ABSTRACT
That compact expression, ‘self-government at the king’s command’, frequentlyapplied to Tudor governance, might, by April 1559, equally be applied to parish religion for the Elizabethan Act of Supremacy brought the Church once again under the authority of the Crown, yet the practice of religion at the level of the parish was deeply informed by local customs, identities, boundaries and office-holders. The parish was, of course, the smallest and most basic unit of governance within the English church. The term itself seems not to have developed until the thirteenth century in England although related terms such as ‘priest shire’ and ‘shrift shire’ date back to the eleventh or late tenth century, but an Old English equivalent for parochia cannot be found. Once received, however, the term proved remarkably fertile, spawning a variety of combinations. In early modern England there were more than 9,000 parishes spread across the country with their parish churches, parish priests or ministers, parish clerks, parish bounds, parish constables, parish wardens, parishioners, parish ales, parish poor, parish meetings, parish rates and other parish coinages. Parish lands were lands owned by the parish; the moon might be referred to as a parish lantern, and if something was done on the cheap it was parish-rigged. In its broadest sense, however, the parish referred to a unit of governance that embraced both the sacred and secular, the ecclesiastical and the civil, although the growth of civil responsibilities placed upon the parish was one of the major developments of the sixteenth century, enshrined most clearly in the passage of the Elizabethan poor laws. Yet, where parish rates or a parish clerk can be clearly defined, the limits of parish religion are ambiguous and complicated still further by the variety of parishes found within England.
