This collection of essays explores the social and economic worlds of clergy in Sweden and England from the sixteenth century through the early eighteenth century. The contributions in this edited volume originated as presentations at the European Social Science History Association Conference in 2018. Although the book covers two different sites over three centuries, common themes emerge across the diverse chapters, namely the clerical household and the economic conditions of the clergy. Through examining these themes, the authors of the chapters provide new insights into women's important yet contested roles in clerical families, the material culture of clergy, and how religious, social, and economic networks of clergy intersected amid the complex and shifting religious landscape in the early modern period.

The book opens with studies by Rosamunde Oates and Jacqueline Eales on clerical marriage and specifically the uneasiness, and even hostility, it provoked and the ways that clerical families, and wives in particular, worked to gain acceptance. Oates's chapter focuses on hospitality and how it served as a flashpoint for debates about the role and power of clerical wives in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Through providing charity and entertaining visitors, women could exercise influence and engage in processes of reforms but faced resistance from those who feared that they were overstepping their roles and taking on more responsibilities than appropriate. Oates considers the perceptions of the ideal clerical wife in the period and how clerical wives and families came to act as models of piety that lay people could emulate, a theme also explored by Eales in her chapter on wives and daughters in clerical households. Initially condemned as “whores” and “bastards” (26), wives and daughters were increasingly depicted as exemplary role models over the course of the seventeenth century. Using funeral sermons and godly biographies, Eales demonstrates how these positive portrayals helped to reinforce the legitimacy and benefits of clerical marriage. Eales also elucidates the construction and importance of clerical family dynasties and how the clerical household served as a key—but often overlooked—“powerhouse of female learning” (34). In the fifth chapter, Beverly Tjerngren returns to a topic analyzed by Oates, namely hospitality and clerical marriage, but in a different context, eighteenth-century Sweden. Tjerngren's study uses probate inventories to trace how the death of pastor Adolph Adde's wife, Margareta Hewvig Hultman, changed his home life and led to the decline of hospitality, demonstrating that marriage was necessary for religious obligations and for the creation of a home. The chapters by Oates, Eales, and Tjerngren draw attention to the variety of ways women participated in clerical life and also how they continually had to tread a fine line, since any authority women seemed to possess was met with resistance and provoked concerns that they exerted too much control.

Like Tjerngren, Jon Stobart studies the domestic material world of clergy, but his study focuses on England, specifically rural Northamptonshire, to examine the aspirations of clergy and their families. Using auction and sale catalogs to gain a more complete picture of the household goods possessed by the clergy, Stobart argues that the houses of clergy indicate they sought to align themselves with ideals of gentility and the culture of their gentry neighbors. William Gibson and Jonas Lindström also consider the economic conditions of the clergy in their contributions to the volume. Similar to Tjerngren, Lindström provides a microstudy of a Swedish pastor, Gustaf Berg, but he concentrates on the intersections of clergy's economic and social networks. Through a careful analysis of Berg's finances, Lindström analyzes the power dynamics embedded within the relationships between parishioners and clergy. He describes how parishioners relied on Berg not only for their spiritual needs but also for their material well-being, as people came to him to buy and sell goods, offer their labor, or borrow money. While the relationships could be based on trust, goodwill, and cooperation, they were also marked by inequality and coercion. Like Stobart and Lindström, Gibson considers the finances and economic position of the clergy, but his chapter on the Anglican episcopate in the eighteenth century seeks to challenge the stereotype of avaricious bishops. Gibson's chapter details the various expenditures faced by bishops and shows how many were wary of the financial dangers of being bishop. They often took efforts to safeguard their estates, even drawing on their private incomes, and were careful custodians of church finances. These chapters on the economic milieu of the clergy underscore a recurring theme in the book, namely the diverse—yet often hidden—networks that shaped the lives of clergy.

Studying clerical life in the early modern period is replete with challenges. Sources in particular present many difficulties, as one must attempt to distinguish prescription from practice, the ideal from the reality. Moreover, the limited sources that do provide insights into clergy's lives beyond the religious realm are often not representative of the clergy more broadly. Yet the chapters demonstrate the wide range of sources—from funeral sermons to sale catalogs to account books and probate inventories—that can be utilized to better understand the complexity of the lives of clergy and their families. The authors also draw attention to the value of employing different methodologies and, in particular, the benefits of microhistories in complicating our understandings of clerical life. Overall, this book will interest scholars in a variety of fields as it expands understandings not only of clergy's experiences but also women's roles in the church. In doing so, it provides insights into the broader cultural, economic, social, and religious worlds of this period.