ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY SOCIETY

The Ecclesiastical History Society (EHS) aims to foster interest in,
and to advance the study of, all areas of the history of the Christian Churches.

Membership

is open to scholars who are professionally engaged in the study and/or teaching of ecclesiastical history at universities or other institutions of higher education in the UK and abroad, as well as individuals who have a general interest in the subject. Institutions may also take out membership.

For details on how to become a member, click here ...

 

Officers

For a list of Officers and Committee members, click here ...

 

Conferences

are held twice a year. A residential conference in July and a one-day conference the following January are organized around a theme proposed by the Society's President.

The conferences for 2009-10 will be  on the theme of SAINTS AND SANCTITY, proposed by the President for the year, Professor Andrew Louth (University of Durham).

The Summer Meeting will be held at St Aidan's College, University of Durham. 

  • For a conference booking form, click here.
  • For a description of the theme with a list of the main speakers, click here.

 

Provisional dates for future Summer Meetings

2010: 21-24 July, St  Andrews

2011: 20-23 July, Oxford

2012: 18-21 July

2013: 17-20 July

 

Research student members (or prospective members) of the EHS are also invited to participate in Postgraduate Colloquia on the History of Christianity, held in Manchester (usually during the Spring Term). Details will posted here as arranged.

 

Other conferences of interest

International Conference on Baptist Studies V
Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia, 15-18 July 2009

Following four successful International Conferences on Baptist Studies at Oxford in 1997, Wake Forest in 2000, Prague in 2003 and Acadia in 2006, there is to be a fifth at Whitley College, Melbourne, Australia, from Wednesday 15 to Saturday 18 July 2009. All the conferences take Baptists as their subject matter, but are not restricted to Baptists as speakers or attenders. The theme this time is 'Interfaces: Baptists and Others', which includes relations with other Christians, other faiths and other movements such as the Enlightenment. What has been the Baptist experience of engaging with different groups and developments? The theme will be explored by means of case studies, some of which will be very specific in time and place while others will cover long periods and more than one country. A number of main speakers will address aspects of the subject, but offers of short papers to last no more than 25 minutes in delivery are welcome. They should relate in some way to the theme of 'Baptists and Others'. The title should be submitted to Professor D. W. Bebbington, Department of History, University of Stirling, Stirling FK9 4TB, United Kingdom (email: d.w.bebbington@stir.ac.uk). We are planning that a volume containing some of the conference papers will appear in the series of Studies in Baptist History and Thought published by Paternoster Press. Papers from the first conference have appeared in that series as The Gospel in the World: International Baptist Studies, edited by David Bebbington, and volumes representing the subsequent conferences are also being published. Full board over three days will be provided by the college, and charges will be kept low. Programmes and application forms will be available later.

 

Robert Grosseteste, his thought and its impact
Bishop Grosseteste University College Lincoln, 17-19 July 2009

Call for Papers: This will be an interdisciplinary conference which will bring together those interested in the work and influence of Robert Grosseteste (d.1253), Bishop of Lincoln and one of the great scholars of his age. A polymath, Grosseteste's written output embraced theology, philosophy, pastoral care, scriptural commentary, Greek translation, science and literature, and exerted a correspondingly wide influence on subsequent writers. Papers on any aspect of Grosseteste's life, works or influence (including his influence on Lollardy) are welcome, as are papers dealing with his peers, correspondents and pupils or the milieu they shared. Proposals for 40-minute papers or enquiries should be directed by 1 November 2008 to Dr Jack Cunningham (j.p.cunningham@bishopg.ac.uk), Bishop Grosseteste University College, Lincoln LN1 3DY, United Kingdom. Proposals should be 300-400 words in length and should include your name, contact address or email and your academic affiliation (if any).

For more information, go to http://www.bishopg.ac.uk/grosseteste or contact Dr John Flood, Balliol College, Oxford OX1 3BJ, United Kingdom (tel: 01865-201374): john.flood@balliol.oxon.org.

 

European Reformation Research Group
Department of History, University of Plymouth, 2-4 September 2009

Now in its nineteenth year, the European Reformation Research Group’s annual conference is the United Kingdom’s principal forum for researchers working on all aspects of the Reformation in Europe, including the British Isles, and on related subjects. It provides a forum for discussion of new research by postgraduates and researchers in the early part of their careers. Contributions from more senior academics have always been an important ingredient of the conference, and papers from such scholars are also warmly welcomed. Additional bursaries for postgraduates to assist with transport costs are available on application. If you are interested in attending, please contact: Dr Elizabeth Tingle, general secretary, University of Plymouth, Department of History, 4-5 Portland Villas, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, Elizabeth.tingle@plymouth.ac.uk; or Dr Elaine Fulton, treasurer, University of Birmingham, Centre for Reformation and Early Modern Studies, Department of Modern History, School of Historical Studies, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, e.k.fulton@bham.ac.uk.

