Start Date
27-5-2026 11:45 AM
End Date
27-5-2026 12:00 PM
Description
This paper examines the role of printed fast-day sermons in England during the subsistence crises of 1795–1817, arguing that the pulpit functioned as a key interpretive space for understanding food scarcity. Delivered during nationally proclaimed fasts and widely circulated in print, these sermons framed dearth not only as a social problem but as a moral and providential crisis. Preachers such as William Vincent, Samuel Horsley, Thomas Rennell, and Edward Pearson employed a shared theological language of divine chastisement, repentance, and providence, presenting hunger as a consequence of national sin while reinforcing social order and discouraging unrest. At the same time, sermons articulated a parallel discourse of hope, emphasizing divine mercy, restoration, and the promise of “daily bread”. Charity, including soup kitchens and almsgiving, was promoted as both spiritual duty and practical relief. A comparative analysis of sermons from 1795, 1801, and 1817 reveals a shift from the alarmist rhetoric shaped by fears of revolution to a greater emphasis on sympathy, improvement, and resilience in the post-war period. By integrating religious interpretation with emerging ideas of agricultural and economic reform, these sermons shaped popular understandings of scarcity and contributed to the moral economy of food in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England.
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Daily Bread and Divine Providence: Scarcity Sermons in England, 1795–1817
This paper examines the role of printed fast-day sermons in England during the subsistence crises of 1795–1817, arguing that the pulpit functioned as a key interpretive space for understanding food scarcity. Delivered during nationally proclaimed fasts and widely circulated in print, these sermons framed dearth not only as a social problem but as a moral and providential crisis. Preachers such as William Vincent, Samuel Horsley, Thomas Rennell, and Edward Pearson employed a shared theological language of divine chastisement, repentance, and providence, presenting hunger as a consequence of national sin while reinforcing social order and discouraging unrest. At the same time, sermons articulated a parallel discourse of hope, emphasizing divine mercy, restoration, and the promise of “daily bread”. Charity, including soup kitchens and almsgiving, was promoted as both spiritual duty and practical relief. A comparative analysis of sermons from 1795, 1801, and 1817 reveals a shift from the alarmist rhetoric shaped by fears of revolution to a greater emphasis on sympathy, improvement, and resilience in the post-war period. By integrating religious interpretation with emerging ideas of agricultural and economic reform, these sermons shaped popular understandings of scarcity and contributed to the moral economy of food in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England.