Celts The late
Romano-British population seem to have been mostly Christian by the
Sub-Roman period. The
Great Conspiracy in the 360s and increased raiding around the time of the
Roman withdrawal from Britain saw some enslaved. Later medieval legends concerning the conversion of the island under
King Lucius or from a
mission by
Philip the Apostle or
Joseph of Arimathea have been discredited as "
pious forgeries" attempting to establish independence or seniority in the ecclesiastical hierarchy of
Norman times. The first archaeological evidence and credible records showing a community large enough to maintain churches and bishops date to the 3rd and 4th centuries. These more formal organisational structures arose from materially modest beginnings: the British delegation to the 353
Council of Ariminum had to beg for financial assistance from its fellows in order to return home. The
Saxon invasions of Britain destroyed most of the formal church structures in the east of Britain as they progressed, replacing Christianity with
a form of Germanic polytheism. There seems to have been a lull in the Saxon westward expansion traditionally attributed to the
Battle of Badon but, with the
Yellow Plague of Rhos caused by the arrival of the
Plague of Justinian around 547, the expansion resumed. By the time
Cornwall was subjugated by
Wessex at
Hingston Down in 838, however, it was largely left to its native people and practices, which remained inherently Christian.
St Piran's Oratory dates to the 6th century, making it one of the oldest extant Christian sites in Britain.
Anglo-Saxons , though perhaps intended as
Gregory the Great While Christianity survived continuously in the culturally
Brittonic west, it was extinguished in the east with the arrival of the Saxons until it was reintroduced to eastern Britain by the
Gregorian Mission, . From the seat of his
archdiocese at
Canterbury,
Augustine of Canterbury, with help from
Celtic missionaries such as
Aidan and
Cuthbert, successfully established churches in Kent and then
Northumbria: the
two provinces of the English Church continue to be led from the cathedrals of Canterbury and
York ( 735). However, Augustine failed to establish his authority over the
Welsh church at
Chester. Owing to the importance of the Scottish missions, Northumbria initially followed the native Church in
its calculation of Easter and
tonsure but then aligned itself with Canterbury and Rome at the 664
Synod of Whitby. Early English Christian documents surviving from this time include the 7th-century illuminated
Lindisfarne Gospels and the historical accounts written by the
Venerable Bede.
Normans , rebuilt in the
Romanesque style in the 1070s, in the
Gothic style following a fire in 1174, and in the
Perpendicular style following an earthquake in 1382 Christianity after the
Norman Conquest was generally separatist, its kings claiming the right to
overrule the pope in appointing bishops. By the 11th century, the
Normans had
overrun England and
begun the invasion of Wales.
Osmund,
bishop of Salisbury, codified the
Sarum Rite and, by the time of his successor,
Roger, a system of endowed
prebends had been developed that left ecclesiastical positions independent of the bishop. During the reign of
Henry II, the rising popularity of the
Grail myth stories coincided with the increasingly central role of
communion in Church rituals. Although John quickly reneged on his payments, A major reform movement or heresy of the 14th century was
Lollardy, led by
John Wycliffe, who translated the Bible
into English.
Posthumously condemned, his body was
exhumed and burnt and its ashes thrown into the
River Swift. Even before the Conquest,
Edward the Confessor had returned from Normandy with masons who constructed
Westminster Abbey (1042) in the
Romanesque style. The cruciform churches of
Norman architecture often had deep
chancels and a square
crossing tower, which has remained a feature of English ecclesiastical architecture. England has many early cathedrals, most notably
Winchester Cathedral (1079),
York Minster (1080),
Durham Cathedral (1093), and (New)
Salisbury Cathedral (1220). After a fire damaged
Canterbury Cathedral in 1174, Norman masons introduced the
Gothic style, which developed into the
English Gothic at
Wells and
Lincoln Cathedrals around 1191.
Oxford and
Cambridge began as religious schools in the 11th and 13th centuries, respectively.
English Reformation ,
archbishop of Canterbury and author of the first two
books of common prayer, being burned at the stake during the
Marian Persecutions, from
John Foxe's
Book of Martyrs Henry VIII was named
Defender of the Faith () for
his opposition to
Luther's
Reformation. The fact he had no living son and
the pope's inability to permit him a divorce from his wife while
her nephew's armies held
Rome, however, prompted Henry to summon the
Reformation Parliament and to invoke the
statute of praemunire against the English Church, ultimately leading to the 1532
Submission of the Clergy and the 1534
Acts of Supremacy that made the
Church of England an independent national church, no longer under the governance of the Pope, but with the King as Supreme Governor. (It is sometimes incorrectly stated that the Church of England was established at this time. The Church of England was a province of the Catholic Church at least since c. 600 AD. when Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Therefore the Church of England could not have been established at a time when it had existed for over 900 years.)
