In this volume Tom Reid provides a valuable resource for scholars in several fields: those examining levels and varieties of dissent; tracing dissenting families, individuals, and groups; provision, quality, and reputation of clergy; and the material life of the Restoration Church. This is, as Reid points out, the first detailed critical analysis of Lambeth Palace Library, ms 1126, ‘A catalogue of all the benefices and promocions within the diocese and jurisdiction of Canterbury. With the state of every particular parish as it stood at October 1663’, compiled for Sheldon very shortly after his installation as archbishop of Canterbury and overseen by his secretary, Miles Smyth. Although the manuscript has been used by Ian Green and Jeremy Gregory in their discussions of the Restoration Church it has not been examined more widely. This fine edition will hopefully remedy that situation. There is little doubt, given the information contained in the catalogue, that this deserves to be the case. The questionnaire sent out to the church authorities within Canterbury must have provided a worrying picture for Sheldon. No doubt some of the patterns identifiable within the data and comments would be recognisable to the modern Church: low incomes leading to pluralism; a shortage of parish clergy; disaffected parishioners; dilapidated accommodation and churches in urgent need of repair. Others are much more concerns of the age, in particular the strength of dissent and its potential to destabilise the newly restored Church and monarchy.
In a lengthy scholarly introduction Reid explores the provenance of the information used to construct the catalogue. He provides a thematic analysis of the contents of the catalogue in both the diocese of Canterbury and the peculiars. He argues that the catalogue shows that support for the reestablishment of the Church of England was far from wholehearted, condemning the church authorities for their intolerance and ‘unwillingness to attempt to change practices inimical to an age which was becoming more enlightened’. While this seems somewhat anachronistic – after all, the church authorities were, as Reid points out, also attempting to prevent rebellion and unrest after a period where episcopalians were themselves persecuted and ejected – the volume does provide a useful corrective to historiographical narratives of high levels of post-Restoration clerical conformity and reveals much about the attitudes of the church authorities to both orthodox and nonconformist clerics and laypeople.
