The Feoffees for impropriations was an unincorporated organization dedicated to advancing the cause of Puritanism in England. It was formally in existence from 1625 to 1633.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement established an uneasy truce between Catholics and Protestants that brought the English Reformation to a conclusion and shaped the theology and liturgy of the Church of England. It was a compromise that was not completely satisfactory to either party. During the reign of James I, Puritanism was neither officially tolerated nor actively suppressed. With the succession of Charles I and the increasing power of William Laud, greater prominence was given to the requirement for adherence to the doctrine and liturgy of the established church. Puritans regarded this as a direct attack and responded by various overt and covert moves to resist the increasing Arminianism of the Church of England. In 1626, the York House Conference. chaired by the Duke of Buckingham, was held to discuss theological differences between Puritans and Arminians. At the second session, the Puritan case was led by John Preston, however Buckingham came down in favour of Laud.
When Preston realised that the York House Conference was not likely to favour Puritanism, he encouraged a group of Puritan lawyers, merchants, and clergymen (including Richard Sibbes and John Davenport) to establish an organization known as the Feoffees for the Purchase of Impropriations . [1] The feoffees would raise funds [2] to purchase lay impropriations and advowsons, which would mean that the feoffees would then have the legal right to appoint their chosen candidates to benefices and lectureships. This would provide a mechanism both for increasing the number of preaching ministers in the country, and a way to ensure that Puritans could receive ecclesiastical appointments.
The group considered obtaining letters patent, or securing an Act of Parliament, but did not pursue this course. [3] Twelve trustees were appointed - four clergymen, four lawyers and four merchants. A chairman was appointed in case the trustee split six - six on an issue. Over the few years that the feoffees were in existence, a number of trustees died and were replaced. The final chairman was Nicholas Rainton, at the time, Lord Mayor of London.
The feoffees began raising money by donations and using it to support their aims. They also used the donations to purchase the right to tithes which would give them a continuing income. Their primary purpose was to provide a pulpit for Puritan clergymen. [4] They purchased advowsons, established lectureships and provided direct financial support to individual clergymen. However, they were careful to ensure that they only supported those whose opinions they approved of. [5] Purchases were made by individual trustees since the feoffees had no formal corporate existence. Although the trustees purchased advowsons, they had made relatively few presentations before their activities came to the notice of the authorities.
In 1629, Peter Heylin, a Magdalen don, preached a sermon in St Mary's denouncing the Feoffees for Impropriations for sowing tares among the wheat. Archbishop Laud believed these activities seemed "a cunning way, under a glorious pretence, to overthrow the Church Government, by getting into their power more dependency of the clergy, than the King, and all the Peers, and all the Bishops in all the kingdom had". [6] As a result of the publicity, William Noy began to prosecute feoffees in the Exchequer court. Their lawyers were William Lenthall, later Speaker of the Long Parliament, and Robert Holborne, later counsel to Hampden and Prynne. [7] The feoffees' defense was that all of the men they had had appointed to office conformed to the Church of England. Nevertheless, in 1632, the Feoffees for Impropriations were dissolved and the group's assets forfeited to the crown: Charles ordered that the money should be used to augment the salary of incumbents and used for other pious uses not controlled by the Puritans. This suppression of the Feoffees, by legal action, was an early move of Laudianism. [8]
When the Long Parliament was called following the period of personal rule by Charles I, attempts were made by MPs to overturn the suppression of the feoffees. [9] In 1643, the House of Commons ordered the return of the money that had been taken by the King. In 1648, the surviving trustees secured a formal reversal of the previous court order from the House of Lords. However, the activities of the feoffees were never resumed, perhaps because under the English republic, they were considered unnecessary. John Marshall, one of the trustees bequeathed money and property for the erection of a new church in Southwark, but the feoffees were dissolved before the bequest was acted upon. In the late 17th century, new trustees were established to hold the advowson of the newly built church financed by the bequest - a single remaining legacy of the feoffees.
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement is the name given to the religious and political arrangements made for England during the reign of Elizabeth I (1558–1603). The settlement, implemented from 1559 to 1563, marked the end of the English Reformation. It permanently shaped the Church of England's doctrine and liturgy, laying the foundation for the unique identity of Anglicanism.
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Peter Heylyn or Heylin was an English ecclesiastic and author of many polemical, historical, political and theological tracts. He incorporated his political concepts into his geographical books Microcosmus in 1621 and Cosmographie (1657).
Francis Rous, also spelled Rouse, was an English politician and Puritan religious author, who was Provost of Eton from 1644 to 1659, and briefly Speaker of the House of Commons in 1653.
Richard Sibbes (1577–1635) was an Anglican theologian. He is known as a Biblical exegete, and as a representative, with William Perkins and John Preston, of what has been called "main-line" Puritanism because he always remained in the Church of England and worshiped according to the Book of Common Prayer.
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Impropriation, a term from English ecclesiastical law, was the destination of income from tithes of a church benefice to a layman. With the establishment of the parish system in England, it was necessary for all church property and income to have a specific owner. This was the parochianus, parson, or rector who was sustained by the benefice income while providing personally for the cure of souls, the everyday pastoral and religious duties. The parson was technically a corporation sole. Over the centuries, the benefice came to be considered a piece of property whose holder could discharge the spiritual responsibilities by a deputy, and many parishes were annexed by monasteries or other spiritual corporations, a process known as appropriation. These ecclesiastical holders were bound to provide for a cleric known as a 'vicar' for the cure of souls, but could use any excess income as they pleased.
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John Preston (1587–1628) was an Anglican minister and master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
Laudianism was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England, promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by the previously dominant Calvinism in favour of free will, and hence the possibility of salvation for all men. Laudianism had a significant impact on the Anglican high church movement and its emphasis on liturgical ceremony and clerical hierarchy. Laudianism was the culmination of the move towards Arminianism in the Church of England, but was neither purely theological in nature, nor restricted to the English church.
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The reign of King James I of England (1603–1625) saw the continued rise of the Puritan movement in England, that began during reign of Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603), and the continued clash with the authorities of the Church of England. This eventually led to the further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King Charles I (1625–1649), that eventually brought about the English Civil War (1642–1651), the brief rule of the Puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658), the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), and as a result the political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English speaking countries.
Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and within the Church.
Arminianism was a controversial theological position within the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century. A key element was the rejection of predestination. The Puritans fought against Arminianism, and King James I of England opposed it before, during, and after the Synod of Dort, 1618–1619, where the English delegates participated in formulating the Calvinist Canons of Dort, but his son Charles I, favoured it, leading to deep political battles. The Methodists, who espoused a variant of the school of thought called Wesleyan–Arminian theology, branched off the Church of England in the 18th century.
Historians have produced and worked with a number of definitions of Puritanism, in an unresolved debate on the nature of the Puritan movement of the 16th and 17th century. There are some historians who are prepared to reject the term for historical use. John Spurr argues that changes in the terms of membership of the Church of England, in 1604–6, 1626, 1662, and also 1689, led to re-definitions of the word "Puritan". Basil Hall, citing Richard Baxter considers that "Puritan" dropped out of contemporary usage in 1642, with the outbreak of the First English Civil War, being replaced by more accurate religious terminology. Current literature on Puritanism supports two general points: Puritans were identifiable in terms of their general culture, by contemporaries, which changed over time; and they were not identified by theological views alone.
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William Laud was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms; he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.