HomeRegency LifeA Country Parson’s Life

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A Country Parson’s Life — 19 Comments

  1. Fascinating post. He was what a real clergy man should be. Caring, kind and considerate. He seems to have led an exemplary life.

  2. Exactly the sort of clergyman that Mr. Collins and Mr. Elton weren’t, but I could imagine Edmund Bertram and Edward Ferrars being.

    Thanks for sharing such an informative article with us.

    • Thank you all for your very kind comments! I apologize that I didn’t see them until now, to respond.
      Teresa and Anji, yes, I think Parson Woodforde shows us what a good clergyman of the time was like. I’ve read people who ask, would Edward Ferrars and Edmund Bertram really have been good clergyman? They might not have fulfilled what we hope for today, in being very dynamic preachers or running lots of church programs. But I agree with Anji that they could have been much like Parson Woodforde, quietly doing good in their communities and living with their people and sharing their lives. This was the expectation for a country clergyman, until the Methodists and Evangelicals starting stirring people up with different ideas.

  3. Sooo interesting!! I’m Anglican, so I am familiar with the Book of Common Prayer (BCP). I started out first with the 1662 British BCP which would have been the version used in Regency England as the BCP was not updated until the twentieth century. Since then I’ve used the 1928 BCP as adopted by the Episcopal Church here in the States and helped to edit a new 2011 version of the BCP which reverts to the theology of the original Cranmer 1549 BCP but with updated language and English Standard Version scriptures and references. So I enjoyed hearing so much about the BCP in this post and how it was central to the daily offices of a Regency country vicar. 🙂

    A lovely and informative post–thank you, Brenda and Maria!!

    Warmly,
    Susanne 🙂

    • Thanks, Susanne! I’m not Anglican, but because of my study of Austen have been praying daily with the old Book of Common Prayer for some months now. I’ve posted about it a fair bit on my Facebook page and blog ( facebook.com/BrendaSCoxRegency/ and brendascox.wordpress.com), especially during Advent. There are some lovely prayers and inspiring readings. The modernized Book of Common Worship is lovely, too, though sometimes the older language has more richness.
      I realized my BCP app wasn’t taking me through the same Bible readings that Austen would have used, so I’ve been reading those since early January; it was quite a lot of reading each day, about 5 Psalms, 2 Old Testament chapters, a chapter from the gospels and a chapter from the epistle. It gives good variety, and it’s also interesting to see what they left out as being too repetitive or too difficult for most people to understand (like the book of Revelation!).
      I find that trying new ways of Christian worship enriches my own experience.

  4. Interesting. Can you imagine if the church(es) required 10% of a family’s income today? The Bible does exhort such but I doubt a large percentage would yield to that demand.

    Thanks for sharing.

    • Yes, Sheila and Maria, it’s a different outlook than we have today. What’s even harder for us to imagine is that the government was demanding the 10%, to pay to the church. The government and church were considered one (“The Church of England” with the sovereign as head of the church; the bishops and archbishops as members of the House of Lords). This made it quite difficult for the “Dissenters” who believed differently; they were gradually coming into their rights during Austen’s era. I’ve just been writing chapters about this in my upcoming book, and it’s fascinating.
      In terms of the tithe itself, I’ve seen people claim that it was justified in that the clergyman provided many services to the community (such as visiting and doctoring the sick, counseling, holding money for people), so it was fair that they should all pay, even those who didn’t go to church. However, as more and more people became non-Anglicans–by 1851 it was almost half–resistance against the mandatory tithe increased until it was abolished.

  5. Thanks for sharing this article. It was fascinating.

    What a kind and godly man Rev. Woodforde was. A great example of a good Christian life.

  6. Pingback:A Jane Austen Thanksgiving? – Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen

  7. You say “The parson’s income came from three sources: tithes, glebe, and fees …” What about the living if he was the vicar, or the salary if he was a curate?

  8. Pingback:Joy to the World: Psalms, Hymns, and Christmas Carols in Jane Austen’s England – Faith, Science, Joy, and Jane Austen

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