Writing to Thomas Barlow in the late seventeenth century, a young correspondent requested information ‘wherein Mr. Chillingworth's peculiar excellency above other writers consisted’. Thomas Barlow replied that this excellency stood not ‘in any extraordinary knowledge he had of Antiquity’ nor in the mere accumulation of learning but ‘did arise from, and consist in his Logick, both natural; and (by exceeding great industry) acquired’. The acumen of Chillingworth's argument, indeed, has long attracted attention. More important, the enigma of much of his character and expression has awakened a mass of commentary and exposition. In the nineteenth century, James F. Stephen, Thomas Arnold, Buckle and Lecky were concerned with him mainly as a rationalist, and the logical incompatibility of much of his thought with authoritarian Laudian churchmanship. In the present century there has been no constant course of interpretation, but a recent trend, notably in the works of D. Mathew and W. Schenk, has been to stress the affinities of Laud and Chillingworth in their appreciation of an ordered Caroline society. In this article, the intention is to attempt a precise delineation of the formation and significance of Chillingworth's thought and belief; a task in which unpublished material—both in the Lambeth Palace Library and the Bodelian Library—has been invaluable.

At the end of the fourth century a theory is found in the works of several writers to the effect that the episcopate and the presbyterate are essentially one order, differentiated only by the presiding function of the bishop and the reservation to him of the right of ordination. In the East this view is expressed in the homilies of St. John Chrysostom on I Timothy where he says:

‘Discoursing of bishops, and having described their character, and the qualities which they ought to possess, and having passed over the order of presbyters, he proceeds to that of deacons. The reason of this omission was, that between presbyters and bishops there was no great difference. Both had undertaken the office of teachers and presidents in the Church, and what he has said concerning bishops is applicable to presbyters. For they are only superior in having the power of ordination, and seem to have no other advantage over presbyters.’

A study of the division of the mensa in early medieval English monasteries must involve a tedious and detailed investigation of what most people will rightly regard as the mere externals of monastic life. But the topic is not without its importance for the study of the inner life of the early religious community and for the study of early medieval social and economic problems in general. Professor Knowles has doubted the existence of an effective division of the mensa in the English religious houses before the time of Rufus and Henry I. He calls the division the ‘feudalization of the abbot's position’ and he ascribes its origin to ‘the claim of the king…to hold and enjoy the revenues of a vacant abbey. To avoid this, the abbey's lands and income were divided between the abbot and community’. He considers that the effect of this division on the life of the community was considerable because it brought about the virtual separation of the abbot from the rest of the community. It created ‘a private household of servants and officials and, ultimately separate quarters in which they and the abbot lived…’.

‘Il est hors de doute qu'en 1789 les curés de France ont puissamment contribué au triomphe du patriotisme révolutionnaire. Par patriotisme on entendait alors, d'une manière précise, l'amour passionné de la liberté et de l'égalité des droits…. On sait que ces curés patriotes, au nombre de près de 200, formèrent environ les deux tiers de la députation du Clergé aux Etats Généraux, et que, dans les mois de mai et juin 1789, ils arrivèrent, malgré tous les efforts du haut Clergé de leur Chambre, à contrecarrer l'action de celui-ci, obstinément attaché à la séparation des ordres et au vote par ordre, à dissocier l'ordre même dont ils faisaient parti et à préparer ainsi la fusion dans l'unique Assemblée nationale….’