Notable Tracts from the 18th and 19th Centuries
Collected among the treasures housed in the Frances Donaldson Library, a generous gift from Nashotah House’s friend Richard Mammana enjoys its safekeeping. A number of years ago, Mammana — founder and director of the free online archive Project Canterbury — donated 488 American tracts and pamphlets from bishops, clergy, and laity of the Episcopal Church, dating from the 1700s to 1900s. In 2015, these physical archives were added to Nashotah House’s collection of an estimated 4,351 tracts and pamphlets already housed in the Frances Donaldson Library.
“Some of the tracts are probably the only copies that survive,” said Mr. Mammana. “Many of them relate to church occasions and controversies from the nineteenth century, especially around issues like free pew seating, changes in worship style and church government, and missionary expansion. Pamphlets are important because of their wide audience and their circulation outside of academic circles. Nashotah House is a natural place for scholars to look for material about the Oxford Movement and Anglo-Catholicism, and this collection is a way for researchers to access a substantial body of material in one location.”
On both sides of the Atlantic, correspondence among members of the Church of England and American Episcopalians plumbed the depths of inquiry into the teachings of both Scripture and the early Church Fathers. Tracts and pamphlets were the vehicles for sharing these ideas, being the “social media” of their time.
Tracts from Mr. Mammana’s collection address such issues as “How are we to spread the gospel to the unchurched?” and “Is ritual actually superstition or is ritual consistent with the teachings of the early church and Church Fathers?” Many of the tracts and pamphlets relate to the controversies concerning ritualism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Topics also include debates on the state of the Episcopal Church in America; what made one qualified to serve on a vestry; the need for rubrics in the prayer book; the call for the church to continue to have a public voice; and a catechism published in 1877 on what was referred to as ritual decisions. In addition to tracts, Mr. Mammana’s donation includes convention journals, annual reports to vestries, various church societies, and sermons.
Beyond his passion for Project Canterbury at anglicanhistory.org, Mr. Mammana also serves as the Episcopal Church's Ecumenical and Interreligious Associate, with responsibilities that include serving as staff liaison for the Moravian-Episcopal and Lutheran-Episcopal committees, and facilitating dialogues with the Presbyterian Church, United Methodist Church, and the Roman Catholic Church. Project Canterbury receives approximately eight million visits per year and includes out-of-print, free Anglican archival material.
Mr. Mammana is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and has been a member of The Living Church Foundation, a past publisher of The Living Church magazine, and a frequent contributor to its online and print publications.
For more on the Oxford Movement and its revival of the church, you may enjoy reading Before and After the Oxford Movement by Mary I.M. Bell, http://anglicanhistory.org/england/misc/bell_oxford1933.html.
Image: John Keble, chalk drawing by George Richmond, 1863; in the National Portrait Gallery, London. Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London