The worker priest movement in France between 1946 and 1954 was a significant attempt by the Catholic Church to reach out to the increasingly alienated working class. It foundered on the rocks of elite opposition, worker priest embracing of class conflict, Cold War currents of thought, and government willingness to sacrifice the movement in the name of collaboration with Rome on a suite of issues, most notably free education. The historiography of the movement has proven similarly complex, with observers allowing contemporary trends and values to color their perception of this unique moment in French history and remembering and forgetting both playing a role in the image of the worker priests handed down to future generations.

William Stringer was at various times a cheesemonger, a Methodist lay preacher, a priest, and an American Loyalist exile. Originally from London, Stringer preached the Gospel for the early Methodist movement, but longed for priestly ordination in the Church of England. Unable to achieve this goal due to his humble background, he was instead ordained in 1764 by the controversial and ecumenically minded Greek Orthodox bishop, Gerasimos Avontilies (also known as Erasmus of Arcadia), who ordained several Methodists under Greek Orthodox rites in London. Having acquired illicit ordination, Stringer moved to Philadelphia where he ministered to a parish that had broken from the Church of England during the Great Awakening. The clergy of Philadelphia responded negatively and wrote to Archbishop Richard Terrick of London, who ordered Stringer to desist from his ministry. However, Stringer did such a remarkable job of bringing his congregation back into the Anglican fold that Terrick agreed to re-ordain him in London under Anglican rites in 1773. With the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, Stringer supported the British cause and rejected the revolt as inconsistent with Christian obedience. He was forced to leave America and return to England, where he lived out the rest of his life as a curate. Despite his initial transgressions, I argue that Stringer was a force for order, stability, and orthodoxy in a revolutionary world.

Readers of this journal will surely have noticed the remarkable proliferation in the past few decades of “handbooks” and “companions” devoted to major – and even obscure – topics, thinkers, and actors in religious history. The simultaneous appearance in 2021 of The Oxford Handbook of Calvin and Calvinism and Brill's Companion to the Reformation in Geneva provides an opportunity to reflect on the character and value of such volumes, the conditions of their production, and the reasons for their recent proliferation. Also discussed here for purposes of comparison will be an ambitious collection of essays of a more conventional sort: Protestant Empires: Globalizing the Reformations, edited by Ulinka Rublack.1

Papal bulls transferring jurisdiction over the Channel Islands from the bishopric of Coutances (Normandy) first to the diocese of Salisbury and then to Winchester have an important place in the historiography of the allegedly centripetal forces of royal and ecclesiastical authority under Henry VII. This article corrects the chronology, and questions the disruptive impact of international tensions and the role of English bishops’ or governors’ ambitions. Instead, it points to the influence of Breton clergy. Further, that Henry abandoned the initiative for a financial contribution from the islanders sheds light on his policy towards his rights over the Church and beyond.

Jocelin of Brakelond's chronicle provides a remarkably detailed account of conflict within the monastic community of Bury St Edmunds over the course of two decades in the late twelfth century, tracing the convent's division into factions following the death of the negligent Abbot Hugh, the controversial election of his successor Samson, and the community's subsequent difficulty negotiating its relationship with him. This article examines the position of conflict within Jocelin's narrative, and argues that it played a fundamental role in shaping the monastic experience by mediating relationships within the convent and between the convent and the abbot.