Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Patronage

In the previous post a comment asked for an explanation of how patronage works. There is an excellent article on the Church Society web-site here.

I think I would be a bit more positive about the outcomes than the article is. Our parish has just been through the process and it has delivered us a new Rector without blood on the carpet.

I love the notion that the origins of patronage are pre-Christian.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

And any real anoraks can find more about the process at www.clergyassoc.co.uk/content/docs/patronage.pdf

Caroline Too said...

oh dear.... the Feudal system, which got going in the UK around 1066 or so is not pre-christian... now I may have missed emergence of feudal ties earlier in continental Europe, but even so it's not likely to have pre-existed Roman rule, and so, still is not pre-christian...

help from real historian appreciated. or maybe, I'll just go and get my anorak...

Steve Tilley said...

I think I might have been using pre-Christian in a non-chronological sense. Clumsy of me. I would have meant, '... origins in places or events other than Christianity.' Or something.

Caroline Too said...

the mistake was with the Church Society, shouldn't THEY have been more careful?

your point, st, that patronage is about society rather than God's governance is well made

What get's the Church Society's goat is that they're losing the power to get their placement into parishes. and so we see, again, how power and political intrigue is shaping church life...

it has always been thus!