Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps and Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- Map 1 Scottish counties
- Map 2 Presbyteries, 1660–1714
- Introduction
- Part I Controversial Discourse
- Part II Controversial Action
- 7 Nonconformity
- 8 Crowd Violence
- Conclusion: Concepts and Consequences
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- STUDIES IN MODERN BRITISH RELIGIOUS HISTORY
8 - Crowd Violence
from Part II - Controversial Action
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 February 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Maps and Illustrations
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations and Conventions
- Map 1 Scottish counties
- Map 2 Presbyteries, 1660–1714
- Introduction
- Part I Controversial Discourse
- Part II Controversial Action
- 7 Nonconformity
- 8 Crowd Violence
- Conclusion: Concepts and Consequences
- Glossary
- Bibliography
- Index
- STUDIES IN MODERN BRITISH RELIGIOUS HISTORY
Summary
This chapter explains how collective violence allowed ordinary men and women to participate in religious debates. Beginning with cases of localised opposition to the Restoration Church settlement, I analyse violent attacks on ministers, and riots in rural and urban areas against episcopalian authority and Catholic worship. Presbyterian crowds, some of which were predominantly female, questioned the legitimacy of the episcopalian settlement. With some success, they attempted to prevent the introduction of episcopalian ministers into parishes made vacant by the deposition of presbyterians. The climax of this type of violence came in 1688–9, when highly organised crowds forcibly evicted episcopalian ministers from southern and western parishes, preparing the ground for the re-establishment of presbyterianism. Though this process of ‘rabbling’ achieved its aims with an unprecedented level of success, it should be seen in the context of three decades of violent episodes. But it was not only presbyterians who resorted to crowd violence for religious ends. After 1690, episcopalians employed many of the tactics previously used by their opponents to prevent the settlement of ministers in individual parishes, and to frustrate the actions of church courts. Like the presbyterian violence of the Restoration period and revolution, episcopalian riots weakened the Church's confidence, and became entwined with national religious debates.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Culture of ControversyReligious Arguments in Scotland, 1660-1714, pp. 208 - 233Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2012