Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Nonconformists'

The study traces the efforts of English Nonconformists to provide chaplains for their adherents in the British Army. Unrecognised by the War Office, and opposed by the Church of England, the Wesleyan Methodists persisted in providing an unpaid civilian ministry until, by stages, they secured partial recognition in 1862 and 1881. The respect earned by volunteer Wesleyan civilian chaplains, who accompanied the troops on most colonial and imperial expeditions in the last quarter of the century, culminating in the Boer War, prompted the War Office in 1903 to offer them a number of commissioned chaplaincies. The Wesleyans declined the offer. Although they had earlier, and after anguished debate, accepted State payment of chaplains, they were not prepared to accept military control of them. In the Great War, Wesleyan chaplains were nevertheless obliged to accept temporary commissions. Congregationalists, Baptists, Primitive and United Methodists, through a United Board, provided another stream of chaplains. With the political help of Lloyd George, both sets of Nonconformists secured equitable treatment at the hands of the Church of England and, through an Interdenominational Committee, gained positions of considerable influence over chaplaincy policy. In the field, remarkably for the age, they joined with Presbyterians and Roman Catholics in a single chain of command. By 1918, over 500 Wesleyan and United Board commissioned chaplains were engaged. After the war, as the price of retaining their newly won standing and influence, both the Wesleyans and the United Board denominations accepted permanent commissions for their chaplains and their absorption within a unified Chaplains Department. Acceptability was secured through willingness to compromise on voluntaryism and conformity to the State.

Yn y traethawd hwn trafodir y newidiadau a ddigwyddodd ym mywyd inewnol ac yn ethos y pedwar corff Ymneilltuol yng Nghynlru rhwng 1840 a 1870. Y thesis y ceisir ei ddatblygu yw fod y newidiadau hyn o dipyn i bath wedi eu gweddnewid. Yng nhorff y traethawd fe wneir defnydd o dermau a theorlau'r cymdeithasegwyr sydd weds astudio crefydd and nid heb geisio ystyried yn feirniadol i ba raddau y gellir gwneud defnydd dilys ohonynt yng nghyd-destun hanes crefydd yng Nghymru. Ymddengys fod eu diffiniadau o 'sect' ac 'enwad' yn gynorthwyol. Felly canolbwyntir ar fywyd mewnol y Cyrff crefyddol. Dadansoddir eu hymarweddiad a'u hegwyddorion fei cymdeithasau Cristnogol yn hytrach na'u gweithgareddau allanol, cymdeithasol a gwleidyddol. Gan hynny, yn ystod y drafodaeth, astudir yn ofalus eu hagwedd at eu harwahanrwydd, at y ddisgyblaeth eglwysig, at y 'ddyletswydd deuluaidd', at ymddygiad wrth addoli, at anffurfioldeb, at bregethu, at y Fugeiliaeth, at addysg, at berthynas gyda chyrff cýrjfyddol eraill, at ddiwygiadau, at gynllun a phensaerniaeth capeli ac Pt gyfundrefnu. Wrth dafoli arwyddoc&d y cyfnewidiadau, daw'n eglur sut yr oedd y cyrff Ymneilltuol yn eu haddasu eu hunain i gyfarfod her cyfnod cynhyrfus yn hanes Cymru. Daethant o dipyn i beth yn enwadau a deimlai gyfrifoldeb tuag at y byd seciwiar a thuag at y genedl. Bu i'r newid o sectyddiaeth i enwadyddiaeth esgor ar ganlyniadau yr oedd eu dylawad i'w gweld ymhell i'r ugeinfed ganrif. Proses graddol a chymleth oedd hwn yn dylanwadu ar bob agwedd ar fywyd mewnol y Cyrff and y ddadl yw fod y newid mwyaf arwyddocaol wedi digwydd rhwng 1840 a 1870.

This thesis examines six factors that helped to shape beliefs and expectations about death among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880: the literary conventions associated with the denominational magazine obituaries that were used as primary source material, theology, social background, denominational variations, Romanticism and the last words and experiences of the dying. The research is based on an analysis of 1,200 obituaries divided evenly among four evangelical Nonconformist denominations: the Wesleyan Methodists, the Primitive Methodists, the Congregationalists and the Baptists. The study is distinctive in four respects. First, the statistical analysis according to three time periods (the 1830s, 1850s and 1870s), close reading and categorisation of a sample this large are unprecedented and make it possible to observe trends among Nonconformists in mid-nineteenth-century England. Second, it evaluates the literary construct of the obituaries as a four-fold formula consisting of early life, conversion, the living out of the faith and the death narrative as a tool for understanding them as authentic windows into evangelical Nonconformist experience. Third, the study traces two movements that inform the changing Nonconformist experience of death: the social shift towards middle-class respectability and the intellectual shift towards a broader Evangelicalism. Finally, the thesis considers how the varying experiences of the dying person and the observers and recorders of the death provide different perspectives. These features inform the primary argument of the thesis, which is that expectations concerning death and the afterlife among evangelical Nonconformists in England from 1830 down to 1880 changed as reflections of larger shifts in Nonconformity towards middle-class respectability and a broader Evangelicalism. This transformation was found to be clearly revealed when considering the tension in Nonconformist allegiance to both worldly and spiritual matters. While the last words of the dying pointed to a timeless experience that placed hope in the life to come, the obituaries as compiled by the observers of the death and by the obituary authors and editors reflected changing attitudes towards death and the afterlife among nineteenth-century evangelical Nonconformists that looked increasingly to earthly existence for the fulfilment of hopes.

Some Welsh Nonconformist chapels, particularly those having two doors in the entrance facade, have been characterised as an indigenous vernacular building type, distinguishing them from the more grandiose chapels of the later nineteenth century that were associated with urbanisation and industrialisation. This thesis questions this characterisation, firstly through a comparison of chapel buildings with their contemporary domestic vernacular and with chapels built elsewhere and secondly through the presentation of a new architectural history of Welsh Nonconformist chapels. The architectural history of Welsh chapels is constructed with reference to specific chapel buildings and through a synthesis of social and religious history and literary evidence. It is shown that the buildings would have carried meaning and symbolism evident to contemporaries, since the arrangement of chapel facades was representative of a non-ritualistic, sermon-centred religious practice. Welsh chapels were built by congregations with aspirations for social improvement and always designed to be recognisable and distinguishable from their contemporary domestic vernacular buildings. There is no discontinuity between the more simply-expressed lateral-facade chapels and the later gable-ended designs, a division that supports a particular interpretation of Welsh identity. The plan of the worship space is the same in both and Nonconformist congregations always built chapels that were intended to be recognisable as such and distinguishable from their contemporary domestic vernacular. Rather than adaptations of domestic architecture, chapels should be thought of as vernacular interpretations of a formal and theorised design.

This report is all about quality improvement work with focusing on nonconformities routines. The purpose is to improve the process of nonconformity routines and to identify the most important issues and causes behind nonconformity routines in order to have good quality of the products and satisfied customer to achieve continuous improvement. This project is conducted at a case study at the case company GMV Sweden AB producing lifts and their components. The problem in the case company is how the case company is handling nonconformity routines which consist currently of two streams one for problems in production which leads to internal nonconformities and another is handling customer complaints. The author visits the case company to collect essential information for this work and performs face-to-face user interviews, Q&A via email. The knowledge gained on different quality tools in author's education on Terotechnology department forms the basis of this research. The author plans to solve the problem by analyzing, mapping the existing processes and using different quality tools. The author analysis is based on theoretical and empirical facts, also different quality tools like process mapping, cause effect diagram, flowchart has been used to identify the problem and relevant suggestions have been proposed to improve their current situation. In the results and conclusions the author has explain the various improvement techniques and suggestions to handle internal nonconformities and customer complaints. The author believes by implementing the suggested improved model company can address their quality issues, which will improve the productivity to a greater extent and enable them to achieve their goal of continuous improvement.