 

Second British National Patristic Conference
Faculty of Divinity, West Rd, Cambridge, 9-11 September 2009

We are inviting all those engaged in the research and study of early and late antique Christianity to this conference. Our aim is to acknowledge the wide variety of institutional contexts and inter-disciplinary research cultures, trajectories, questions and approaches, encompassing the history, literature, theology, practice, and material culture of the early Church, including questions of the relationship between Early Christianity and other religions, philosophies and social contexts both within the Roman Empire and across borders. The conference programme will provide opportunities for research presentation and discussion and will encourage communication and potential collaboration between participants. The four keynote speakers are: Frances Young (Birmingham); Stephen Mitchell (Exeter); Thomas Graumann (Cambridge); Carol Harrison (Durham). For more details, go to http://www.divinity.cam.ac.uk/patristic_conference.html.

 

Edward Bouverie Pusey and the Catholic Revival
Ascot Priory, Berkshire, 14 – 17 September 2009

2009 marks the 125th anniversary of the founding of Pusey House in Oxford. To mark the occasion, it is hosting a conference centring upon this unsung hero of the Oxford Movement. Despite the fact that Dr Pusey effectively assumed the leadership of the Movement following the departure of John Henry Newman, his achievement is seriously undervalued today. His published works are out of print and the production of scholarly editions of his extensive correspondence and other papers has not even begun. The conference aims to encourage renewed interest in Pusey, thereby assisting a fuller picture of the Oxford Movement and its legacy. It invites papers devoted to Dr Pusey’s life and his many areas of influence and interest, such as Biblical hermeneutic, Patristics, the work of continental theologians, concern for the poor, preaching, ascetical theology and the revival of the Religious Life in the Church of England. The conference will take place at Ascot Priory, formerly the home of the Society of the Holy Trinity, the order with which Pusey was so closely associated, and the place where he died. The Priory has a striking church by Butterfield and is set in extensive grounds. It is easily reached by road and train and is a relatively short distance from Heathrow airport.

An outline programme may be obtained from Father William Davage, preferably by e mail, william.davage@stx.ox.ac.uk  but also by post to Pusey House, Oxford, OX1 3LZ.

Booking for the Conference will open on 20 April 2009. Applications should be made to Father Davage.

 

Early Roman Liturgy
Blackfriars, Oxford, 14 November 2009; 27 February 2010 [latter date to be confirmed]

What do we know about the liturgy of the church in Rome to around 600? How we respond to this question affects our interpretation of the development of Western liturgy in this period and enables us to evaluate the Roman tradition with that of other major sees. Surprisingly there has been very little recent scholarship on some of the key topics and this conference provides the opportunity to present some fresh research on the textual and archaeological evidence.

Confirmed speakers for 14th November 2009: Professor Paul Bradshaw (University of Notre Dame), Professor Olof Brandt (Pontifical Institute for Sacred Archaeology), Dr Maura Lafferty (University of Tennessee-Knoxville), Professor Thomas O’Loughlin (Nottingham), Dr Thomas Whelan (Milltown Institute of Theology and Philosophy, Dublin).

Confirmed speakers for February 2010: Dr Juliette Day (Blackfriars), Professor Robin Jensen (Vanderbilt University).

For more information, go to: http://www.bfriars.ox.ac.uk/events.php

 

National Worship in International Perspective: State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings since the Sixteenth Century. An international and interdisciplinary conference
Durham
University, 12-14 April 2010

Many early modern and modern governments ordered occasions of special worship in periods of great crisis or unexpected prosperity, or to mark calamities or victories. As a growing number of studies has indicated, these occasions offer great insights into government and ecclesiastical policies, the communication of official religious interpretations, conceptions of identity and popular belief, but also religious and political dissent. Such special worship has considerable interest for religious, political, cultural and intellectual historicans, and scholars in theology, literature, sociology and anthropology. This conference will bring together experts on these occasions of special state-ordered worship in different countries and different periods, in order to explore similarities and contrasts and to develop new interdisciplinary approaches.

The organisers are Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor and Philip Williamson, members of the project on ‘British State Prayers, Fasts and Thanksgivings, 1540s-1940s’, funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Confirmed speakers include Nigel Aston (France), Toby Barnard (Ireland), Richard Carwardine (USA), Simon Dixon (Russia), Anthony Milton (England) and Peter van Rooden (Netherlands).

