Testing the limits: Archbishop Bancroft and exorcism cases in the High Commission
Paper
Paper/Presentation Title | Testing the limits: Archbishop Bancroft and exorcism cases in the High Commission |
---|---|
Presentation Type | Paper |
Authors | |
Author | Harmes, Marcus K. |
Editors | Harmes, Marcus K., Henderson, Lindsay, Harmes, Barbara and Antonio, Amy |
Journal or Proceedings Title | The British World: Religion, Memory, Society, Culture: Refereed Proceedings |
ERA Conference ID | 80566 |
Number of Pages | 10 |
Year | 2012 |
Place of Publication | Toowoomba, Australia |
ISBN | 9780987408204 |
Web Address (URL) of Paper | http://www.usq.edu.au/oac/Research/bwc |
Conference/Event | The British World: Religion, Memory, Society, Culture (2012) |
Event Details | The British World: Religion, Memory, Society, Culture (2012) The British World: Religion, Memory, Society, Culture: Conference Event Date 02 to end of 05 Jul 2012 Event Location Toowoomba, Australia |
Abstract | Senior members of the English Church became involved in cases of bewitchment and dispossession in the later-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries. They sought to exonerate the elderly women accused of witchcraft and their involvement led to the disproving of the efficacy of exorcisms performed by puritan ministers. Although a number of bishops intervened in witchcraft cases, this work was most assiduously carried out by Richard Bancroft, the Bishop of London. In doing so, Bancroft came head to head against the Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Sir Edmund Anderson, and more broadly against judges and justices of the peace who accepted the verity of cases of possessions and accusations of bewitchment. Particular cases therefore reveal themselves as occasions where episcopacy and judiciary clashed. However these should not be read as cases of the Church versus the Law. The Church was part of the law, in terms of contemporary understandings of the origin of divine positive law. However the cases do suggest that cases involving exorcists were opportunities to propagandize against the episcopate and the justice it delivered via the High Commission. Accordingly Bancroft became involved in these cases because they were opportunities for bishops to assert the authority of their order and the High Commission against their opponents’ polemic and were a means to articulate the scope of episcopal authority. |
Keywords | church and state; religious power; law courts; authority; Elizabethan England; Richard Bancroft (d.1610); John Darrel; High Commission; witchcraft |
ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 430304. British history |
500405. Religion, society and culture | |
480499. Law in context not elsewhere classified | |
Public Notes | Chapter 10. © The Contributors and Editors. |
Byline Affiliations | Faculty of Arts |
Open Access College | |
Australian Digital Futures Institute | |
Institution of Origin | University of Southern Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/q1860/testing-the-limits-archbishop-bancroft-and-exorcism-cases-in-the-high-commission
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