In this thesis, an exploration of Dissent in Restoration Northamptonshire, a comprehensive survey of every parish reveals this phenomenon to be present within all socio-economic groups, both urban and rural, across the county. In explaining this fact, the thesis eschews mono-causal social, economic or topographic factors in favour of others more generally applicable, such as the influence of trade and communication and the persistence of puritan traditions. An introductory survey of the physical and economic geography of the county, and a review of its puritan background, are followed by a brief historiography of Restoration Dissent. The sources, which include the returns from the 1674 Hearth Tax and the 1676 Compton Census, and methodologies used in the above survey, are then discussed. Through ecclesiastical and secular courts records, Chapter 4 examines the effect of penal statutes on Nonconformists, presentments across the period being found to vary with the exigencies of local and national politics. The mismatch between reported Nonconformity and prosecution is also investigated, as is the persistence of `obstinate' Dissenters in absenting themselves from the Established Church in favour of illegal gatherings, despite increasingly harsh penalties. Chapter 5, a prosopographical analysis of dissenting and conformist clergy, suggests that the influence of their particular puritan education, rather than considerations of age, wealth or patronage, played a significant part in the choice of those refusing conformity. For Conformists, abhorrence of separatism was a major factor in their decision. The final chapter places Northamptonshire Dissent in the wider seventeenth-century context, examining the spread of anti-tolerationist polemics during the Interregnum. The appeal, survival and growth of the Quaker movement are explored, as is the failure of post-toleration initiatives for unity amongst Nonconformists. Finally, the question whether the phenomenon of Dissent during the Restoration period should be considered a disjunction or a continuity in the puritan tradition is addressed.

Several studies have reported associations between childhood gender nonconformity (CGN) and depression or other mental health problems and potential mechanisms that seek to explain this association. However methodological issues limit the power of, and therefore the confidence in, their findings. Additionally, only one previous study has investigated childhood depression as an outcome variable. The current study accesses longitudinal data to investigate whether self-esteem mediates the association between early childhood gender nonconformity and childhood depression. The dataset was obtained from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and consisted of 15,247 records. A mediation analysis (Hayes, 2012) showed that self-esteem mediated the association between CGN and childhood depressive symptoms in females. However the effect size was very small. In males the mediation model demonstrated an association between CGN and depressive symptoms which approached significance but this was not mediated by self-esteem. Again, the effect size was very small. Study limitations were discussed, such as high levels of missing data. Research implications include the need for further UK based, preferably longitudinal studies exploring the mechanisms which explain the association between CGN and childhood depression. This should help to develop effective, tailored clinical interventions for this client group. Additionally, community psychology and public health interventions have been discussed.

This thesis is a study in the evolving ecclesiastical identities of the Puritan/Nonconformist clergy between 1640 and 1672. It will supplement the historiographical definition of Nonconformity and argue that a shift towards a 'soft' denominational identity more accurately represents Restoration Nonconformity. It will show how particular ecclesiastical tendencies crystallised in the 1640s as Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Baptist identities. However it will demonstrate that individual ministerial identities were not fixed. Clerical identities shifted and blended, adapting to the circumstances within the Puritan/Nonconformist movement as well as those forced upon them from without. The demarcations between Presbyterians, Congregationalists and Baptists were often blurred. Using data gathered from a Nonconformist ministerial database the thesis will substantiate an observable tendency during the Restoration for some former Presbyterians to shift towards a Congregationalist/Baptist identity. It will provide evidence that, in the absence of a classis system, many pure Presbyterians progressed to a Presbyterian/Congregationalist or even Baptist identity as documented by the 1672 licenses. It will track the evolution of Nonconformist ministers by way of dated identity markers based on primary source self-identification including: attestations, confessions, trier, classis, and ejection records, clergy associations, and ministerial licenses. It will discuss a variety of possible motivational factors allowing for observable clerical identity migration across denominational lines. These include an educational emphasis on an irenic view of ecclesiology, intermittent cooperation during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, the formation of ecumenical pastoral associations and the enforcement of penal laws charging ministers with sedition should they not conform. In addition, this thesis raises questions about Edmund Calamy's list of ejected ministers and the 1669 Episcopal Returns, both of which lead historians to underestimate the number of nonconformist ministers active during the Restoration era, which in turn complicates the assessment of ecclesiastical identities, thereby creating a distorted picture of Nonconformity in the Restoration.

William Robertson Nicoll (1851-1923) founded the British Weekly in 1886 to exploit the need for a Liberal Nonconformist newspaper. Nicoll became the most important editor of a Free Church journal in the Edwardian period. The British Weekly provided a regular focus for political Nonconformity and Nicoll was a primary raiser of the Nonconformist consciousness and shaper of the collective conscience. This thesis considers the role of newspapers as conduits of political thought. As distributors of information, newspapers had a definite role in setting the political agenda and this work considers the programme which Nicoll pressed at the British Weekly. The newspaper is also considered as a nexus of religious and financial considerations. The analysis provides an examination of the British Weekly from its foundation in 1885, placing it in political context and setting down the editorial agenda. Nonconformist concerns were threatened both by the political preponderance of Irish interests and by the extension of the franchise to working class voters more concerned with social than religious equality. This thesis therefore looks at Nicoll's alignment with the Liberal Imperialists because they would rid the party of its commitment to Home Rule and (less importantly) because they appeared to respond to the needs of the working class. In 1902 the British Weekly misplaced its national efficiency agenda and became prominent in the Passive Resistance campaign against the Education Act. The thesis examines the way in which the protest was used to energise political Nonconformity. The campaign brought Nicoll into contact with Lloyd George and this work explores the mutual benefits of this relationship and also the way in which Nicoll was compromised as a lobbyist by the association. This is the first comprehensive examination of the political nature of the British Weekly. It highlights the increasing complexity of reconciling religion and politics in the twentieth century as pressing social issues could not be repaired by Victorian moral crusades.

This study explored how gender expressions were portrayed in the narratives of gay men who view themselves as non-masculine. An adapted life story interview was conducted with seven participants between the ages of 20 and 47 years. Life stories were analysed using content analysis. The study found that non-masculinity was defined in different ways and that social context, including threat, impacted on gender expression. Non-masculinity was strongly associated with male homosexuality. Homophobic verbal and physical abuse was portrayed alongside negative appraisals of non-masculinity. This may be indicative of internalised anti-effeminacy values. Marginalisation in gay communities was also portrayed, including romantic rejection. Intersections of gender-expression and ethnicity or age were important in evaluations of sexual attractiveness. Conversely, masculinity was often eroticised or regarded as aspirational. Positive qualities associated with non-masculinity included expressiveness, humour and flexibility in working with power demonstrations of others. These reinforce the assertion that effeminate and androgynous men bypass facets of gender-role conflict.

