A congregation of voices

SARAH FOOT enjoys a new history of the Church of England, a book that finds space for the reflections of ordinary parishioners as well charting the deeds of the great and the good

- SARAH FOOT

In the service of God Elizabeth Catherine Ferard (1825-83), who was inspired by visiting a deaconess community in Düsseldorf, and revitalized the deaconess order in England

CHRISTIANITY

A People's Church: A History of the Church of England

by Jeremy Morris

Profile Books, 480 pages, £30

The formal history of the Church of England begins with Supremacy the Act of of 1534, which declared King Henry VIII to be "the only Supreme Head in earth of the Church of England called Anglicana Ecclesia". Yet, as Jeremy Morris demonstrates in this accessible and engaging book, the roots of Henry's church lay firmly in the early Middle Ages. So much so that his Church of England could be understood "as the Church in England as it had been from time immemorial".