Low church is a term of distinction in the Church of England, initially designed to be pejorative. During the series of doctrinal and ecclesiastic challenges to the Established church in the 16th and 17th centuries, commentators and divines began to refer to the more Anglo-Catholic tendency in the English church as high church. In contrast, in the early 18th century those theologians and politicians who sought more reform in the English church and a greater liberalisation of church structure were called "low church."