A law passed the same year made it an act of treason to publicly oppose these measures;
John Fisher and
Thomas More and
many others were
martyred for their continued Catholicism. Fear of foreign invasion was a concern until the 1588 rout of the
Spanish Armada, but land sales after the
Dissolution of the
lesser and
greater monasteries united most of the aristocracy behind the change. Religious rebellions
in Lincolnshire and
Yorkshire in 1536,
in Cumberland in 1537, and
in Devon and Cornwall in 1549 were quickly dealt with. The doctrine of the
English Reformation differed little at first except with regard to royal authority over
canon law:
Lutheranism remained condemned and
John Frith,
Robert Barnes, and
other Protestants were also martyred, including
William Tyndale, whose
Obedience of a Christian Man inspired Henry's break with Rome and whose
translation of the Bible formed the basis of Henry's own authorised
Great Bible. Meanwhile,
laws in 1535 and 1542 fully merged Wales with England. For the next 150 years, religious policy varied with the ruler:
Edward VI and
his regents favoured greater Protestantism, including new books of
Common Prayer and
Common Order. His sister
Mary restored
Catholicism after negotiations with
the pope ended Rome's claims to the former Church lands, but two false pregnancies left her sister
Elizabeth I as her heir. Upon Elizabeth's ascension, the 1558
Act of Uniformity, 1559
Act and
Oath of Supremacy, and the
Thirty-Nine Articles of 1563 formed the
Religious Settlement which restored the Protestant Church of England. The vicissitudes of the clergy during the period were satirised in "
The Vicar of Bray". The papal bull '''' supporting the
Rising of the North and the Irish
Desmond Rebellions against Elizabeth proved ineffective, but similarly ineffective were the
Marian exiles who returned from
Calvin's
Geneva as
Puritans.
James I supported the bishops of Anglicanism and the production of an
authoritative English Bible while easing persecution against Catholics; several attempts against his person—including the
Bye and
Gunpowder Plots—finally led to harsher measures.
Charles I provoked the
Bishops' Wars in Scotland and ultimately the
Civil War in England. The victorious
Long Parliament restructured the Church at the 1643
Westminster Assembly and issued a new
confession of faith. (The
English Baptists drew up
their own in 1689.) Following the Restoration, onerous
Penal Laws were enacted against
Dissenters, including the
Clarendon Code.
Charles II and
James II tried to declare royal indulgences of other faiths
in 1672 and
in 1687; the former was withdrawn in favour of the first
Test Act, which—along with the
Popish Plot—led to the
Exclusion Crisis, and the latter contributed to the
Glorious Revolution of 1688.
1689–1945 in
Kent, incorporating the
Flag of England The religious settlement of 1689 shaped policy down to the 1830s. The Church of England was not only dominant in religious affairs, but it blocked outsiders from responsible positions in national and local government, business, professions and academia. In practice, the doctrine of the divine right of kings persisted, old animosities had diminished, and a new spirit of toleration was abroad. Restrictions on Nonconformists were mostly either ignored or slowly lifted. The Protestants, including the Quakers, who worked to overthrow King James II were rewarded.
Toleration Act 1688 allowed Nonconformists who have their own chapels, teachers and preachers, and censorship was relaxed.
Anti-Catholicism Harsh penalties on Catholicism remained until the threat of a French restoration of the Catholic Stuart kings ended, but they were seldom enforced, and afterwards were slowly lifted until
Catholic emancipation was achieved in 1829. The failure of the pro-Catholic
Jacobite rebellions and
papal recognition of
George III after the death of
J. F. E. Stuart in 1766 permitted the gradual removal of
anti-Catholic laws, a process known as the Catholic Emancipation, which included the
Restoration of the English hierarchy.
The Evangelical Revival of Methodism's founder
John Wesley in
St Paul's Churchyard The
evangelical movement inside and outside the Church of England gained strength in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The movement challenged the traditional religious sensibility that emphasised a code of honour for the
upper-class, and suitable behaviour for everyone else, together with faithful observances of rituals.
John Wesley (1703–1791) and his followers preached
revivalist religion, trying to convert individuals to a personal relationship with Christ through Bible reading, regular prayer, and especially the revival experience. Wesley himself preached 52,000 times, calling on men and women to "redeem the time" and save their souls. Wesley always operated inside the Church of England, but at his death, it set up outside institutions that became the
Methodist Church. It stood alongside the traditional nonconformism of Presbyterians, Congregationalist, Baptists, Unitarians and Quakers. The earlier Nonconformists, however, were less influenced by revivalism. The Church of England remained dominant, but it had a growing evangelical, revivalist faction: the "Low Church". Its leaders included
William Wilberforce and
Hannah More. It reached the upper class through the
Clapham Sect. It did not seek political reform, but rather the opportunity to save souls through political action by freeing slaves, abolishing the duel, prohibiting cruelty to children and animals, stopping gambling, and avoiding frivolity on the Sabbath. They read the Bible every day. All souls were equal in God's view, but not all bodies, so evangelicals did not challenge the hierarchical structure of English society.
