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Beth Allison Barr, William H. Campbell. The Landscape of Pastoral Care in Thirteenth-Century England., The American Historical Review, Volume 124, Issue 5, December 2019, Pages 1944–1945, https://doi.org/10.1093/ahr/rhz045
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In his delivery of the 1948 Cambridge Birkbeck lectures, William Abel Pantin suggested that the sweeping impact of the fourteenth-century pastoral program in England was born in the ecclesiastical efforts of the thirteenth century. William H. Campbell’s rich study The Landscape of Pastoral Care in Thirteenth-Century England shows how correct Pantin was. But, while Pantin focused on pastoral literature, Campbell expands our understanding of how pastoral reforms permeated and reshaped the diocesan landscape.
Campbell’s most significant contribution lies in his focus on lived religion—how pastoral care was understood, learned, communicated, and experienced. As the “most significant point of contact” between the institutional church and ordinary people (9), pastoral care was more than just inculcating religious ideals; it was serving the laity in this world and saving them in the next (4). From the ecclesiastical reforms that gave voice to what the church was already doing, to the men and women who provided pastoral services, to the parishioners who had some choice in their participation, Campbell shows us that pastoral care was a “cooperative venture” negotiated and approached differently in different contexts (94). Pastoral care certainly transformed English culture, but because of the reality of regional variation, the pastoral program was far from uniform.
