# William Laud — Religion and the Rise of Capitalism character guide

> William Laud in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Laud, 267 Laud, William Laud

**First appearance:** 0003-religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism

## Snapshot

The Archbishop who defended a spiritual organism against the economic machine, insisting that no Christian commonwealth should tolerate private gain at the neighbor's hurt.

## Who they are

Laud stands for the conservative religious reaction against a spirit that seemed to him the triumph of Mammon, restating the medieval appeal to the average conscience with the emphasis of a menaced creed. His world is one where society is a spiritual organism, not an economic machine, and where economic activity must answer to moral law. In Tawney's narrative he marks the last great literary stand of an older social order against the dislocations of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

## In the story

### [I: The Medieval Background](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/i-the-medieval-background)

Mentioned as a figure whose experiment in a confessional State ended with the Restoration, marking the end of religious claims to enforce economic morality.

### [III: The Church of England](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/iii-the-church-of-england)

Quoted at the chapter's opening, emphasizing the connection between private interest and the commonwealth and the Church.

### [Puritanism and Society](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/i-puritanism-and-society)

Mentioned as reversing Elizabethan policy by harassing foreign artisans, illustrating the collision between economic interests and religious conformity.

### [The New Medicine for Poverty](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/iv-the-new-medicine-for-poverty)

Mentioned as a figure in the early seventeenth century who continued the tradition of religious condemnation of enclosure and depopulation.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/characters/laud
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/characters