Census of 1851 As part of
the regular census in 1851, the Government conducted a census in England and Wales of attendance at religious services on 30 March 1851. Reports were collected from local ministers who reported attendance at their services on 30 March 1851. The effect of individuals attending multiple services (morning/afternoon/evening) could not be fully accounted for, but the estimated number of individuals attending a service at some point in the day was 7,261,032 people. The number of individuals attending morning services was 4,647,482, and the total number of attendees (including duplicates) was 10,896,066. The total population at the time was 17.9 million.
Missionary activity With the First British Empire at its greatest height during the 18th century, Anglican and Methodist missionaries were active in the 13 American Colonies. The Methodists, led by
George Whitefield, were the most successful and after the revolution and entirely distinct American Methodist denomination emerged that became the largest Protestant denomination in the new United States. A major problem for colonial officials was the demand of the Church of England to set up an American bishop; this was strongly opposed by most of the Americans and never happened. Increasingly colonial officials took a neutral position on religious matters, even in those colonies such as Virginia where the Church of England was officially established, but in practice controlled by laymen in the local vestries. After the Americans broke free, British officials decided to enhance the power and wealth of the Church of England in all the settler colonies, especially British North America (Canada). During the
New Imperialism of the 19th century, the
London Missionary Society and others like it were active In the
British Empire around the world, notably including the work of the Scotsman
David Livingstone in
Africa.
New religious orders were also established within the Anglican fold. All the main denominations were involved in 19th-century missions, including the Church of England, the Presbyterians of Scotland, and the Nonconformists. Much of the enthusiasm emerged from the Evangelical revival. Within the Church of England, the
Church Mission Society (CMS) originated in 1799 and went on to undertake activity all around the world, including in what became known as "the Middle East". Missionary societies funded their own operations that were not supervised or directed by the Colonial Office. Tensions emerged between the missionaries and the colonial officials. The latter feared that missionaries might stir up trouble or encourage the natives to challenge colonial authority. In general, colonial officials were much more comfortable with working with the established local leadership, including the native religions, rather than introducing the divisive force of Christianity. This proved especially troublesome in India, where very few local elites were attracted to Christianity. In Africa, especially, the missionaries made many converts. By the 21st century there were more Anglicans in Nigeria than in England, and they were culturally and theologically much more conservative. Missionaries increasingly came to focus on education, medical help, and long-term modernisation of the native personality to inculcate European middle-class values. They established schools and medical clinics. Christian missionaries played a public role, especially in promoting sanitation and public health. Many were trained as physicians, or took special courses in public health and tropical medicine at Livingstone College, London.
1900–1945 In the 20th century, the
Liturgical and
Ecumenical Movements were important developments.
Randall Davidson, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1903 to 1928, was perhaps the most influential of the churchmen. A curious case was
Ernest Barnes (1874–1953), Anglican
Bishop of Birmingham, who was a highly visible modernist opposed to Anglo-Catholic practices and rituals. He preached
Darwinism and ridiculed many Christian beliefs, especially the sacrament of Holy Communion and the bodily
Resurrection of Christ. This led to calls that he should resign as a bishop; he refused, but Davidson made a gentle attack on Barnes in an open letter. Although the overall population was growing steadily, and the Catholic membership was keeping pace, the Protestants were slipping behind. Out of 30–50 million adults, they dropped slowly from 5.7 million members in 1920, and 5.4 million in 1940, to 4.3 million in 1970. The Church of England decline was parallel. Methodism, the largest of the Nonconformists reached a peak of 841,000 members in Great Britain in 1910, slipped to 802,000 in 1920, 792,000 in 1940, 729,000 in 1960, and 488,000 in 1980. The Nonconformists had built a strong base in industrial districts that specialised in mining textiles agriculture and fishing; those were declining industries, whose share of the total male workforce was in steady decline, from 21 per cent in 1921 to 13 per cent in 1951. As families migrated to southern England, or to the suburbs, they often lost contact with their childhood religion. Hoping to stem the membership decline, the three major Methodist groups
united in 1932. In Scotland the two major Presbyterian groups, the Church of Scotland and the United Free Church, merged in 1929 for the same reason. Nonetheless the steady declension continued. Commentator
