreviated form. Much of this volume, indeed, consists of collations of visitation articles. This approach not only establishes relations between different sets more precisely than Frere and Kennedy provided for an earlier period, but it also allows no fewer than sixtyseven sets of articles to be printed here, either in full or summary form. Similarly, this introduction will range across the years 1603 to 1642, but gives more space to the Jacobean Church. Let us begin with articles issued at visitations.

All those possessing ecclesiastical jurisdiction conducted visitations of the clergy and laity subject to their authority. However, the frequency of visitations varied according to rank and diocese. The archbishops of Canterbury and York held metropolitical visitations of the dioceses within their province shortly after consecration, and thereafter occasionally visited individual dioceses, usually during the vacancy of a see. Each of the twentyfive bishops also conducted his first (or primary) visitation of his diocese, including the cathedral church, within eighteen months of his elevation to a see, and subsequently repeated it triennially, although ecclesiastical custom restricted diocesan visitations of York to once in every four years, and of Norwich to once in every seven.