Quality management can be an important success factor for organisations. With effective quality management, companies can increase their productivity, reduce quality nonconformities and as a result, improve their profitability. One key aspect in quality management is the management of quality nonconformities. Nonconformities are important learning opportunities and effective management of them can help companies strive towards better quality. This thesis was done for ABB Motors & Generators in Vaasa and the goal was to find ways to improve quality nonconformity data management in the case company. This thesis was completed as a qualitative case study. At first, a literature review covering quality management, quality nonconformity management and quality nonconformity data management was conducted. Secondly, semi-structured interviews were performed inside the case company to understand the current situation, requirements and problems within the case company. Then, benchmarking visits were done to four companies from different industries in order to understand the best practices of quality nonconformity data management. Lastly, nonconformity data was analysed from the nonconformity database of the case company. As a result, improvements were proposed for the quality nonconformity data management inside the case company. Requirements for data collection were defined and data collection framework was created based on that. In addition, new categorisation model for quality nonconformities was developed. Furthermore, two reporting tools were designed and implemented to increase and develop information-sharing about quality problems. These tools facilitate quality communication and the development of quality reporting and metrics. The practical results of this study are mostly case-specific and are not fully applicable outside the case company. However, the field of quality nonconformity data management is not studied extensively, so this study can be taken as a general guideline on how to organise quality nonconformity data management in a mass customization production environment
Laadunhallinta ja laatujohtaminen voivat olla tärkeitä menestystekijöitä yrityksille. Tehokkaalla laadunhallinnalla yritykset voivat tutkitusti lisätä tuottavuuttaan, vähentää laatupoikkeamien määrää ja parantaa kannattavuuttaan. Laatupoikkeamien hallinta on tärkeä osa laadunhallintaa. Laatupoikkeamat ovat hyvä mahdollisuus oppia ja poikkeamien tehokas eliminointi ja hallinta voi johtaa huomattaviin parannuksiin yrityksen laatutasossa. Tämä diplomityö on tehty ABB:n moottorit ja generaattorit -yksikköön Vaasassa ja sen tavoitteena on kehittää kohdeyrityksen laatupoikkeamadatan hallintaa. Tämä diplomityö on kvalitatiivinen case-tutkimus. Tutkimuksen kirjallisuuskatsauksessa käsiteltiin laadunhallinnan, laatupoikkeamienhallinnan ja laatupoikkeamadatan hallinnan pääkohdat. Empiirisessä osuudessa toteutettiin teemahaastattelut kohdeyrityksen henkilöstölle. Haastattelujen tavoitteena oli kartoittaa kohdeyrityksen nykytila, vaatimukset ja ongelmat laatupoikkeamadatan hallinnan suhteen. Tämän jälkeen toteutettiin benchmarking-haastattelut neljään yritykseen eri toimialoilta. Benchmarkingin avulla kartoitettiin alan parhaita käytäntöjä. Haastattelujen lisäksi tutkimuksessa käytettiin kohdeyrityksen keräämää dataa laatupoikkeamatietokannasta. Työn tuloksena saatiin kehitysehdotuksia kohdeyrityksen laatupoikkeamadatan hallintaan. Datan keräämisen vaatimukset määriteltiin ja niiden pohjalta luotiin malli datan keräämisen kehittämiseksi. Lisäksi laatupoikkeamille luotiin uusi luokittelumalli, joka edesauttaa tärkeimpien poikkeamatyyppien tunnistamista. Tiedonkulun ja kommunikaation kehittämiseksi työssä suunniteltiin ja toteutettiin kaksi raportointityökalua, jotka edesauttavat laatuun liittyvää kommunikaatiota sekä raportoinnin ja laatumittareiden kehittämistä kohdeyrityksessä. Työn käytännön tulokset eivät enimmäkseen ole sovellettavissa kohdeyrityksen ulkopuolelle. Teoreettisesta näkökulmasta työn tuloksia voidaan kuitenkin käyttää ohjenuorana massaräätälöityjä tuotteita valmistavan yrityksen laatupoikkeamadatan hallintaan

This thesis considers aspects of contextualisation in the mission of local churches in twenty-first century Wales. Welsh Nonconformity rose rapidly to a dominant position in Welsh society and culture in the nineteenth century, but has subsequently declined equally rapidly. By the beginning of the twenty-first century its total demise is predicted. The research examines the contextual factors in this decline, and their relevance for possible recovery. Contextualisation is an essential part of missiology, in calibrating appropriate mission to the distinctives of a particular nation or locality. Wales is shown to be a distinctive context for mission, both nationally and regionally, in relation to specific aspects: religious, geographic, ethnic, linguistic, cultural, social and political. Contextual studies have been done for other mission contexts, but not for Wales. This research seeks to address this lack. The thesis first outlines the development of the main approaches in global mission, their underlying assumptions, and their outworking in the mission of local churches in the West. The approaches have been identified as Evangelistic, Lausanne, Missio Dei, Liberal and Emergent. Drawing on hundreds of questionnaire responses and extensive interviews with Nonconformist leaders, the research examines how the different approaches to mission have been expressed in Wales, and how each approach adjusted to each aspect of context. The growth trends of the different approaches, patterns of church and mission, and adjustments to Welsh contexts in the first decade of the twenty-first century, or not, are then examined. The resulting analysis enables good practice to be identified, and approaches for effective mission suggested for the coming decades.

This thesis is a study of the life and work of Edmund Jones, one of the leading dissenters and Independents of the eighteenth century. The first chapter, the introduction, discusses the reasons why Edmund Jones was ignored in the past, and argues that he was in fact an important figure in the eighteenth century and deserves proper recognition by historians. In the second chapter we have an overview of Edmund Jones's life in general. His background in Monmouthshire and the influences on his life are considered. The third chapter concentrates on Edmund Jones as a religious figure. His importance as a minister and preacher and his activity in Independency are analysed. Also, the substantial library Edmund Jones compiled during his lifetime and his relationships with other denominations, such as the Methodist and Baptists, are discussed. The fourth chapter considers Edmund Jones's contribution as a historian and naturalist. The main focus of this chapter is the book Edmund Jones wrote about Aberystruth, his native parish: 'A Geographical, Historical and Religious Account of the Parish of Aberystruth in the County of Monmouth' [1779]. Also, Edmund Jones cultivated an interest in botanical medicine and so attention is here given to the manuscript he wrote on the religious meaning of plants 'A Spiritual Botanology' [1780]. The subject of the fifth chapter is Edmund Jones 'the Old Prophet'. Edmund Jones believed unshakably in the existence of spirits and in the supernatural. This chapter is based on his best known book 'A Relation of Apparitions of Spirits in the Principality of Wales' [1780]. In the last chapter, the conclusion, Edmund Jones's contribution as a religious figure and author are analysed. It reveals that Edmund Jones's indefatigable life's work for his cause indeed needs to be recognised by historians. The argument of this thesis is to restore Edmund Jones's place within the history of the period, not only within congregationalism and religion but within Welsh history itself in the eighteenth century. This is argued on the basis of the immense value of Edmund Jones's productions to help historians to understand popular religion on and culture.

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Master of Architecture

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the reception of the text of Qoheleth in a selection of rabbinic, patristic and nonconformist literature. The differences in the act of reading, reception and response to this text in discrete Judaic and Christian locations is examined. The source texts that are considered are Qoheleth Rabbah, Targum Qoheleth, Gregory of Nyssa's homilies and Matthew Henry's exposition on Ecclesiastes. The thesis further investigates historical and theological experiential influences on the reception of Qoheleth as portrayed by the source texts. The text of Qoheleth and its history of interpretation, and the value of examining the reception of the text by specific readers from a variety of contexts are discussed in the first chapter. In the consecutive chapters the reception of Qoheleth by each source text is examined individually. The historical and theological contexts of each source text are described, including literary traditions and exegetical principles. In the detailed examination of the source texts, the textual structural challenges that Qoheleth poses and how and why they are responded to by the author(s) of the source texts are analysed. The final chapter compares and contrasts the main issues raised by the differing readings of Qoheleth, including the identity of Solomon and the view of God, and also, the differing contextual perspectives in which the reception process took place. Finally, a brief examination of a modem reader's (Michael V Fox') reception of Qoheleth is contrasted with that of earlier readers of the text. The manner in which the potential effects of Qoheleth are actualised and the process of meaning production varies between readers, being conditioned by their historical horizon.

