The last note closed with the concept of processioning and processioners. It was a requirement by law that all boundaries between properties would be walked by the processioners and the property owners. Thus, in essence, the property owners would be saying, "This is the line that divides us." The processioners were witnesses to this. The objective was to forestall litigation between property owners, by affirming where the property lines were. Thus, the Church of England was an arm of the civil authority.
There were conflicts between civil officials and church officials. Who had the right to appoint pastors? This question also involved a conflict between the central civil authority, in Williamsburg, and the local parish. For a period, all pastors had to come from England, as there was no school for training pastors in Virginia. This made it very difficult to obtain pastors, as they had to be hired in England. More and more, the local parishes wanted " Virginia men ", meaning they did not want someone from England. And, the parishes wanted local election and rejection of the pastors.
In the Church of England, there were bishops who governed the church. Virginia had no bishops in residence, probably because no bishop wanted to live in Virginia. (Originally, there were so few people in Virginia that a bishop for Virginia did not seem warranted.) For governing the church, the Bishop of London was the nominal head of the church in Virginia. Since he did not come to Virginia, he appointed a commissioner in his place. Often, there was a conflict between this commissioner and the civil authorities, especially as represented by the governor. In theory, the Crown was the head of the Church of England, throughout the lands of England. The governor of Virginia was the agent of the Crown. The commissioner was the agent of the Bishop of London. Who controlled the church in Virginia?
Some say (the whole subject is murky) that Lt. Gov. Spotswood was removed from the post because of conflicts with Commissioner Blair. The commissioner carried his contentions back to England, where he was able to get the Governor of Virginia, Lord Orkney, to remove his agent, Spotswood.
A common theme between the European civil and religious leaders was to regard the people in the New World as second class or nonexistent citizens. The people in Virginia detected this and it led to their thinking of themselves as Virginians , not Englishmen . As one reads the early eighteenth century history, one detects that the seeds of revolution were being sown, long before actual hostilities broke out.
As a final example, in the Church of England, bishops confirmed the youth as members of the church. There were no bishops in Virginia, so that a youth who wished to be confirmed had to go back to England. This was totally impractical for the general citizen. Therefore, what developed was the " Virginia way ", which was to be distinguished from the " English way ". In this case, the Virginia people went without confirmation of their membership in the church.
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.