This dissertation examines the ways in which secular explanations for social hierarchy, notably the language of politeness, shaped the ways Church of England bishops interacted with their clergy in the half-century after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688. The chapters that follow utilize a range of primary sources, including bishops' charges and letters to their clergy, conduct books, and pamphlets produced for intra-church controversy, to demonstrate how the Anglican church leadership sought to assert their authority by claiming their innate superiority. The advice and admonitions of church leaders reveal the potential of politeness to reinforce social rank rather than to mitigate it, reversing the primary conclusions of previous studies of politeness that have relied on popular, secular sources. Both secular and official church advice to clergymen agreed that mastery of the language and themes of politeness was essential for public leaders after the Toleration Act of 1689, but where secular guides presented politeness as accessible, the church leaders warned that it was difficult to acquire and very risky to attempt. Social gaps between the church leadership and their subordinate clergy appear in this disagreement and are underscored by the suspicion that church leaders used their claims to politeness as cultural capital to discredit the more democratic scrutiny of the public sphere in inter-church controversies.;The contrast between elite and lower clergymen's understanding of the cultural and social significance of politeness challenges our understanding of the intersecting nature of church discipline, professionalization, secularization, and patronage. Thus, this dissertation provides a new explanation for the closure of the Anglican church leadership to non-aristocrats during the same century that the ideals of the liberal Enlightenment --- freedom of religion, freedom of the press, freedom from arbitrary rule --- undermined the hierarchical basis of Ancien Regime hegemony.
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