More than a half-century ago, C. G. Chamberlayne, under the sponsorship of the Virginia State Library, transcribed, edited, and indexed a number of original Virginia parish vestry books, four of which are reprinted here. While the dates of coverage and lengths of the volumes vary, they are nonetheless similar in terms of scope and content. Each volume contains the oldest known records pertaining to that parish, in most cases beginning only a few years following the parish's date of formation.

In this book, John Nelson reconstructs everyday Anglican religious practice and experience in Virginia from the end of the seventeenth century to the start of the American Revolution. Challenging previous characterizations of the colonial Anglican establishment as weak, he reveals the fundamental role the church played in the political, social, and economic as well as the spiritual lives of its parishioners. Drawing on extensive research in parish and county records and other primary sources, Nelson describes Anglican Virginia's parish system, its parsons, its rituals of worship and rites of passage, and its parishioners' varied relationships to the church. All colonial Virginians--men and women, rich and poor, young and old, planters and merchants, servants and slaves, dissenters and freethinkers--belonged to a parish. As such, they were subject to its levies, its authority over marriage, and other social and economic dictates. In addition to its religious functions, the parish provided essential care for the poor, collaborated with the courts to handle civil disputes, and exerted its influence over many other aspects of community life. A Blessed Company demonstrates that, by creatively adapting Anglican parish organization and the language, forms, and modes of Anglican spirituality to the Chesapeake's distinctive environmental and human conditions, colonial Virginians sustained a remarkably effective and faithful Anglican church in the Old Dominion.

More than a half-century ago, C. G. Chamberlayne, under the sponsorship of the Virginia State Library, transcribed, edited, and indexed a number of original Virginia parish vestry books, four of which are reprinted here. While the dates of coverage and lengths of the volumes vary, they are nonetheless similar in terms of scope and content. Each volume contains the oldest known records pertaining to that parish, in most cases beginning only a few years following the parish's date of formation. Mr. Chamberlayne begins each vestry book with an Introduction that pieces together the formation of the parish and important milestones in its history from published and original sources. Facsimilies of pages from the original vestry books, maps, and photographs help to put each volume into greater context, moreover. Appended to the vestry books are brief lists of the various parish ministers, with an indication of their earliest date of service as found in the records. The transcriptions themselves, ranging from about 250 to more than 600 pages of text, relate to the following issues growing out of the business affairs of colonial parish vestries; namely, payments to persons for services rendered to the parish, oaths and lists of oath-takers, news of the arrival of ministers, the appointment of church wardens, issues related to indentured servants, lists of tithables, payment of salaries and other obligations, the formation of parish precincts with the names of the families apportioned therein, the warding of children, and so on. In each case, these four scarce collections of colonial church records establish the existence of thousands of Virginia inhabitants, each of whom is easily found in the index or indexes at the back of the book.

More than a half-century ago, C. G. Chamberlayne, under the sponsorship of the Virginia State Library, transcribed, edited, and indexed a number of original Virginia parish vestry books, four of which are reprinted here. While the dates of coverage and lengths of the volumes vary, they are nonetheless similar in terms of scope and content. Each volume contains the oldest known records pertaining to that parish, in most cases beginning only a few years following the parish's date of formation. Mr. Chamberlayne begins each vestry book with an Introduction that pieces together the formation of the parish and important milestones in its history from published and original sources. Facsimilies of pages from the original vestry books, maps, and photographs help to put each volume into greater context, moreover. Appended to the vestry books are brief lists of the various parish ministers, with an indication of their earliest date of service as found in the records. The transcriptions themselves, ranging from about 250 to more than 600 pages of text, relate to the following issues growing out of the business affairs of colonial parish vestries; namely, payments to persons for services rendered to the parish, oaths and lists of oath-takers, news of the arrival of ministers, the appointment of church wardens, issues related to indentured servants, lists of tithables, payment of salaries and other obligations, the formation of parish precincts with the names of the families apportioned therein, the warding of children, and so on. In each case, these four scarce collections of colonial church records establish the existence of thousands of Virginia inhabitants, each of whom is easily found in the index or indexes at the back of the book.

"Holy Things and Profane is a study of architecture -- of the thirty-seven extant colonial Anglican churches of Virginia and of their vanished neighbors whose existence is recorded in contemporary records, particularly the forty-six vestry books and registers that have survived in whole or in part."--Preface.

Dr. Malcolm Harris' two-volume history and genealogy of "Old" New Kent County (the three present-day counties in the aggregate) is one of the great achievements of Virginia local history of the last century. Clearfield Company is honored to have been selected by the Harris family to produce this hardcover edition of "Old New Kent County." Privately published and out of print for many years, this work takes on even greater importance in light of the loss of county records in New Kent and in King & Queen counties and the survival of mere fragments for King William County prior to 1865.

Introduction : "An art which shews so much" -- Defining the prodigy house : architectural aesthetics and the colonial dialect -- "Blind stupid fortune" : profiling the architectural patron -- "Reason reascends her throne" : the impact of dowry -- "Each rascal will be a director" : architectural patrons and the building process -- Learning to become "good mechanics in building" -- Epistemologies of female space : early Tidewater mansions -- Political power and the limits of genteel architecture