A pioneering collaboration between leading early modern historians and literary scholars. Chapters by Kenneth Fincham, David Crankshaw and Mary Morrissey analyse the legal structures governing the appointment and remit of chaplains and map their roles and functions within early modern England.

Hugh Adlington, Tom Lockwood and Gillian Wright are all Senior Lecturers in English Literature at the University of Birmingham

1. Introduction - Hugh Adlington, Tom Lockwood, Gillian Wright
2. The roles and influence of household chaplains, c. 1600-c. 60 - Kenneth Fincham
3. Chaplains to the Elizabethan nobility: Activities, categories and patterns - David Crankshaw
4. Episcopal chaplains and control of the media, 1586-1642 - Mary Morrissey
5. Chaplains to embassies: Daniel Featley, Anti-Catholic controversialist abroad - Hugh Adlington
6. Poetry, patronage and cultural agency: the career of William Lewis - Tom Lockwood
7. 'His lordships first, and last, CHAPLEINE': William Rawley and Francis Bacon - Angus Vine
8. Richard Corbett and William Strode: Chaplaincy and verse in early seventeenth-century Oxford - Christopher Burlinson
9. The Isham family and their clergy - Erica Longfellow
10. A chaplain and his patron: Samuel Willes and Lord Huntingdon - William Gibson
11. The reluctant chaplain: William Sancroft and the later Stuart Church - Grant Tapsell
Select bibliography
Index