[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.ÿþin place early in the seventeenth century.7 Four of these features require spe-cial attention: inclusivity; flexibility; multicongregational organization; andlay control.Whether considered together or separately, they exhibit the cre-ative reworking of an Old World institution to fit the peculiar circumstancesof the New.InclusivityInclusion of all inhabitants within a parish system posed a formidable challengeto Virginia s Anglican Church.Inclusion was essential to uniformity of reli-gious practice, the maintenance of social order, and the broadest possible baseof material support aims of religious establishments everywhere.Faced witha steady influx of immigrants, rapid population growth by the1660s, and com-parably dramatic physical mobility which spread people quickly and thinlyout across the land, those responsible for the spiritual well-being of the in-habitants found it exceedingly difficult to establish and maintain stable andinclusive institutions.8Virginians sought inclusion through open-ended parishes.From early on,institutions of local governance counties and parishes were projected out-ward for those migrating to the frontiers.9 The speed of settlement determinedwhen these would be bounded off and when new open-ended parishes andcounties would be created.Whatever the pace and direction of movement, itwas accommodated by the prior provision at least on paper of local gov-ernance.Unquestionably this hastened the process of actual institutional for-mation, assisted in transmitting relatively uniform practices over space andtime, and ensured timely representation in the House of Burgesses.One canonly speculate what this connectedness and inclusiveness meant psychologi-cally, but it is noteworthy that Virginia would largely escape the backcountryupheavals that wracked its neighbors in the decades preceding the AmericanRevolution.10For persons moving inland up the York River after 1679, New Kent Countyand St.Peter s Parish offered such open-ended possibilities.11 The same pur-poses were served elsewhere by Stafford County and Stafford Parish (renamedOverwharton after1702) for those pushing north and northwestward along thePotomac; by Rappahannock County and Sittenburne Parish for those on theRappahannock River; by Henrico County and Henrico Parish for those onthe James and Appomattox Rivers; and by Charles City County and Martin s.Parish Formation 19
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]