Rosa Ricci Summary of the PHD Dissertation: Religious Nonconformity and cultural Dynamics: The Case of the Dutch Collegiants There is ample reason to engage in research around the Collegiants, a minority religious movement in the Netherlands of the 17th century. An exploration of this topic can be interesting not only for a contribution to the history of Religion but also to understand the development of some central concept in the early modernity. Prominent, in this research, is the question that initially stirred my personal interest in the Collegiantism; i.e. to define and understand the religious and cultural background that represents the practical field of confrontation of Baruch Spinoza\'s philosophy. This historiographical question had the purpose of highlighting the relationship between Spinoza and the religious movements of his time in order to fully understand the public to whom he addressed his texts. Collegiants, however, constitute an interesting field of research not only for the study of Spinoza, but widely to understand the cultural and social dynamic of the Dutch Golden Age, a backdrop against which emerged a new idea of religion. This dissertation is not exploring a curiosity or an inconsistent exception in the history of the 17th century, but rather the centrality of a group that was influenced by and largely influenced its Dutch social, political and religious context. One of the major problems in capturing the significance of the Collegiants arises from the difficulty in defining this movement, which chose never to formulate a confession of faith and consciously refused to be classified within a specific Church, sect, or congregation. The name, Collegiants, was not the consequence of an active choice but a label that arose, together with that of Rijnsburgers, in the polemic pamphlets of the epoch. The difficulties to define such elusive religious group make, however, the Collegiants a fascinating field of research. In this dissertation the Collegaints are termed a “movement” in order to emphasize their explicit lacks of norms or model and to highlight the continual change and redefinition of their religious identity. This process can be properly defined using Deleuze\'s concept of becoming minorities: Les minorités et les majorités ne se distinguent pas par le nombre. Une minorité peut être plus nombreuse qu\'une majorité. Ce qui définit la majorité, c\'est un modèle auquel il faut être conforme [...] Tandis qu\'une minorité n\'a pas de modèle, c\'est un devenir, un processus [...] Quand une minorité se crée des modèles, c\'est parce qu\'elle veut devenir majoritaire, et c\'est sans doute inévitable pour sa survie ou son salut. This definition can help us to see both the positive and the productive side of the Collegiant movement, even thought it defined itself negatively in order to protest against the institutional Church and normative religion. The Collegiants were involved in this process of “devenir minoritaire” in a highly conscious way. They decided willfully to avoid strict affiliation to Churches or congregations and criticized explicitly the necessity of an identitarian definition. It can hardly be denied, indeed, that the religious reflection of the Collegiants was characterized by the conscientious refusal to construct a model or a norm to which they could refer. In this dissertation the term “minority” will therefore be used, always in reference to this concept, without drawing too much stress to the effective number of the Collegiants\' members. This question appear, indeed, misleading because it does not take into account the position that Collegiants\' member occupied in the economic, political and intellectual life of the United Provinces. It is the case of a group which, indeed, demonstrated in several occasions its deep influence in the Dutch religious life. Collegiants\' continuous efforts towards de-institutionalization and their aspiration to an egalitarian and democratic religious life have to be conceived as an invitation to their coeval confessions, to undertake the way of evolving minorities renouncing whichever exclusivity and authority. The articulation of the Collegiants\' proposal can be appreciated by studying the different lines of thought that emerged clearly from their texts. Most of Collegiants\' publications were polemical or written to answer specific accusations. Within the enormous number of sources that can be included in Collegiants\' works emerge a limited number of arguments. The question of religious organization, tolerance, freedom of speech and the epistemological approach in reading the Scriptures; these arguments can be taken as guidelines to understanding and defining the nature of the movement. These sources present arguments and concepts that we can take to be the Collegiants\' stance on religious life and belief. Some arguments, however, emerged with particularly force because of the sanction of the Church orthodoxy. Tolerance, free-prophecy and egalitarian and anti-authoritarian tendencies were sensitive points to which the Church or Congregations reacted with particularly vehemence, sensing a threat to their institutional power. The Chapter 5 of this dissertation are dedicated to the enumeration of these arguments. Each chapter presents a specific theoretical core and question. However the chapters are not self-conclusive because the various problematics encountered in the study of Collegiants overlap each other in continuous cross-reference and this gives rise to a kaleidoscopic effect. The concepts debated in this dissertation can be fully understood only in relation to each other, as they emerge to construct a semantic constellation useful to their contextualization. Each chapter, furthermore, comes to focus on one or more texts that are considered exemplary or representative of a particular tendency in the Collegiants´history. This methodology wants to underline how the constant redefinition of the Collegiants\' identity is always a matter of personal as well as collective choice, of internal debate and external polemic. An emphasis on the intentionality of Collegiants\' behaviour is particularly important in understanding which specific choice they made to contrast the authoritarian and exclusive vision of the religious life. These choices are well reflected in the use of a specific vocabulary and in the emergence of specific concepts that can be considered as key guideline to identifying some stable points in the shifting nature of the Collegiants. The first chapter of this dissertation delineates an initial general history of the movement together with the ground on which the Collegiants built their vision of belief: the question about Church organization. The chapter refers directly to the practical organization of the Collegiant movement, an egalitarian and anti-charismatic religious life which involved considerations of power and identity. This specific position, with its high level of nonexclusivity and anticharismatic consciousness, makes Collegiants movement an exception in the pluralist world of 17th century Holland and marked their difference to the constellation of Dutch reformation. Although some Collegiants\' demeanor mirrored the progressive individualization of cults and beliefs, they accorded central importance to the community, the context in which their religious ideal of confrontation and discussion was realized. The first attempt to write an exhaustive history of the rise and development of the Rijnsburgers was made by a Remonstrant preacher, Paschier de Fijne. He was the first opponent of the Collegiants; his book, Kort, waerachtigh, en getrouw Varhael van het eerste Begin en Opkomen van de Nieuwe Sekte der Propheten ofte Rynsburgers in het dorp Warmont anno 1619 en 1620 (Brief, truthful, and faithful history of the beginning and origin of the new sect of the Prophet of Rijnsburg in the village of Warmont), published anonymously in 1671 by his son, expresses his critical position vis à vis the Rijnsburgers. Besides representing the first opposition to the Collegiants, this work constitutes an important source because the author attended the first Collegiant\' assembly (the Rijnsburgers\' vergadering). In particular it describes the way in which this first meeting took place. For the first complete history of the Collegiant movement, however, we have to wait until 1775 when the Histoire der Rijnburgsche Vergadering (History of Rijnsburg\'s assembly), written by the Collegiant Elias van Nijmegen, appeared in Rotterdam. Both these sources are key instruments for reconstructing and understanding how Collegiants organized their assemblies, and how they achieved an acharismatic meeting, through debate and free-exegesis. These testimonies, which embrace a whole century, have, however, the demerit of representing the Collegiant\' vergadering (assembly) as an eccentric but defined ritual. What emerges, on the other hand, from Collegiants internal debate is that the conduct of the meeting supper, the organization of religious life, the definition of free-exegesis and the limitation of free speech were all subject to constant argument and discussion inside the movement. These concerns emerge in a fragmentary way in the manifold sources that discuss the nature of free-prophecy, tolerance and ecclesiology. In the polemic with Bredenburg, the Bredenburgse twisten, the debate about tolerance involved the discussion of women’s role in the vergadering and the reflections on free-prophecy indirectly interrogate the charismatic nature of the organization. Another important characteristic of the Collegiant\' movement, delineate in the first chapter, is the autonomous and independent development of the single collegia. City autonomy and the different religious and social contexts in which the Rijnsburger vergadering took root led to large-scale differentiation. The capacity of Collegiants to survive for more than a century with their refusal of normativity and authoritarian organization was substantially due to the penetration of the Collegiants\' arguments into the different confessions. This deep influence, in particular in the Mennonite and Remonstrant communities, defined the nature of the Collegiants, especially in some cities, as a stream inside institutionalized Churches. Because the collegia were open to all Christians, without limitation, even including Socinians and Catholics, most of the participants were also members of structured Churches, congregations or sects. In Amsterdam this phenomenon was particularly evident and the penetration of Collegiants\' argument in the Flemish community through Galenus Abrahamsz led to one of the most important schisms in the Mennonite history in the United Provinces. In other cities such as Leiden or Haarlem, the existence of cultural circles and other forms of nonreligious association constituted the basis for the spread of Collegiantism. It was only in Rijnsburg, the village in which the movement first emerged, that a common house was built, after 1640, to host the twice yearly Collegiant national vergadering. The practical organization of the Collegiants, as has been stated, represents the foundation on which noncharismatic ecclesiology and anticonfessional ideals were constructed. With the historical background of the first chapter it is then possible to discuss the main religious and political tendencies inside the movement. The second chapter of this dissertation, following the issue of religious organization discussed in the first chapter, deals with the principles of free-prophecy, Biblical exegesis, and Collegiants ecclesiology. The central concept examined in this chapter is nonconformity analysed in its historical development of England and the Netherlands. This chapter suggests that nonconformity as religious phenomenon was an elaboration and transformation of the anti-confessional and anti-clerical thought that emerged in the 16th century with the radical Reformation. The inception of nonconformity in the Netherlands is indicated by the transformation of the debate about Nicodemism, following Coornhert\'s defense of religious dissimulation and indifferentism. Nicodemism was indeed considered, in the early 16th century, as necessary behavior to avoid pointless martyrdom and persecution, utilized especially by the crypto-reformed in Catholic countries such as Italy and Spain. The diffusion of this conduct among Catholics in reformed countries but, principally, the diffusion and justification of Nicodemism in the United Provinces, where inquisitorial control and confessional repression presented a relative risk after the revolt against Spain, testify of the new meaning that this behaviour took on in the late 16th century. Nicodemism, as Coornhert\'s position shows, became the justification of anticonfessionalism as conscious behaviour, with the possibility of openly criticizing rituals and ceremonies as for achieving salvation. In this chapter particular attention is paid to the consciousness and the open dimension of this behavior. The neglect of dissimulation and the necessity of making public personal religious sentiments, is one of the basic elements in the change between Nicodemism and nonconformity. The nonconformists acquired the anticonfessional and anticlerical content of Nicodemism, but added a principal characteristic: the veridiction. The veridiction represents the necessity of telling the truth about personal belief and religious conscience, but also institutes the core of reality in the conformity between internal belief and external behavior. These elements were present in both English and Dutch nonconformity, which developed, however, into different and sometimes opposite ecclesiology. In the English case, external nonconformity to the dominant Church and the necessity of openly showing belief led to a demand for exclusivity and a process of individualization rooted in the juridical meaning of nonconformity. Despite the turning of the debate around the necessity of free-conscience, the understanding of nonconformity as a refusal of secular world and the attempt of Baxter to disconnect the debate around nonconformity to a juridical question, the English debate never developed into a criticism of the Church\'s organization or in the necessity of a democratization of the religious life, which was, on the contrary, dominant among the Collegiants. The central text in the history of Collegiantism and in the Dutch definition of nonconformity is Galenus Abrahamsz and David Spruyt\'s XIX Artikelen. This text was conceived, from the very beginning, as a collective discussion about the nature and the sense of a religious community in the absence of Holy Gifts. Collegiants give to the term nonconformity a specific meaning which designates the absence of conformity to the first apostolic Church and the end of the extraordinaries gifts of the Holy Spirit. This radical statement caused a reaction among the orthodox members of the Mennonites and Quakers, which see in the absence of Holy inspiration a complete secularization of the religious community. Nonconformity assumed therefore for the Collegiants a double meaning: on one side it was an elaboration of anticonfessional criticism through the statement of the absence of holy influence on the religious life, on another side it represented a deep criticism of priestly authority conceived as a secularized power acting as constraint of consciences. The absence of Holy Gifts was, for the Collegiants, the demonstration that no Church or Congregation could pretend to be the true or original one. The reaction of Dutch orthodoxy appears, indeed, completely justified, because Collegiants\' religious nonconformity presents itself not only as conscious antiauthoritarian criticism but also as a statement of the full secularization of the Church. Nonconformity was, for Abrahamsz and Spruyt, not only an unavoidable state, but also a necessary behavior to unmask the inauthentic religious life. This position represented the core of Collegiants\' practice, the reason for their continuous redefinition and, on the same level, for their refusal of any type of identification. The recognition of the secularized status of common religious life arose among the Collegiants accompanied by an ample debate about free-prophecy and Bible exegesis, stressing the possibility of an individual form of salvation. A central role, in this direction, was played by reflection on the veridiction as a form of conformity between the inward conscience and the external behavior. Although there emerged from the sources a controversial statement about how to approach and read the Scriptures, through the free-prophecy the Collegiants organized a form of collective exegesis that had its principal aim to avoid charismatic and authoritarian leadership but also to realize a form of community close to the first apostolic Church. The communitarian discussion also involved a debate on salvation, which had no more to be tied to the simple membership in a confession but developed as an articulated discussion on the significance of the ethical and religious life. A good Christian had to reinterpret and bring alive the first teaching of the Gospel, which can be summarized as love for others and in the propagation of tolerance as ethical and interpersonal behavior. Collegiants\' reflections on religious life, organization of communities, and their continuous effort to maintain equal relations in the absence of charismatic gifts in the Church institution, never turn to consideration of society or political forms. This absence was even more significant in a cultural and social context in which theological questions involved directly or indirectly political questions. In the same period, furthermore, Hobbes\' reflections on jusnaturalism challenge for the first time the divine legitimacy of political power, establishing the basis of a new vision of the political community. Collegiants understood religious community as deprived from any form of divine inspiration and conceived it as a human association, nevertheless they never outline a political parallelism to this situation. The most evident reason of this absence is probably the lack of a strong monarchy in the 17th century United Provinces. However the relationship between secular and religious ideology did not fail and was well summarized by the situation after the Synod of Dordrecht, which created a rupture in Dutch society with the consequent convergence of the religious position with the political one. The intervention of Grotius in favor of the Arminian party testified to a clear identification between theological opposition to predestination (which meant a challenge to Calvinist orthodoxy) and antimonarchical opinion. This fracture remained invisible in Collegiants sources that debated the secularization of Churches and consider religious congregations as human institutions, but never tried to define the legitimacy of political institutions. It is possible, however, to find in the history of the Collegiants one significant exception: Cornelius Plockhoy\'s attempt to promote a religious-social project in the Dutch colonies of Delaware . Plockhoy\'s work illuminates the relationship and the fruitful parallels that it is possible to make between the United Provinces and England, especially during the time of the Cromwellian Commonwealth. Plockhoy\'s most significant works were written, indeed, in England, some years before the fail of Cromwell, and testify to a particular social and political engagement in the construction and definition of a community with a religious basis. It is interesting to note that only after the English experience did Plockhoy returned to Holland, following the end of the Commonwealth, to propose a similar project to the city of Amsterdam. This chapter suggests an analysis of his English and Dutch sources, stressing the differences and the modifications to his proposal. The importance of this author lies in the possibility of deducing from his position a possible Collegiant\' thinking on politics and social organization. This contribution is certainly not descriptive of Collegiantism as a whole but represents the only explicit trace of the modification of Rijnsburger\'s religious reflections on the secular field. The description of Plockhoy\'s community in many respects echoes a certain irenicism sourced form the reading of Rosicrucian text; however it reflets and refers principally to his Collegiant experience . Although Plockhoy\'s account of the community project is never exclusively religious, the confessional element appears as prominently in both his Dutch and English projects. His religious and political project emerge clearly from his letters to Cromwell: it is essentially devoted to resolving the problem of religious conflict and the disturbance of social peace. It is, indeed, clear that Plockhoy\'s aim was not that of describing an ideal society or forming a separate community in order to conserve a purist religious ideal, but to propose a paradigmatic alternative to the religious turmoil and the social injustices of his time. The relation between political and religious arguments in Plockhoy\'s solution to religious turmoil highlights the interconnection between religious tolerance and colonial criticism, social injustice and authoritarianism. Plockhoy\'s meticulous pedagogic description of his project, his underlining of the necessity of economic independence for women and the possibility of them participating in collective work are expressions of an outlook that includes an aware judgment of his contemporary society. The last part of this chapter is dedicated to criticizes two approaches dominant in the literature about Plockhoy: one is the description of his project as a classical form of Utopia the other one is the reading of the Delaware religious community interpreted as a triumph of the work ethic. The third chapter of this dissertation deals with the tolerance, a fundamental and central concept to understand the nature of the Collegiants. It is our intention to show how during the 17th century there emerged in the Netherlands, in the religious context, a new concept of tolerance inspired by Castellio\'s works. The publication and translation, in the first half of the 17th century, of some of Castellio\'s work testify to the major interest that the French author had in the United Provinces, especially for the oppositors to the intolerant and orthodox Calvinist tradition. For the Collegiants, Castellio represented a predecessor in the struggle for religious peace. His work against the persecution of the heretics, supported by Biblical argumentation, represented a constant source of inspiration for the partisan of religious toleration. As suggested by Voogt , Castellio\'s deconstruction of the concept of heresy, as it was used by the Calvinist orthodoxy, in order to redefined it to signify a person who acts and believes differently from the mainstream, represented Collegiants\' basis to rethink the concepts of rationality and truth. The peculiarity of the Dutch concept of vedraagzaamheid (tolerance), in opposition to how tolerance was defined and discussed in the European mainstream debate, was certainly due to the elements of reciprocity and mutuality that this particular form of tolerance included. In the 17th century, tolerance (especially religious tolerance) was used to label negative behavior, to identify indifferentism or libertinism, intolerance was, on the contrary, a sign of unity, integrity, and orthodoxy. Furthermore, arguments for religious intolerance were justified by the biblical example of the Mosaic theocracy, while religious tolerance represented the interests of the emerging mercantile elite, which supported the Republican experiment and advocated cities\' autonomy. Tolerance became, in the 17th century, a concept contested because of its pejorative meaning; the progressive introduction of the pro-tolerance position, in order to contrast with this negative predominant vision, supported the idea that tolerance was not a menace to the integrity and peace of the Dutch Republic but the principal reason for its prosperity. The concept of tolerance became, afterwards, the battle-field on which the best juridical, economical and political form of the United Provinces was decided. The penetration of this debate about tolerance and intolerance in the Collegiants movement was adapted into an anticonfessional and irenic orientation focusing on religious and social peace. The defense of an unlimited and mutual tolerance represented, for the Collegiants, a proposal of pacification in the pluralistic dimension of the Dutch religious life, which was perceived, by their coeval, as a source of division and instability. The practice of nonexclusive tolerance and the extensive reception of different confessions inside the movement was a pragmatic attempt to find a solution to the problematic turbulence inside the Doopsgezinden and more generally to the religious disputations in the United Provinces. The central figure investigating the conduct and the limits of this debate inside the Collegiants was Jan Bredenburg. This chapter will, indeed, analyze the trouble arising from Bredenburg\'s position on tolerance and his extensive use of Spinozist concepts and language. This debate about the extension and the limits of tolerance involved, indirectly and directly, a discussion regarding religious organization, freedom of speech, and charismatic authority. In his works, Bredenburg, with his continuous redefinition of the discussion about tolerance, shows all the ambiguity and ambivalence of this term. Unlimited and mutual tolerance finds its limits in the continuous exigence of a normative delimitation of it, in the distinction of necessary and unnecessary dogma, but also, in a trivial way, in the impossibility of tolerating the intolerant. In the case of the Collegiants the adversaries of the unlimited and mutual tolerance undermined Collegiants\' nonexclusivism with their proposals to identify with a confession of faith. Pressures in the direction of identification and exclusivism were, however, only a part of the tolerance problem. With the “Bredenburgse Twisten” (Bredenburg controversy) the limits and the ambiguities of the concept of tolerance and the limits of the penetration of Spinoza\'s philosophy in Collegiant\' movement become clear. These limits concerned especially the necessity and priority of contrasting skeptical and atheist tendencies in the field of belief. The final chapter of this dissertation is dedicated to a question that underlines the problems of anticonfessionalism, tolerance, and secularization. The question asked in this conclusive part regards the possibility to trace the emergence of rational argument in Collegiants understanding of the divinity. To answer this question it was necessary to make some preliminary remarks about the diffusion and vernacularization of Descartes\' and Spinoza\'s philosophies in the 17th century Netherlands. Short descriptions of the two most influential systems of thought of the epoch are two methodological steps useful in understanding not only the degree of penetration of these philosophies into Collegiants but also the nature and meaning of the concept of rationality at that time. The definition of the relationship with the divinity, after the XIX Arikelen\'s statement of the unholy Church, is represented, in the history of the Collegiant movement, by a precise moment: the discussion and dispute between the Rijnsburgers and the Quaker missionaries in the United Provinces. The debate with the Quakers assumes a specific meaning not only because it shows the proximity and similarity between the two religious movements but also because it testifies to the emergence of a central concept: the light. Central text to determine the nature of this relationship and to define the meaning that for the Collegiants had the concept of light, is Balling´s Het licht op den Kandelaar (The Light on the Candlestick). Balling\'s answer to Quakers represents a penetration of Spinozist language into the definition of religion as knowledge of God but also a singular affinity and fascination for the Quakers\' concept of light. The question of contact with the divinity appears in the text as an individual experience, not mediated by any human instrument via language or the empirical experience. The approach to God is certainly described as an epistemological progression but the perfect comprehension of God is defined with the vocabulary of the affections rather than as full rational understanding. This text is certainly highly controversial and the continuous shift between philosophical and Quakers\' language make its interpretation problematic. Het licht op den Kandelaar reflects Collegiants\' position as a sum of philosophical argumentation, mysticism, and the irreconcilable reference to God as an infinite and unknowable creature. What emerges with force in the analysis of this source is the impossibility of understanding Balling\'s description of the relationship with God as purely rational. Balling, however, stresses the possibility of the constant perfectionism of human knowledge and self-emancipation and, furthermore, proposes new terms for religious thought. What he calls the “true religion” is described as ethical behavior constructed with the combination of tolerance, equal participation in the religious life, and the refusal to countenance formal conformism to Church institutions. Collegiants\' acceptance of a Church without God does not necessary involve a pure absence of divine work, on the contrary, the proximity to God is progressively researched in an interior sphere which involve a process of knowledge. The legitimacy of the “Truth” is, then, given no more by the transcendental gift of the divinity but in the accordance of personal conviction and ethical behavior, the religion is, indeed, redefined according to these terms. True religion is, for Balling, a continuous inquiry into the natural and internal principle that each individual possesses in order to achieve full comprehension of God\'s word. This statement testify not only of a new conception of the Religion but also reaffirm the minoritaire core of Collegiants´nature; religion, in their understanding, is not more matter of concord, unity, orthodoxy but source of knowledge, problematization and continuous questioning about its own identity. Nonconformity and cultural dynamics: some preliminary remarks Before starting the presentation of the Collegiants\' argument about tolerance, Church organization, and rationalism, to fully understand some choices and the approach of this dissertation, and to comprehend how Collegiants sources have been read, some methodological remarks are necessaries about the emergence and development of the historical phenomenon called nonconformity and how was it received and transformed in 17th century Holland. Nonconformity is, as will be shown, one of the central concepts developed by the Collegiants to justify their antiauthoritarianism and anticonfessionalism. The concept appears more interesting if we look at the number of meanings and social phenomena that it includes. It first developed in England in the juridical context and was named in the later 17th century as a defined religious movement that opposed the Act of Uniformity. In the English sources it is possible to retrace the history of this concept, demonstrating how the significance and arguments regarding nonconformity changed in one hundred years. Not far from England, in the United Provinces, the evolution of the concept of nonconformity follows another route, giving rise to radically different signification. Proposing a comparative study, between England and the United Provinces, of the development and semantic elaboration of the concept of nonconformity, is useful not only to understand the different expression of religious dissidence but also to detect cultural and social change in the approach to religion. Beyond the obvious differences between the two Countries, the different political, social and cultural history it is still possible and fruitful to compare how the concept of nonconformity developed in England and Netherlands because of the numerous contact between the Collegiants and the English religious dissident groups and because of the particular redefinition that the concept of nonconformity assumed in the United Provinces. The differentiation of English nonconformity (which dominates the European semantic field with direct and specific connotations of particular events with particular actors) from Dutch nonconformity, explains how historical agents using or interpreting a concept in a particular way can change its semantic connotation. The category of nonconformity, because of its shift from a juridical field to a social-religious one, indicates a semantic enrichment and a conceptual dynamic that can prove a sensible point to investigate structural changes. These case studies possess the necessary characteristics to be approached with the methodology developed by Koselleck and the Cambridge History of Ideas, because “society and language insofar belong among the meta-historical givens without which no narrative and no history are thinkable. For this reason, social historical and conceptual historical theories, hypotheses and methods are related to all merely possible regions of the science of history” . It is our intention to pay particular attention to the analysis of the sources and to their contextualization with the aim of constructing a map of nonconformity\'s semantic change via its arguments in pamphlets and polemical texts of the 17th century. It is our intention to investigate, through the study of the emergence of this concept, the tendencies of secularization, the development of arguments regarding religious indifferentism, and the renounciation of a religious life normalized by concrete institutions, rituals, and ceremonies. A semantic study of how the concept of nonconformity emerges, how it is filled with new meaning, and which new and old concepts intervene to define the religious and political field, is essential to explain and understand the Collegiants\' mentality in 17th century Holland, to determine how they think, and in which ways they influence the cultural and social dynamic in a specific context. The production of new meaning and the continuous nomination of a cognitive world influence, in their turn, the production and development of new instruments of thinking. To understand the shift, the dynamics, and the changes in the cultural field, a rhetorical and semantic analysis is necessary. The arena of investigation is, however, limited to the religious sphere and the sources analyzed are, in a large majority, polemical pamphlets, which means that the question about the correlation between the emergence of a new concept and change in the mentality refers principally to the change in the perception of religion as a dogmatic and doctrinaire system. The concept of nonconformity is surrounded by many other concepts, which partly explain its nature and constitute its semantic field. In this dissertation we focus on different concepts (tolerance, anticonfessionalism, Utopia, mysticism, and millenarianism) because nonconformity emerges, from the analysis of different pamphlets and sources, as correlated with them. Dutch nonconformity involves, for example, a necessary reflection on Church form, the organization of religious life, exclusivism vs. non-exclusivism and a certain vision of the future that actualizes itself as Utopia or millenarian impulse. This constellation of concepts, which characterizes itself for semantic differentiation but also for their strict interrelation, is also useful in explaining the nature of a radical and dissident movement like the Collegiants and in understanding how the religion, understood as belief experience, was fulfilled by new themes, concepts, and meanings. Furthermore, to investigate this conceptual connection and contextualize the emergence and use of determined religious vocabulary, it is useful to understand the nature and presence, in the Dutch religious field, of the phenomenon of secularization especially in its particularly form which goes under the name of “rationalization of the world”. The central question asked in this dissertation is, finally, not how it is possible to construct a category of nonconformity as an analytical concept that helps in understanding religious phenomena, but what is nonconformity and which kind of religious phenomenon it describes, how it has been used and with which consequences. The question regards how it is possible to detect structural change in the mentality while investigating conceptual change or emergence of a new concept. The cultural dynamic is, in this dissertation, understood as a semantic and cognitive phenomenon of mutual influence between emergence or nomination of new concepts and events historically determined. The History of Concepts approach privileges, as has been shown, the semantic field and text analysis for detecting changes in the mentality and in the social-cultural sphere. One more reason to find in this approach a fruitful method for understanding the Collegiants\' universe is the particular interest that they reserved for the language. The Collegiants stressed the importance of the spread of vernacular Dutch with the compilation of grammars, dictionaries, and lexica . In 1654 the Collegiant Luidewijk Meijer published the Nederlandsche Woorden-Schat, with a new edition in 1658. The Woorden-Schat was a Latin-Dutch and French-Dutch dictionary and a guide to principal terms in Nederduitsche (Low Dutch), with particular attention paid to the basterdtwoorden (Bastard Words) and the konstwoorden beghrijpt (cultural and artistic concepts). Some Collegiants in Rotterdam, as well as in Amsterdam, were active participants in a cultural project that worked on the definition and elaboration of the Dutch language in poesy, theater, and literature. Rafael Camphuysen and Johachim Oudaan were appreciated poets and, in 1669, Luidewijk Meijer and Johannes Bouwmeester founded a cultural academy with the name Nil Volentibus Arduum (Nothing is arduous for the willing). Around the same time Adriaan Koerbagh published Een Bloemhof (A flower garden), a theological dictionary edited according to controversial philological criteria, with the explicit aim of explaining the origin of superstition and unmasking the authority of theologians\' obscure and adulterated language . In 1706 William Sewel, a Flemish converted to Quakerism, wrote the Compendius Guide to the Low-Dutch Language, a Dutch grammar for English speakers. These sources and the presence in Collegiants\' texts of a continuous debate about the language, testify to great awareness in their choice of terms and words. Collegiants often use italics to emphasize special concepts, or to introduce a neologism or Latin calque. In addition, they refer several times to their efforts to introduce a correct and transparent use of the language. The Collegiants were surprisingly familiar with the crystallizing power in a certain employment of discourse and language; they explicitly challenged the predominance of scholastic and theologian’s terms, which substitute the direct and immediate experience of the religion with an intricate and abstract speculation on transcendence and divinity. Dutch grammar and dictionaries, work with the vernacular language in poetic or literary texts, and philological research on the origin of words, testify to a Collegiant Dutch language undertaking, an engagé project anything but neutral to democratize the discussion about religious matters and to guarantee egalitarian participation by both cultivated and uncultivated people. This effort is well represented by an emblematic figure in the Collegiants\' sources; the founder of this religious movement, Van de Kodde, is several times described as a cultivated peasant able to speak French, Latin, Greek, in the same way the Philosopherenden Boer (Philosophizing peasant), described by Stol in 1676, extols the superiority of a simple peasant\' reasonable pragmatism in comparison to the Cartesian\'s method and the Quaker\'s rhetoric. This was the essence of the Collegiants\' anticonfessionalism and antiauthoritarianism, a campain with both Utopian and rational implications, aiming at a possible rethinking of religious experience outside normative structures.

