Crumbs from the Table

Bury is a market and former mill town in the historic county of Lancashire. It now comes under "Greater Manchester" and is situated to the north west of the metropolis, about 30 minutes drive by car from the city centre.  Bury's origins go back to before 1066. The name, originally Bury, Buri, or Byri, is a Saxon name meaning “a stronghold.”  Bury Castle manor house was built in 1469 by Sir Thomas Pilkington; its ruins near the parish church are a minor tourist feature.   Up until the 1700s, the town was served by a single parish church. The first non-conformist Christian place of worship was established in the town in 1719: what was the Presbyterian church on Silver Street (now a Unitarian Chapel). A second Church of England place of worship, St. John's church, was established in 1770. (The town is now served by about 30 Christian churches, 8 mosques, and a synagogue.)  The industrial revolution took hold in Bury from 1773 with calico printing works set up by th...

In 1830, at the time of Belgian independence, the city of Brussels was confined to the historic "pentagon", circumscribed by the old city ramparts which were dismantled between 1812 and 1840, and replaced by wide Parisian-style boulevards. (See also History of Brussels - part 1 )  In 1853, the city expanded beyond the "pentagon" to include Schaerbeek, Etterbeek (part), and Saint-Josse-ten-Noode - what became the Leopold Quarter, and the Quarter of the Squares. In 1864, the city expanded southwards to encompass what became Avenue Louise and Bois de la Cambre. In 1907, the "Jardin du Roi" and "Abbaye de la Cambre" were added (see map below).  King Leopold II, who reigned 1865 to 1909, oversaw the transformation of Brussels into a major European city with a population of 600 thousand in 1900.    In 1871, the river Senne was covered, and later diverted. To the east of the historic centre, the Parc du Cinquaintenaire (1880) straddled the eastern edge ...

The earliest settlement of what is now Brussels goes back to the year 580 and the island (Saint-Géry island) between two branches of the river Senne which ran through Brussels, on which Gaugericus (Géry), Christian bishop of Cambrai, built a chapel (Saint-Géry Chapel), which remained the oldest place of worship in the city until the building was demolished in the 1790s. (See also  History of Brussels - part 2 ) Brussels is mentioned in the historical record again in 695.  In the year 979, Lambert the Duke of Louvain, fortified the settlement on Saint-Géry Island - this is the traditional date of the founding of Brussels. What is now the Cathedral of Saints Michael and Gudula dates back to a parish church in 1047. In the 1100s, the Dukes of Brabant transformed the fortress on Saint-Géry Island into a inhabitable castle. The city was enclosed by the first city walls ( première enceinte - see shaded region on map to the right) in the 1200s. Brussels had developed into a subs...

It is a fact that in most societies of the global north, such as the United Kingdom and France, church attendance has dropped significantly since the 1800s and in places now represents a tiny minority of something like 1-2%.  The term "secularisation" refers to the process by which religious faith is increasingly marginalised from society, and limited to the private lives of a small number of individual believers. A major contemporary expert on secularisation is Professor Hugh McLeod  of the University of Birmingham, who is himself a Quaker.   Hugh McLeod's work offers lots of statistical data and insights into the phenomenon of secularisation.  The process of secularisation goes back at least as far as the 1600s, and a major contributing factor was co-existence and belligerence between rival forms of Christianity during that century. There appears to be a certain typical chronological sequence for secularisation in "Christian" countries, beginning with the co-e...

I am due to make a trip to Poland soon, and I have been reading up about Polish history.  The original homeland of the Slavic peoples is considered to be the region of Pripyat' in Belarus.  The Polish people descended from the West Slavic tribes, known collectively as the Lechtitic tribes,   who settled in the Vistula and Oder river basins between the 300s and 700s AD. These included the Polans, Vistulans, Pomeranians, Goplans, Lendians, Mazovians, and Silesians, with the Polans playing a central role in unifying them.  The history of Poland begins with the conversion of Duke Mieszko to the Christian faith in 966. The main Christian influence was Great Moravia, the homeland of Mieszka's bride, Dobrawa, a devout Christian - her country having been Christianised by Cyril and Methodius about a century earlier. The map below shows the geographical extent of Poland under the rule of Mieszko. His capital city was at Gniezno. The light blue is the extent of Mieszko's Duchy ...

Mosely Street Independent Chapel was a place of worship in Manchester which stood diagonally opposite Pimlico library on Mosely Street on the present site of the Sainsbury's supermarket.  (It should not be confused with Mosely Street Unitarian church which closed in 1835, having stood on the future site of the Manchester and Salford Bank which is now occupied by the "Betfred" betting shop.) Mosely Street Independent Chapel was a breakaway in 1788 from Cannon Street Congregational Church which had only started in 1762 (with Caleb Warhurst as minister).   Ministers of Mosely Street Independent Chapel Joseph Smith  Samuel Bradley  Dr Robert Halley The building stood from 1788, was enlarged in 1817, and then vacated in 1848 when the church moved to Cavendish Road. Here is a picture of the building: Manchester City Council holds the historic records of this church . In 1847/8, a new chapel was completed on Cavendish Road near the University of Manchester with seating...

 New York Street Baptist Chapel was a place of worship in the centre of Manchester which stood from 1808 to 1869.  The church was a breakaway from the Baptist church pastored by William Gadsby shortly after his arrival in 1805. For a time, the church met at Cold House chapel in the Shudehill area of Manchester (a longstanding place of non-Anglican worship), before moving into the premises on New York Street in 1808. The well-known pastor John Fawcett (1739-1817) of Wainsgate Chapel in Hebden Bridge preached at the opening service.  The location of the church was on New York Street which at the time of writing is on the other side of the City Tower from Piccadilly Gardens. The chapel stood in the block between Pine Street and Faulkner Street on the site of what is now the carpark.  The chapel is clearly marked on various historic maps of Manchester, such as this one (Pigot 1813):  According to Baptist church historian Whitley (Baptists of the North West, 1913), ...