During the 1130 schism, the Anacletian Cardinal Pandulf wrote three Lives of Gelasius II, Calixtus II and Honorius II. Historiography has usually read these Lives literally, as biographies. However, if they are considered in the light of the context in which they were written, our working hypothesis is that Pandulf created these Lives in order to support Anacletus and delegitimate his enemies. They therefore function as propaganda rather than as biographies. In this article passages from each Life will be presented that are significant in reading these works from the point of view of an Anacletian supporter in the context of the schism.

Amulo, one of the earliest western witnesses for the Toledot Yeshu, uses ‘adulterata’ to describe the mother of Jesus. Some scholars have claimed that the word ‘adulterata’ implies that she was raped either by force or by deception. Forcible rape is questionable based on a linguistic argument: Latin usage of ‘adultero’, both classical and Christian, normally refers to a woman with the accusative case or the passive voice and distinguishes clearly between adultery and violent rape. It is possible that narratives such as the one about Jesus’ mother played a role in the conversion of the palace deacon Bodo to Judaism.

This article examines the use of child-mediums in divination and magic as a specific medieval understanding of child abuse. Medieval authors believed that children were used in this way by learned men, particularly churchmen. They believed the practice was abusive, causing physiological and psychological harm. Many also thought, for different reasons, that it could produce revelations. This topic provided medieval authors with an opportunity to theorise about a specifically clerical form of child abuse, and it is an example of the kind of ritual magic extant in clerics’ own social worlds that fuelled paranoid conspiratorial fantasies, such as witchcraft.

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.

This article examines how the Castilian conquest of Granada and the conversion of its inhabitants to Christianity affected the Catholic Church; specifically, it analyses the role played by parish churches as recipients and administrators of religious donations, first from Muslims and later from converts. This study shows that the Church was not the only beneficiary of the donations it received, since these gifts were part of a strategy on the part of converts to be accepted as legal members of Castilian society and on the part of the Crown in its campaign for the unity of the kingdom.

In 1653, the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith created a secular mission for Scotland that initially struggled with finances and provision. Its Prefects argued that the Jesuits exacerbated these problems by failing to prepare students at the Scots College Rome intellectually for the mission. This article examines the resulting campaign for curricular reform that Scottish secular priests waged, one intended to improve missionaries’ pastoral skills and undermine the college's Jesuit administration. It ultimately demonstrates the significance of education to wider conflicts between Propaganda Fide and the Society of Jesus regarding missions and resources in the seventeenth century.

The history of the sermon that Matthew Parker preached at the funeral of Martin Bucer is more complicated than has been thought. It is generally known that the first printing of 1551 was subsequently translated from English into Latin for a European audience in 1562 (printed in that year and again in 1577), and then published in English a second time, in a 1587 imprint that is thought to be a second edition. What is not generally known is that the second English printing was a translation of the 1562/1577 Latin version, and that in the process of translation and re-translation, Parker's original sermon was stripped of nearly 60 per cent of its content, as a eulogy that followed the sermon was misattributed to Walter Haddon at some point just prior to 1562. The present article seeks to explain how this came to pass, and argues that the 1551 imprint should replace the 1587 as the primary text for what Parker said of Bucer.

This article examines the English translations of works by Johann August Neander (the reputed father of modern church history) in order to consider his transatlantic influence. American editions of Neander's work supported the development of church historiography in nineteenth-century America, and influenced the direction of mediating theology at American academic and religious institutions. Besides identifying the agents who championed these translation efforts, the article explores how translations of church history texts supported knowledge transfer from Germany to America. Neander's books received positive attention in the translation culture of the 1830s, and he gained a reputation as a model scholar of church history.

After their ejection from the Church of England, it is said that the English Presbyterians split into two factions. The ‘Dons’, led by Richard Baxter, pursued comprehension and reunion with the national Church, whilst the ‘Ducklings’ petitioned for an indulgence of their separation. In this article, it is argued that this twofold distinction is largely false. Rather, all English Presbyterians sought unity; their divergence in terms of practical policy stemmed from subtly different conceptions of catholicity. Thus, paradoxically, indulgence came to be seen as a pathway towards comprehension. Conventicle preaching, meanwhile, became a curious form of curacy, operating in tandem with the parish ministry.

Studies of Christian worship understandably present churches as institutions that minister to human communities. The article shows that worship in the Church of England has a non-human history. Key developments between 1900 and 1950, notably war, the growth of pet-keeping and heightening concerns about the countryside, encouraged groups, inside and outside the Church, to push for rituals and liturgies that engaged with animals and animal issues in varied ways. The incorporation of animals in worship is an unappreciated aspect of broader changes in cultures of prayer, and an overlooked element in Anglican efforts to reconnect worship with the natural world.

Following the vote in favour of birth control at the 1930 Lambeth Conference, the Church of England became the first major Christian denomination explicitly to condone the use of birth control. This paper argues that the bishop of Winchester, Theodore Woods, was the previously unheralded principal actor responsible for reversing the position of the Church. Woods was convinced that the Church needed to ‘modernise’ its position in order to secure a receptive audience for its higher-ordered teachings on marriage, sex and especially procreation. In turn, he hoped to bring about an increased birthrate amongst the eugenically ‘desirable’ English middle and upper classes.

The 1994 Rwandan genocide transformed the leadership of the Anglican Church in a way that mirrored the ethnic divides that had precipitated the genocide itself. This transition was effected through a church conflict that unfolded in the midst of a cataclysmic civil war. Understanding the nature of the conflict and leadership transition illuminates the way in which African church identity is constructed as a result of an interplay between local, regional and global actors. The post-genocide conflict in the diocese of Kigali is studied at particular length to indicate the ways in which these actors each sought position and influence.

John Owen (1616–83) was one of the foremost English Puritans of the seventeenth century. His story has been largely limited to events in Britain. The letters examined in this article, translated from the French, reveal Owen's reputation and activity among Huguenots at the end of Oliver Cromwell's Protectorate. Responding to critics of English religion like Moïse Amyraut, they highlight the largely neglected internationality of Interregnum religion and politics in which Owen participated through epistolary and print culture. They display the apocalyptic themes behind attempts at international Protestant union where ecclesiological debates over the nature of synods, toleration, political sovereignty and Church-State relations were decisive.

This article offers a reconsideration of religious mobilisation in the inter- and postwar periods. It focuses on how the Church of Sweden gradually altered its catechetical activities aimed at children to meet changing needs. Built on a range of statistical sources, this article calls for a reconsideration of the ways in which larger Protestant denominations adjusted to meet declining religious practices. With a focus on how laypeople became involved in these efforts, it is argued that institutional history, rejuvenated by the introduction of a gender perspective, is essential for our understanding of postwar religious mobilisation in north-western Europe.

The most influential English translation of Henry VIII's Assertio septem sacramentorum against Martin Luther, which is still widely available online and through e-publishing, was originally printed in London in 1687. Its translator, known only by the initials ‘T. W.’ that appear on the title page, is commonly identified in library catalogues as one Thomas Webster. Closer investigation reveals this identification to be based on a series of misunderstandings. It is suggested that this Thomas Webster never existed, and that the more likely translator was the Yorkshire-born controversialist, Thomas Ward.