Parish and Belonging
Parish and Belonging
What role did the parish play in people's lives in England and Wales between 1700 and the mid-twentieth century? By comparison with globalisation and its dislocating effects, the book stresses how important parochial belonging once was. Professor Snell discusses themes such as settlement law and practice, marriage patterns, cultures of local xenophobia, the continuance of out-door relief in people's own parishes under the new poor law, the many new parishes of the period and their effects upon people's local attachments. The book highlights the continuing vitality of the parish as a unit in people's lives, and the administration associated with it. It employs a variety of historical methods, and makes important contributions to the history of welfare, community identity and belonging. It is highly relevant to the modern themes of globalisation, de-localisation, and the decline of community, helping to set such changes and their consequences into local historical perspective.
- A major new study of community and local identity in early modern and modern Britain
- A significant contribution to debates about modern British identity
- Will appeal to scholars in early modern and modern British social history, local history and religious history
Reviews & endorsements
"There can be no doubt[...]that this book is a major scholarly achievement. It has advanced our understanding of the parish's essential influence by demonstrating the persistence of that influence beyond the early modern period and, possibly, into the present."
-Carl B. Estabrook, Dartmouth College, American Historical Review
Product details
December 2006Adobe eBook Reader
9780511258206
0 pages
0kg
5 tables
This ISBN is for an eBook version which is distributed on our behalf by a third party.
Table of Contents
- Preface and acknowledgements
- 1. Introduction - belonging and local attachment
- 2. The culture of local xenophobia
- 3. Settlement, parochial belonging and entitlement
- 4. Rural societies and their marriage patterns
- 5. 'A cruel kindness': parish out-door relief, and the new poor law
- 6. Nailed to the church door? Parish overseers and the new poor law
- 7. Three centuries of new parishes
- 8. `Of this parish': gravestones, belonging and local attachment
- 9. Conclusion - belonging, parish and community
- Select bibliography.
