Learning from Langland: theo-poetic resources for the post-Hind ...

ationale for their proposals, Hind One in its third chapter and Hind Two in the Introduction
to Part 3 (pp. 59-63).
Hind One did not emerge in a vacuum: its predecessor, Managing Planned Growth, did
much of the preliminary calculation which led Hind to the conclusion that wholesale re-
organisation of theological education provision was needed. In terms of the impetus to
manage human resources more effectively, Hind One is also indebted to the 1995 Turnbull
Report Working as One Body (indeed, as will be explored in Chapter Five, Hind borrows
from Turnbull one of its central images, that of the body). Hind One arrived at a particular
point in the Church’s provision of ministerial training and theological education more
broadly, and faced an array of challenges which it sets out clearly in Chapter 2: ‘The issues
that have driven our work’. At the time of writing, the Church was experiencing a severe
financial squeeze, and reviewing training provision was one part of a wider response to this.
In order to understand the pattern of training provision which Hind One addresses, it is
necessary to provide a brief outline of the development of theological education in the
Church of England.
Church of England theological training past and present
The involvement of the Church in education within England has a long history, stretching
back to the time when monasteries and cathedral schools were the main providers of
education, and involving the foundation and growth of Oxford and Cambridge universities. 7
7 For a detailed account, see Nicholas Orme, Education and Society in Medieval and
Renaissance England, Hambledon Press, London and Rounceverte, 1989; Medieval
Schools, Yale University Press, 2006.
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