D. W. Brogan reported in 1943: One aspect of the long-term decline in religiosity was that Protestants showed increasingly less interest in sending their children to
faith schools. In localities across England, fierce battles were fought between the Nonconformists, Anglicans, and Catholics, each with their own school systems supported by taxes, and secular schools, and taxpayers. The Nonconformists had long taken the lead in fighting the Anglicans, who a century before had practically monopolised education. The Anglican share of the
elementary school population fell from 57 per cent in 1918 to 39 per cent in 1939. With the sustained decline in Nonconformist enthusiasm their schools closed one after another. In 1902, the Methodist Churches operated 738 schools; only 28 remained in 1996. Britain continued to think of itself as a Christian country; there were a few atheists or nonbelievers, and unlike the continent, there was no anti-clericalism worthy of note. A third or more prayed every day. Large majorities used formal Church services to mark birth, marriage and death. After 1918, Church of England services stopped practically all discussion of hell. As anti-Catholicism declined sharply after 1910, the Catholic Church grew in numbers, grew rapidly in terms of priests and sisters, and expanded their parishes from intercity industrial areas to more suburban locales. Although underrepresented in the higher levels of the social structure, apart from a few old aristocratic Catholic families, Catholic talent was emerging in journalism and diplomacy. A striking development was the surge in highly publicised conversion of intellectuals and writers including most famously
G. K. Chesterton, as well as
Christopher Dawson,
Maurice Baring,
Ronald Knox,
Sheila Kaye-Smith,
William E. Orchard,
Alfred Noyes,
Rosalind Murray,
Arnold Lunn,
Eric Gill,
David Jones,
Evelyn Waugh,
Graham Greene,
Manya Harari, and
Frank Pakenham.
Since 1945 Present debates concern the ordination of women and the acceptance of homosexuality within the Church and clergy. The established church continues to count many more
baptised members, although immigration from other countries means that the restored
Catholic Church in England and Wales now has greater attendance at its weekly services. While identifying significant decline in statistical data of church attendance from the 1950s onwards, Paul Backholer, author of
Britain, A Christian Country, found notable exceptions to the decline, which includes the up to two million people who attended Billy Graham's United Kingdom campaigns from 1954 to 1955. With Wembley Stadium filled to overflowing with 120,000 people, Graham's meeting on Sunday 23 May 1954 was called, "Britain's biggest religious meeting of all time." Subsequent renewal movements include the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic Renewal and more recently, rapid growth in ethnic minority churches. While church attendance continues to decline, he concludes Britain remains, "Historically and culturally Christian in nature," something he notes is recognised by significant leaders of minority faiths in Britain, as an expression of tolerance.
Roman Catholics English Catholicism continued to grow throughout the first two thirds of the 20th century, when it was associated primarily with elements in the English intellectual class and the ethnic Irish population. Rates of attending Mass remained very high in stark contrast with the Anglican church and Nonconformist Protestant churches. Clergy numbers, which began the 20th century at under 3,000, reached a high of 7,500 in 1971. By the latter years of the 20th century low numbers of vocations also affected the church with ordinations to the priesthood dropping from the hundreds in the late 20th century into the teens in 2006–2011; 20 men were ordained to the diocesan priesthood in 2011 and 31 in 2012. The upward social movement of Irish Catholics out of the working-class into the middle-class suburban mainstream often meant their assimilation with broader, secular English society and loss of a separate Catholic identity. The
Second Vatican Council has been followed, as in other Western countries, by divisions between traditional Catholicism and a more liberal form of Catholicism claiming inspiration from the Council. This caused difficulties for not a few pre-conciliar converts, though others have still joined the Church in recent decades (for instance,
Malcolm Muggeridge and
Joseph Pearce), and public figures (often descendants of the recusant families) such as
Paul Johnson;
Peter Ackroyd;
Antonia Fraser;
Mark Thompson,
Director-General of the BBC;
Michael Martin, first Catholic to hold the office of
Speaker of the House of Commons since the Reformation;
Chris Patten, first Catholic to hold the post of
Chancellor of Oxford since the Reformation;
Piers Paul Read; Helen Liddel, Britain's High Commissioner to Australia; and former Prime Minister's wife,
Cherie Blair, have no difficulty making their Catholicism known in public life. The former Prime Minister,
Tony Blair, was received into full communion with the Catholic Church in 2007.
Catherine Pepinster, Editor of
Tablet, notes: "The impact of Irish immigrants is one. There are numerous prominent campaigners, academics, entertainers (like
Danny Boyle the most successful Catholic in showbiz owing to his film,
Slumdog Millionaire), politicians and writers. But the descendants of the
recusant families are still a force in the land." == Scotland ==