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.ÿþconclude that in eighteenth-century America in city, village, and country-side the idiom of religion penetrated all discourse, underlay all thought,marked all observances, gave meaning to every public and private crisis. 5Virginia Anglicans kept no records of membership or attendance; the estab-lishment by its very nature precluded the need for such record keeping.None-theless, their experience suggests far greater adherence than the older viewsmaintain.Questioning Virginia Anglicans on adherence, in fact, would haveelicited varied responses because there were at least three different ways theymight have understood it: as a parishioner; as a baptized person, and as anattendant.Each requires examination for what it discloses about adherence inan eighteenth-century context.6ParishionersWho were parishioners in eighteenth-century Virginia? That question is easilyanswered.Everyone was.The parish embraced all men and women, rich andpoor, young and old, planters great and small, merchants and shopkeepers,yeoman farmers and artisans, indentured servants and slaves.Germans, Scots-Irish, and Scots, as well as persons of English descent, were parishioners.Sowere Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and freethinkers, as well as the Angli-cans, devout or otherwise.7 Inclusiveness was the aim of a parish system, andVirginians realized that purpose.This is not to say that parishioners were all created equal, that all contrib-uted to and benefited from the parish in like measure.The parish representedin microcosm the prevailing hierarchical social order.As discussed earlier, itwas managed by the leading planter families who shaped the parish in con-formity to their interests, values, and needs.Yet to conclude that the parishserved only the planter elite would blindly disregard the weight of custom,history, and religious belief and practice, which over centuries gave definitionto the institution.It would also unfairly ascribe to the gentry an incapacity toact on any terms other than narrow self-interest.The parish embraced as wellas reflected the entire social order, from the powerful Anglo-Virginia gentryfamilies at the apex of the social pyramid to the powerless black slave forcewhich comprised the order s broad base.This all-embracing definition of parishioner would, of course, revolu-tionize traditional estimates of eighteenth-century religious affiliation in Vir-ginia.But it would not answer the real intent of adherence queries, which is.242 parishioners [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]
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.ÿþconclude that in eighteenth-century America in city, village, and country-side the idiom of religion penetrated all discourse, underlay all thought,marked all observances, gave meaning to every public and private crisis. 5Virginia Anglicans kept no records of membership or attendance; the estab-lishment by its very nature precluded the need for such record keeping.None-theless, their experience suggests far greater adherence than the older viewsmaintain.Questioning Virginia Anglicans on adherence, in fact, would haveelicited varied responses because there were at least three different ways theymight have understood it: as a parishioner; as a baptized person, and as anattendant.Each requires examination for what it discloses about adherence inan eighteenth-century context.6ParishionersWho were parishioners in eighteenth-century Virginia? That question is easilyanswered.Everyone was.The parish embraced all men and women, rich andpoor, young and old, planters great and small, merchants and shopkeepers,yeoman farmers and artisans, indentured servants and slaves.Germans, Scots-Irish, and Scots, as well as persons of English descent, were parishioners.Sowere Presbyterians, Baptists, Quakers, and freethinkers, as well as the Angli-cans, devout or otherwise.7 Inclusiveness was the aim of a parish system, andVirginians realized that purpose.This is not to say that parishioners were all created equal, that all contrib-uted to and benefited from the parish in like measure.The parish representedin microcosm the prevailing hierarchical social order.As discussed earlier, itwas managed by the leading planter families who shaped the parish in con-formity to their interests, values, and needs.Yet to conclude that the parishserved only the planter elite would blindly disregard the weight of custom,history, and religious belief and practice, which over centuries gave definitionto the institution.It would also unfairly ascribe to the gentry an incapacity toact on any terms other than narrow self-interest.The parish embraced as wellas reflected the entire social order, from the powerful Anglo-Virginia gentryfamilies at the apex of the social pyramid to the powerless black slave forcewhich comprised the order s broad base.This all-embracing definition of parishioner would, of course, revolu-tionize traditional estimates of eighteenth-century religious affiliation in Vir-ginia.But it would not answer the real intent of adherence queries, which is.242 parishioners [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]