This chapter reconstructs the typical physical form of the rural sanctuaries of Roman Hieradoumia, as well as their landholdings and distinctive labour regimes. The exiguous evidence from excavations and surveys is set alongside a lengthy inscription from a sanctuary of Apollo Kisauloddenos that describes the sacred buildings and their associated furniture. The mechanisms by which these sanctuaries accumulated their large landholdings are discussed, with a focus on the evidence for semi-compulsory ‘tithes’ on secular land-transactions. Sacred woodlands and groves were a standard feature of sanctuaries’ landholdings, and poaching from these woodlands was very widespread. Although these sanctuaries had a small permanent staff of sacred officials, much of the rural labour on their estates was provided through the Hieradoumian institution of ‘sacred slavery’, under which villagers were expected to offer their labour as hierodouloi for a fixed term of service. Low-level resistance to this compulsory labour service was endemic, illustrating the structural tensions that existed between Hieradoumian villagers and the powerful sanctuaries of the region.

Massachusetts was the last of the original thirteen American states to disestablish religion. Its 1780 constitution guaranteed freedom and equality to all peaceable private religions but also retained a “mild and equitable establishment” featuring (1) ceremonial public religious language, symbols, rituals, and oaths, (2) moral instruction in state schools, and 3) state collection of tithes and required religious worship. Lead draftsman John Adams crafted this approach as a political compromise between hardline establishmentarians and radical separationists in his day. But this view also reflected his belief that too little religious freedom is a recipe for hypocrisy and impiety, while too much religious freedom is an invitation to depravity and license. After 1780, this compromise fell apart as religious pluralism and political division over religion grew in the state. Amendments of 1821 and 1833 outlawed religious test oaths, mandatory worship, and state tithe collections, but the state retained its ceremonial and moral establishments.

Massachusetts was the last of the original thirteen American states to disestablish religion. Its 1780 constitution guaranteed freedom and equality to all peaceable private religions but also retained a “mild and equitable establishment” featuring (1) ceremonial public religious language, symbols, rituals, and oaths, (2) moral instruction in state schools, and 3) state collection of tithes and required religious worship. Lead draftsman John Adams crafted this approach as a political compromise between hardline establishmentarians and radical separationists in his day. But this view also reflected his belief that too little religious freedom is a recipe for hypocrisy and impiety, while too much religious freedom is an invitation to depravity and license. After 1780, this compromise fell apart as religious pluralism and political division over religion grew in the state. Amendments of 1821 and 1833 outlawed religious test oaths, mandatory worship, and state tithe collections, but the state retained its ceremonial and moral establishments.

Chapter 9 explores the period 1649-53 as a time when all religious groups were forced to rethink the Church of England and to contemplate significant changes to their religious lives. Beginning with the radical reform programmes of 1649-53, it argues that many of these reforms (such as attacks on lay impropriations and tithes) had been prefigured in pre-war debates or could command more mainstream support, and can be studied in continuity with earlier reforming initiatives rather than as a radical break with the past. The stymieing of the 1640s Presbyterian settlement, and the political troubles of presbyterian royalists, are examined. The chapter discusses the practical and ideological problems that both Presbyterians and episcopalian royalists faced over how far they should adapt their customary forms of worship and administration of communion in the face of the new settlement, and documents their failure to create agreed positions on conformity. The chapter also outlines the negotiations conducted by Charles II and his ministers with the Scottish Covenanters, delineating not a simple capitulation but a series of negotiations involving foreign divines, where forms of reduced episcopacy were still being discussed, but ending with an alliance which drove episcopalian royalists to question the royal supremacy.

The potato has nourished ordinary people in the Americas for millennia. Villagers along the Andes grew a great variety of potatoes, which were used in diverse ways to provide year-round nourishment. The Europeans who reached South America’s Pacific coast in the 1530s introduced potatoes to Europe, thereby initiating its global spread. Once in Europe, the potato attracted little attention from representatives of the state. Uninterested as they were in the everyday eating habits of European labourers, few learned writers assessed the novel plant’s potential as a foodstuff for Europeans. Those who did complained that the potato was excessively nourishing and so facilitated laziness. Ordinary people, in contrast, embraced the potato, which possessed a number of advantages over existing foodstuffs. Potatoes can produce a prolific harvest even in poor soil, and make a sustaining meal. Moreover, precisely because states were not interested in the everyday eating habits of poorer folk, it took many decades for the potato to attract the attention of tax-collectors. Potatoes thus allowed peasants and labourers to evade some of the less welcome aspects of state control. It is they who are responsible for the potato’s entry into the European diet.

Chapter 4 examines the Jerusalem Temple as an economic organization whose membership consisted of priestly elites. By appealing to other temples of the Roman East as comparanda, it demonstrates that elite temple functionaries simultaneously sustained their ancestral religious traditions and facilitated economic integration. As overseers of worship, Judaean elites had access to sacred land and sacred money and received other offerings. In particular, Judaean priestly elites were the beneficiaries of the Hasmonean institutions of tithes and temple taxes. Such exactions were authorized through scriptural interpretation, but were also typical at Graeco-Roman temples more broadly. To many Judaeans, however, they appeared distinctly exploitative once priestly elites became incomparably wealthy and powerful in the Early Roman period.