would later provide “much of the inspiration for the political will and some of the political rhetoric of the antislavery cause.”53
The Colonial Church in the Eighteenth Century
In 1724, Bishop of London (1723–48) Edmund Gibson sent a questionnaire to Church of England clergy in the American colonies. He found that the condition of the church had markedly improved since Thomas Bray’s General View (1698). Bray had found approximately eighty-five churches, of which almost all were in Maryland or Virginia. Gibson’s survey, in contrast, noted one hundred sixty-one places of worship, ranging from South Carolina to Massachusetts. The survey included replies from Virginia (sixty places of worship), Maryland (forty-five), New York (seventeen), South Carolina (fourteen), Rhode Island (eight), Pennsylvania (four), New Jersey (seven), Connecticut (three), and Massachusetts (three).54
Respondents reported that their churches were full. In Virginia, Maryland, and South Carolina, parishes for which complete data were available, the majority of the population attended worship regularly in the Church of England, and approximately fifteen percent of the population received communion.55 The latter figure was three times higher than that of parishes in the English Diocese of Oxford.56
This picture of a thriving church runs contrary to a more negative portrayal that has been commonly offered since the nineteenth century. Non-Episcopal authors who were apologists for other religious traditions tended to generalize examples of clergy misbehavior into a portrait of conduct that they contrasted unfavorably with that of clergy of their own denominations.57 Nineteenth-century Episcopal authors were often critical of their eighteenth century coreligionists as well. Both evangelical and high church Episcopal authors noted the lack of the values that were central to their own ways of thinking and concluded that the church must have been in serious decline in the century before their own arrival. For nineteenth-century evangelicals the problem was that Episcopalians had not yet adopted the insights of the Great Awakening; for high church authors the problem was an insufficient appreciation of catholic principles.58 Many later historians have accepted the negative depictions of clergy of the colonial Church of England uncritically.59
A number of recent authors have reached different conclusions. To this point Virginia, where Church of England clergy were the most numerous in the eighteenth century, has been the most studied. Patricia U. Bonomi cited a survey of colonial rectors there from 1723 to 1776 revealed that “at most ten percent of the ministers ever had authentic charges brought against them.”60 John K. Nelson came up with similar figures in his study of the entire period from 1690 to the 1770s.61 Charles Bolton arrived at comparable figures for South Carolina.62 The lack of comprehensive cross-denominational studies for the colonial era or for the contemporary church makes it difficult to say whether this ten percent rate is significantly higher or lower than in other denominations or centuries.63 Bonomi’s observation that “in the modern Episcopal Church about eight percent of the ministers are deposed” is suggestive, however. Misconduct rates in the colonial Church of England may not have been very different from current ones.64 Short of further study, it seems best to remain with Nelson’s positive statement of the evidence: “Nine of every ten priests who served in Virginia between 1690 and 1776 apparently carried out their functions without violating seriously the norms of conduct and belief.”65
The suppression of monastic orders during the Reformation eliminated the major official church roles played by women in the late medieval church. With the notable exception of female monarchs, women had little influence over the governance or liturgical leadership of the Church of England. They could serve neither as clergy nor as members of the vestry. There were, however, a variety of indirect ways in which women influenced the shape of colonial religious life.
Women often served as sextons of colonial parishes. Grace Soward was, for example, the sexton (the person responsible for the care of church property) of the upper church in Stratton Major Parish (King and Queen County, Virginia) from 1730 or earlier until 1763. She was followed as sexton by an Ann Soward, suggesting that in some cases the position was passed down in families.66 Thomas Soward, who was probably Grace’s husband, appeared in the vestry minutes as a processioner (i.e. one who walks the bounds between properties in order to avoid disputes among landowners) and pew holder, which would seem to indicate that the family was trusted and for some periods of time at least moderately prosperous.67 The vestry at Stratton Major understood the washing of the minister’s surplice to be a separate responsibility but at times gave that responsibility to the Grace Soward as well.68
Women played a role in the Christian education and evangelism of children and servants. They taught in schools sponsored by Dr. Bray’s Associates. Enslaved people with female owners were roughly 50 percent more likely to be baptized than those with male owners, another indication of women’s interest in Christian education.69
Women played decisive roles in translating the official feasts and fasts of the church year into household practice. Upper-class women also subverted church teaching by transferring baptisms and weddings from the church to the home—a space over which they had greater control.70 Classic Church of England works on the ministerial life, such as George Herbert’s Country Parson (1652), stressed the need for clergy to have hospitable, godly households that could serve as models of Christian family life, something not easily accomplished without the active cooperation of a spouse.71 Sarah Harrison’s refusal, on three askings in her marriage service, to say that she would obey her husband (Commissary James Blair) may be an indication that clergy spouses did not understand their role in shaping a Christian household to be a subordinate one.72
Women and men contributed to the growth of the Church of England in the American colonies in the first half of the eighteenth century in both numbers and influence. The pace of growth would not continue uninterrupted throughout the century, however. Two important events—the Great Awakening and the American Revolution—would soon leave lasting marks on the denomination.
NOTES
1. In Enlightenment in America (New York: Oxford, 1976), Henry F. May distinguished four overlapping periods in the Enlightenment:
