Aspects of the Georgian church

the long version

Aspects of the Georgian Church reassesses the condition of the church in the diocese of York on the eve of those great transformations in society and religion wrought by the industrial revolution and evangelical revival. The responses of the clergy to Archbishop Drummond at his Primary Visitation in 1764 are closely analyzed for the first time to reveal details of church life in more than six hundred Yorkshire parishes. The result is a picture of spiritual vitality that belies the commonly held view of the church in eighteenth-century England as sleepy and corrupt. Dr. Jago reinforces the view of recent scholars that, when judged by what it tried to do instead of by what Victorian reformers thought it ought to have tried to do, the Georgian church was successful in maintaining the spiritual life of the parishes - though perhaps not so well-equipped to survive intact the unprecedented changes in population and industry that reshaped Yorkshire and English society in the later eighteenth century.