ABSTRACT
IN ENGLAND it was the nineteenth-century Anglican ecclesiologists who by and large revived an interest in church symbols. The ecclesiologists were part of a great change in attitude which was obvious in the second quarter of the nineteenth century in many different areas, political and social as well as religious. Many agreed that the religious situation was in need of reform, and various sections of the Church concentrated on different aspects. Vast administrative reforms were carried out, and many abuses done away. The Evangelicals set in motion a campaign for the reformation of morals. The leaders of the Oxford Movement, the Tractarians, revivified theology and the Church’s links with its apostolic past. The first generation such as Keble, Pusey, and Newman were not interested in ritual or church buildings. It was the younger men like John Mason Neale, 1 a founder of the Cambridge Camden Society, whose members were young dons and undergraduates, who argued that the Church of England was in need of reverence. Reverence included respect for church buildings as well as for the liturgy. They campaigned for beautiful and holy buildings in which reverent worship could be conducted. They were part of a movement which in all sorts of places revived the idea that church buildings should be holy and should bear witness to the faith of the Church, and that they had meaning. 2