Roman Catholic recusancy was a significant component of the religious demography of Monmouthshire throughout the seventeenth century; but its importance has been simplified through an historiographical tradition that has focused upon the earls of Worcester and a small number of recusant gentry. The present study, drawing largely upon an examination of all of the very substantial Monmouthshire entries in the Exchequer Recusant Rolls, has sought a consideration of the nature of Catholic nonconformity through a statistical analysis of the record of recusancy conviction and the delineation of a social morphology of Catholic recusancy in Monmouthshire between 1603 and 1689. The conclusions derivable from this reconstructive analysis have been tested against a range of data of demographic significance - most notably, that provided by the Compton Census, 1.676 - and the available evidence of Catholic allegiance during the First Civil War: they suggest Catholic recusancy in the county to have been a far wider and more complex phenomenon than would appear from an emphasis. upon the centrality of the earls of Worcester. The record of recusancy convictions indicates i,nstead a social morphology essentially reflective of society at large, and a nonconformist culture that was popular and parochial rather than seigneurial and gentry-orientated. To a certain extent, the role played by the local recusant gentry in the shaping of a Catholic demography was catalytic; but the evidence does not suggest it to have been determinative. Rather, the numerical extent, continuity and geography of Catholic recusancy in Monmouthshire between 1603 and 1689 may be attributed to a complex amalgamation of factors that were topographical and administrative, which owed as much to th~ ministrations of itinerant priests as to the influence of Catholic gentry, and which was consolidated in family relationships and the development of a recusant popular culture.