Proposals for further papers (20 minutes) are invited from scholars in any discipline.These should consist of a title and a 250-word abstract, outlining the significance of the subject and research questions.  Proposals should be submitted before 2 February 2010.

Conference fee: c. £150 including meals, c. £200 including meals and accommodation. 

Bursaries for postgraduate students may be available.

Contact details: Enquiries and proposals should be sent to Dr Natalie Mears, Department of History,Durham University, 43 North Bailey, Durham,DH1 3EX,United Kingdom, or to natalie.mears@durham.ac.uk. For more details, go to: http://www.dur.ac.uk/history/research/research_projects/british_state_prayers/

 

Science, Religion and Politics during the 'Modernist Crisis'
Belgian Historical Institute in Rome / Academia Belgica, Via Omero 8, I-00197 Roma, 3-5 June 2010

Format of the Colloquium: Workshop with approximately 20 participants, 12 of which will be selected through a 'Call for papers'. Contributions to be distributed in advance (10 May 2010) among the participants. Languages : French,  English and Italian. Publication of Acts intended.

Procedure: Scholars interested in submitting a proposal for a lecture should do so by September 30, 2009 at the latest, and should send their proposal to Annelies Lannoy at: annelies.lannoy@ugent.be. Abstracts should be accompanied by a short CV, and should be presented in French or English: the proposal should be approximately 30 lines, outlining the subject and indicating the original character of its subject and/or approach; also, the abstract should indicate which of the four sessions (1-4: infra) the contribution is intended for.

Conference proposal: In 1910-11, the 'case Cumont' caused intellectual and political uproar in Belgium. The Cumont case transcends the anecdotal level of an individual career and will be our starting point for a general reflection on the interactions between science, religion and politics at the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth century. Franz Cumont had been professor of Roman Institutional History at the University of Ghent, since 1892. He was already a scholar of world-wide renown when, a few years later, he was unanimously proposed by his Faculty as the new full professor for the chair of Roman History. He was barred from this promotion by the Catholic Minister of Sciences and the Arts, Baron Descamps. After several months of controversy, mobilization and even negotiations at the highest political level, Cumont permanently resigned from his academic positions and, a short while later, he altogether left his native Belgium, bewildered by the whole experience. A political and confessional imbroglio had prevailed over the scientific interests of the Belgian academic world.

The modernist context seems to have been a major factor in the academic ostracism Cumont fell victim to. Cumont was befriended with Loisy, and he corresponded with Buonaiuti and Turchi. In 1906, he published the 'best-seller' entitled 'Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain' (English translation: 1911), in which the spread of Christianity was placed in a historical perspective. In this book, Cumont put forward the thesis that the so-called oriental religions had paved the way for the 'triumph of Christianity' by promoting a new spirituality and a new relation between religion and morality. Attacked by some, praised to the skies by others, Cumont became the target of Catholic apologetics, which served as a point of reference for the conservative government. At the time, the Belgian government had full control over academic appointments at state universities. This 'affair' reveals what was at stake in the intellectual, cultural and political world, not only in Belgium, because this case largely transcends the Belgian context and is relevant to the entire scientific world during this period marked by modernism and anti-modernism. What became of the free choice of teachers and teaching material in this time of intellectual 'witch hunt'? What positions did the different representatives of political and religious power take up? How did they relate to the academic world, towards specific developments in research? What challenges for Christian theology were implied in the new discipline of history of religions? Through which instruments, in which socio-cultural spaces and with which results was this challenge pursued?

Themajor objective of this Colloquium is to explore, in four thematic sessions, the complex and evolving dynamics between political power, religious authority, and the scientific community, in the period of the modernist versus anti-modernist debate, that is to say from the last quarter of the 19th to the first quarter of the 20th centuries, when a positivist 'science of religion' developed. The tableau we would like to sketch will take into account both the Catholic and the Protestant world, Belgium as well as Europe and the United States. The approach will be resolutely interdisciplinary and comparative.

The four thematic sessions are conceived along broadly chronological lines:

SESSION 1 In this introductive session, we will explore the field of tension existing between science, religion and politics in the last quarter of the 19th century, symbolized, on the Catholic side, by the encyclical Pascendi, but present also in the Protestant world. We will evaluate the position of the emerging 'science of religions' in this context, andthe possible cross-influences connecting it to the political world.

SESSION 2 The second session will focus on the 'Cumont case': we will discuss its Belgian and European context, and evaluate both its unique characteristics and its general significance as a case in point for the conflicts between the academic world, the political realm and the religious authorities.

