Community and Clergy

This is a study of Bristol during the sixteenth century, when it was the third largest city in England and an important provincial capital. The local focus of the book belies the breadth and innovation it brings to the study of the English clergy, the Reformation, and the early modern city.

Martha C. Skeeters examines the clergy of Bristol in its entirety - monks, friars, and the parish clergy - and integrates it into the urban context. Dr Skeeters demonstrates that by the early sixteenth century these various sorts of clergy had become co-operative rather than competitive, and formed a community which was a fundamental part of the city's collective identity. She explores the impact of the Reformation on the clerics of Bristol and its lay citizens in an original and scholarly account which has much to offer both ecclesiastical and urban historians.