The Rev. John Howard Shakespeare was General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland from 1898 until his resignation on the grounds of ill health in 1924. This thesis describes and evaluates changes in the Baptist denomination in England during that period, and assesses the significance of Shakespeare’s contribution. Following summaries of the history of Baptist ecclesiology and Shakespeare’s personal background, the main areas of denominational reform are described. The first of these is the strengthening of the Baptist Union and the expansion of its influence, which was the major feature of the period up to about 1908. This presented a challenge to the Baptists' traditional congregational church polity. The second is the changing approach to the recognition and support of Baptist ministers within the denomination, culminating in the 1916 Baptist Union Ministerial Settlement and Sustentation Scheme. The third is Shakespeare's search for church unity, both within Nonconformity and between Nonconformists and the Church of England, which dominated the post-war period. The formation of the Federal Council of the Evangelical Free Churches, of which Shakespeare was the first Moderator, in 1919, and conversations following the 1920 Lambeth Appeal, were central elements of this search. It had significant implications for Baptist church polity. Shakespeare's approach to the question of women in the ministry, and the circumstances surrounding his resignation, are also described. A final chapter discusses Shakespeare's legacy for Baptists. The institutions he created have played an important part in the subsequent history of Baptists and Nonconformity in general. However, they failed to achieve his objective of stemming numerical decline. They also exacerbated tensions in Baptist church polity between the centralisation of denominational life and Congregationalism. These tensions have been a major factor in Baptist church life throughout the present century.

