Publisher's Synopsis
A dissenting meeting was an act of defiance, a declaration of individuality, of an unwillingness to follow the politically acceptable religious norms of the Church of England. Dissenters believed they followed a purer Christianity. Bishops they would not tolerate. Services were purged of Roman Catholic practices. This volume shows how widespread were dissenting meetings in Bristol and Gloucestershire. Dissenters did not have freedom to meet for religious worship, apart from Charles II and James II{u2019}s short-lived declarations of toleration, against the will of parliament (some evidence of which is found in this volume), until William of Orange insisted that parliament pass a Toleration Act. This became law in 1689, allowing Protestant dissenters to meet with the permission of the county justices of the peace or of the bishop. Close to 2,000 meetings were officially registered in Bristol and Gloucestershire before 1852, when parliame
