Laudianism

Laudianism, also called Old High Churchmanship, or Orthodox Anglicanism as they styled themselves when debating the Tractarians ^[1], was an early seventeenth-century reform movement within the Church of England that tried to avoid the extremes of Roman Catholicism and Puritanism by building on the work of Richard Hooker, and was promulgated by Archbishop William Laud and his supporters. It rejected the predestination upheld by Calvinism in favour of free will, and hence the possibility of salvation for all men through objective work of the sacraments.^[2] Laudianism had a significant impact on the Anglican high church movement and its emphasis on the sacraments, personal holiness, beautiful liturgy, and the episcopate. Laudianism was the culmination of the move to Arminianism in the Church of England, and led directly to the Caroline Divines, of which Laud was one of the first. The expression of this since the Oxford movement is often called Central churchmanship^[3]