There are few modern studies of the impact of nonconformity at a rural and local level in Great Britain. This dissertation attempts to see what a multi-disciplinary approach - using archaeology, architectural history, historical sources and oral narratives - focusing in particular on the landscape and the material remains left by Dissenting Groups, can add to our knowledge and understanding of their origins and development. It then takes this knowledge and applies it to answer or inform several of the important questions being posed by others involved in the study of nonconformity across a variety of academic disciplines. It considers the impact of three very different groups in three contrasting landscapes, each landscape covering a progressively larger geographical area: The Strict and Particular Baptists of Grittleton, a village in north Wiltshire; the Associate Congregation on the Orkney island of Stronsay; and the Bible Christians on Exmoor and Brendon in Somerset. The study concludes that these different non-Conformist congregations had a material impact on their landscape, and often viewed the landscape in unprecedented and unusual ways, although the material remains are often fragmentary and sometimes disappointing. Particular individuals at a local leve1 and the power of faith in congregations often had a remarkable impact on the landscape The Dissertation shows how these buildings and landscapes are often neglected and under continuing threat: in Orkney, for example, the author surveyed several Dissenting Kirks for the first time ever; many Chapels throughout Great Britain face demolition, conversion or gradual decay and ruination; the collective memory is shrinking as members of congregations and smaller sects literally die off.

