Conventicles

A conventicle is a small, unofficial and unofficiated religious meeting of laypeople.

In England, there were three acts of parliament passed to coerce people to attend Church of England services and to prohibit unofficiated meeting of laymen:

The Religion Act 1592, stated to last for just one parliament, called for imprisonment without bail of those over the age of sixteen who failed to attend church, who persuaded others to do the same, who denied Her Majesty's authority in ecclesiastical matters, and who attended unlawful religious conventicles.

The Conventicle Act 1664 forbade conventicles of five or more people, other than an immediate family, meeting in religious assembly outside the auspices of the Church of England. This law was part of the Clarendon Code, named for Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, which aimed to discourage nonconformism and to strengthen the position of the Established Church.

The Conventicles Act 1670 imposed a fine of five shillings for the first offence and ten shillings for a second offence on any person who attended a conventicle (any religious assembly other than the Church of England). Any preacher or person who allowed his house to be used as a meeting house for such an assembly could be fined 20 shillings and 40 shillings for a second offence.

Many Calvinists, however, held that the only "true" church was a voluntary gathering of believers and that, therefore, the official parish churches of the Church of England were the false churches, offering the sacraments even to sinners and "Papists," while an officially illegal conventicle could be a true church.

Conventicles of believers in Reform were held in Scotland in the 1500s and are considered to have been instrumental in the movement that drove the French regent Mary of Guise from power. From 1660 to the 1688 Revolution conventicles were usually held by Covenanters opposed to Charles II's forced imposition of Episcopalian government on the established Church of Scotland.

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