SESSION 3 In the third session, we will turn our attention to the development of intellectual machinery and institutional academic environment for the history of religion: themes, concepts, problems, methods, but also the creation of university chairs, academic networks, conferences, journals, publications, etc. We will study the way political and religious authorities tried to gain control over these new developments.

SESSION 4: The final session will be dedicated tot the impact of the scientific 'globalization'. For the 'science of religions' this globalization occurred mainly around the First World War: the interaction with anthropology and ethnology, the importance of missionary reports and the discovery of other religious cultures, the development of archeological expeditions, in a political context marked by imperialism, including cultural imperialism.

 

International Historical Congress
Amsterdam, 22-28 August 2010

The next International Historical Congress will feature 'Religion and Power' as one of the 'Major Themes' and there will be a Roundtable on 'Tolerance before the 18th Century'. CIHEC will be organising three half-day sessions, on respectively 'Christianity and Communism in Europe', 'Changing Concepts of Sainthood and the Holy Life' and 'Dealing with the Religious Past'. The third of these is being organised by the Dutch Sub-Commission, which explains: 'At several previous turning-points in Christian history the past had to be remodelled so that Christianity could survive and grow in the future.  Now it certainly seems that once more the past has ceased to give answers to the questions of the present. By addressing ourselves as historians to those periods when Christianity re-invented itself, we may contribute some answers to the question whether Christianity can once again deal with the past in such a way that it can have a future.' For general information about the congress go to www.cish.org; for more information on CIHEC's contribution contact Brenda Bolton, 8 Watling Street, St Albans, Herts, AL1 2PT, email: Brenda@bolton.vianw.co.uk; or Hugh McLeod, Department of Modern History, University of Birmingham, email: d.h.mcleod@bham.ac.uk.

 

Tours

Reformation Pilgrimages: Calvin Quincentenary (28 September  - 5 October 2009)
Tour arranged by Ken Carleton and Anthony Earl

2009 marks the quincentenary of Calvin's birth. The group of people which in various configurations has over the last five years visited the Waldensian Valleys (with the sponsorship of The Chapels Society, in 2004), Luther's Thuringia (2006), the Rhineland of Erasmus and Zwingli (2007), and most recently the Reformed areas of Hungary (2008) now plans to visit key areas for Calvin, including Geneva, and that part of Piedmont where Calvin's ideas undergirt an already existing reformation movement. This group represents learned or cultural interest with a concern for church history, especially of the sixteenth century. It is ecumenical in character, and on these journeys, maintains a holiday spirit.  The visit is made available to members of appropriate academic societies.

Accommodation: 28 September - 2 October in Church Guest House in Geneva; 2 - 5 October in Church Guest House in Torre Pellice in the Waldensian Valleys (rooms are simply furnished but have private facilities; breakfast is included, and other meals are available). Five evening meals are included. The half way journey on Friday 2 October, from Geneva to Turin (3 hours) will be by coach to enable the group to see the Alpine track by which Waldensian refugees found their way from Geneva to their own valleys in 1688.

Proposed museum visits include the Musée de la Réforme and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Geneva, and the Museo Culturale in Torre Pellice. Two or three special talks will be arranged, and commentaries on art and political history.

Estimated prices (to be confirmed): full tour, c.£600; Geneva only, £400. Further details of the programme and final prices will be available from Anthony Earl anthonyjearl@googlemail.com or Dr Ken Carleton ken_carleton@yahoo.com.

 

Situations vacant

Details are posted here when sent to us.

 

Links

For links to other websites in the field of church history, click here.

 

Publications

Selected proceedings of the Society's conferences are published in the series Studies in Church History, now at its forty-fifth volume, The Church, the Afterlife and the Fate of the Soul.

Past titles include: The Church and War; Women and the Church; Christianity and Judaism; The Church and Childhood; Unity and Diversity in the Church; Continuity and Change in Christian Worship; The Church and the Book; The Church and Mary; Retribution, Repentance, and Reconciliation; Signs, Wonders, Miracles: Representations of Divine Power in the Life of the Church; Elite and Popular Religion; Discipline and Diversity; Revival and Resurgence in Christian History.

These books are normally available at a discounted price to EHS members.

 

Discounted Books available - Sale of Back Stock

For an order form, click here ...

For further reductions on multiple-copy purchases, click here...

For further information on EHS publications, click here ...

 

Essential Information for Contributors to Studies in Church History

To download a copy of the Notes for Contributors please click here...

A List of Abbreviations is available by clicking here...

The Peer Review pro-forma is available by clicking here...