Frances Knight

Contact

• workRoom C28 Humanities Building
  University Park
  Nottingham
  NG7 2RD
  UK
• work0115 84 67778
• fax0115 951 5887
• frances.knight@nottingham.ac.uk

Expertise Summary

My major area of academic interest is Christianity in the West in the nineteenth century. I welcome enquiries from potential graduate students who are interested in working on Christianity in England and/or Wales since 1800, or on Anglicanism since 1800.

I have acted as a consultant on the development of higher education provision in Theology in the United Kingdom and Scandinavia.

I am a member of various editorial boards, including the Journal of Religious History.

Research Summary

I am currently researching a book entitled Victorian Christianity at the Fin de Siecle, which explores the religious culture of England in the 1890s. I have also received a recent commission to write… read more

Recent Publications

• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2010. 'Internal Church Reform 1850 - 1920: An Age of Innovation in Ecclesiastical Reform'. In: VAN EIJNATTEN, JORIS and YATES, PAULA, eds., The Churches: The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Northern Europe 1780-1920 Leuven University Press. 67-94
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2010. 'Bishops of Ely, 1864 -1957'. In: MEADOWS, P, ed., Ely: Bishops and Diocese 1109 - 2009 Boydell. 259-286
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2009. Professor Nigel Yates, 1944-2009 The Welsh Journal of Religious History. 4, 1-5
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2008. 'Authority in contemporary Anglicanism: historic roots and contemporary dilemmas. In: YATES, NIGEL, ed., Anglicanism: Essays in History, Belief and Practice Trivium Publications. 143-152

• View all publications

Current Research

I am currently researching a book entitled Victorian Christianity at the Fin de Siecle, which explores the religious culture of England in the 1890s. I have also received a recent commission to write A Short History of the Oxford Movement. In addition to this, I am undertaking research on sermons, and on temperance, in nineteenth-century Britain.

Past Research

I began my research career at the Cambridge Divinity Faculty, where I wrote my doctoral thesis on what was then the largest of the English dioceses, the diocese of Lincoln from 1827 to 1853. This research was subsequently revised and expanded to become The Nineteenth Century Church and English Society (1995). This book was the first study to consider the meaning of Anglicanism for ordinary people in nineteenth-century England, and in it I explored many of the topics which interest me still, such as denominational identity, personal piety, the role of clergy, the Church-State relationship and the nature of Christian communities.

From the late 1990s, I extended my research interests to Wales, and to comparative work on the English and Welsh Churches. My most significant publication on the Welsh Church was The Welsh Church from Reformation to Disestablishment 1603-1920 (2007) which I co-wrote with William Jacob and the late Sir Glanmor Williams and the late Nigel Yates.

I am also interested in understanding nineteenth-century Christianity in a European and global perspective. This was reflected in my most recent book The Church in the Nineteenth Century (2008), which is volume six in the IB Tauris History of the Christian Church series, and in my recent participation in an international research project which is being co-ordinated from the Netherlands with financial support from the Dutch government, on 'The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Church, State and Society in Northern Europe, c.1780-c.1920'.

The project brought together a team of religious historians from Scandinavia, Germany, the Low Countries and the UK. We have been looking at all the major aspects of the changes in the church-state relationship, and their impact on the ecclesiastical reform programme, and its time-scale, in a way which seeks to compare and contrast these developments in different parts of the continent. The project will result in a six volume study to be published by Leuven University Press between 2010 and 2012.

Future Research

The projects described above are mostly fairly recently started, and will occupy me for the next couple of years.

• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2010. 'Internal Church Reform 1850 - 1920: An Age of Innovation in Ecclesiastical Reform'. In: VAN EIJNATTEN, JORIS and YATES, PAULA, eds., The Churches: The Dynamics of Religious Reform in Northern Europe 1780-1920 Leuven University Press. 67-94
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2010. 'Bishops of Ely, 1864 -1957'. In: MEADOWS, P, ed., Ely: Bishops and Diocese 1109 - 2009 Boydell. 259-286
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2009. Professor Nigel Yates, 1944-2009 The Welsh Journal of Religious History. 4, 1-5
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2008. 'Authority in contemporary Anglicanism: historic roots and contemporary dilemmas. In: YATES, NIGEL, ed., Anglicanism: Essays in History, Belief and Practice Trivium Publications. 143-152
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2008. The Church in the Nineteenth Century I B Tauris.
• WILLIAMS, GLANMOR, JACOB, W.M., YATES, NIGEL and KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2007. The Welsh Church from Reformation to Disestablishment 1603-1920 University of Wales Press.
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2007. ' "A Church without discipline is no Church at all": discipline and diversity in nineteenth and twentieth century Anglicanism'. In: COOPER, K and GREGORY, J, eds., Studies in Church History 43: Discipline and Diversity Boydell & Brewer. 399-418
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2006. 'The education of Welsh ordinands in the Rowland Williams era and beyond' The Welsh Journal of Religious History. 1, 14-26
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2006. 'The Oxford Movement in Wales: A Catholic Revival in a Protestant Land'. In: LITZENBERGER, CAROLINE and GROTH LYON, EILEEN, eds., The Human Tradition in Modern Britain Rowman and Littlefield. 81-94
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2004. 'English Christianity 1750 -1940'. In: HOULDEN, LESLIE, ed., Jesus in History, Thought and Culture: An Encyclopedia ABC Clio. 230-235
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2004. 'The Pastoral Ministry in the Anglican Church in England and Wales c.1840-1950' Dutch Review of Church History: The Pastor Bonus. 83, 409-423
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2003. 'The Cultural Aspirations of the Welsh Clergy'. In: BEBBINGTON, DAVID and LARSEN, TIMOTHY, eds., Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations Sheffield Academic Press. 124-138
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2003. 'Life at the Cathedral, 1836 - 1980'. In: MEADOWS, PETER and RAMSEY, NIGEL, eds., A History of Ely Cathedral Boydell. 281-304
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2001. 'Welsh Nationalism and Anglo-Catholicism: the politics and religion of J. Arthur Price'. In: POPE, ROBERT, ed., Religion and National Identity: Scotland and Wales c.1700-2000 University of Wales Press. 103-122
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 2001. 'Did anti-clericalism exist in the English countryside in the early nineteenth century?'. In: ASTON, NIGEL and CRAGOE, MATTHEW, eds., Anticlericalism in Britain c.1500-1914 Sutton Publishing. 159-178
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, WITH BURNS, ARTHUR & MORRIS, JEREMY, 2000. 'When one Revival Led to Another'. In: CHADWICK, HENRY, ed., Not Angels, but Anglicans: A History of Christianity in the British Isles Canterbury Press. 195-201
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1999. 'Anglican Worship in late nineteenth-century Wales: A Montgomeryshire case study'. In: SWANSON, R.N., ed., Continuity and Change in Christian Worship: Studies in Church History 35 Boydell & Brewer. 408-418
• GUY, JOHN R., JENKINS, KATHRYN and KNIGHT, FRANCES, eds., 1999. Wales, Women and Religion in Historical Perspective Welsh Religious History Society.
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1999. 'Conversion in nineteenth-century Britain, and the phenomenon of double allegiance in Anglicanism and Methodism'. In: GORMAN, ULF, ed., Towards a New Understanding of Conversion Lund University Press. 116-124
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1997. 'Male and Female He Created Them: men, women and the question of gender in Victorian Britain'. In: WOLFFE, JOHN, ed., Religion in Victorian Britain: Culture and Empire Manchester University Press. 23-57
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1996. 'The influence of the Oxford Movement in the Parishes c.1833-1860: A re-assessment'. In: VAISS, PAUL, ed., Newman: From Oxford to the People Gracewing. 127-140
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1996. 'From Diversity to Sectarianism: the definition of Anglican identity in nineteenth-century England'. In: SWANSON, R.N., ed., Unity and Diversity in the Church: Studies in Church History 32 Blackwell. 377-386
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1995. The Nineteenth-century Church and English Society Cambridge University Press.
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1993. 'The Hanoverian Church in Transition: some recent perspectives' The Historical Journal. 36(3), 745-752
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1992. 'The Bishops and the Jews 1828-1858'. In: WOOD, DIANA, ed., Christianity and Judaism: Studies in Church History 29 Blackwell. 387-398
• KNIGHT, FRANCES, 1989. 'Ministering to the ministers: the discipline of recalcitrant clergy in the diocese of Lincoln 1830-1845'. In: SHEILS, W.J. & WOOD, DIANA, ed., The Ministry: Clerical and Lay: Studies in Church History 26 Blackwell. 357-366