Following the Evangelical Awakening, many of the Nonconformist traditions experienced an evolution in their ecclesiastical structure, resulting in the formation of new associations that frequently acted to establish pragmatic agencies like missionary societies, educational boards and social charities. The transition required new expressions of authority. Understanding the nature of this authority is the chief objective of this study. Chapter One introduces the various themes and goals of the study. Chapter Two explores the Hampshire Congregational Union. In addition to the Union’s structure, David Bogue and the Gosport Academy were central to this group’s identity. Chapter Three focuses on the Lancashire Congregational Union in the North West of England, home to William Roby, the central figure within Lancashire Congregationalism. Chapter Four covers the Lancashire and Yorkshire Baptist Association and the later Lancashire and Cheshire Baptist Association, where John Fawcett was the primary influence. The New Connexion of General Baptists, Chapter Five, was under the authoritative direction of Dan Taylor, a former Methodist and a zealous evangelist. Chapter Six analyses the Scotch Baptists. Peculiar among Baptists, it was created under the leadership of Archibald McLean. The British Churches of Christ, Chapter Seven, closely resembled the Scotch Baptists but were different in some fundamental ways. Finally, in Chapter Eight, patterns of associational authority among these associations will be compared and assessed. Authority among Nonconformist associations, particularly those denominations practising congregational polity, was exercised on the grounds of doctrinal purity and evangelistic expansion. As the nineteenth century continued, the organisational structures grew more complex. In turn, increased control was voluntarily granted to the organisations’ governing bodies so they might more efficiently minister. Following the Awakening, these voluntary bodies found new life as a pragmatic expression of Evangelical zeal.

The Jewish community in Britain has been characterised by its high degree of conformity. This study seeks to extend the parameters of Jewish life by including those hitherto excluded from the historical narrative so that the community can more effectively be viewed as a paradigm for understanding the challenges facing minority communities in their encounter with mainstream society. It sets Jewish involvement within the wider historical, social, economic, political and cultural context, in which it developed, focusing upon political radicalism in Manchester, 1889-1939, and Jewish participation in radical socialism, anarchism, bundism and communism. Nonconformity is here defined in terms of a distancing from both external pressures (e.g. social conformity with the wider community) and internal pressures (e.g. religious beliefs and concerns about communal image). Through the prism of Manchester the chapters will highlight debates surrounding the makeup and impact of pre-First World War involvement; the disproportionate involvement of Jews in radicalism; the nature of Jewish allegiance to communism as an ideological conversion or a convergence of interest and the impact of involvement on Jewish identity, described as ‘Jewish communists’ or ‘communist Jews’.The thesis draws upon new information from the radical Yiddish and English press, revealing the importance of English and foreign influences on pre-war radicalism. Its use of oral testimonies at the Manchester Jewish Museum and elsewhere has revealed in the post-war period, a layering of motivation, commitment and identity. Written chronologically, the periodization of this study enables connections and differences to be drawn. It shows significant discontinuity in involvement and influence between pre and post-First World War radical activity, unlike in London. In Manchester those drawn to communism post-war were almost entirely from an English-born generation. They were more representative of the communist Jew, whose communist identity superseded but did not eradicate their Jewish identity. The thesis shows that conversion to communism was not due to any inherent ethnic characteristics. From 1920-1932 it was a response to the same social and economic factors which influenced non-Jews to communism, but encased in a cultural and historical context. From 1933 that process of conversion continued but was greatly boosted by the desire to fight fascism. The communist led fight against fascism and provision of a popular youth club acted as an attraction to youngsters, who were subsequently influenced in differing degrees or not at all by Marxism. This resulted in different levels of commitment and identification, some of which continued after the war, resulting in the formation of a subculture of Marxist and secular left-wing Jews, who are still seen as nonconformists by the mainstream Jewish community.