Puritans, Quakers, Recusants and Dissenters

Introduction
The Elizabethan Settlement of 1559 formally reestablished the Church of England as a state institution defined by standardized forms of worship and obedience to the Queen as its supreme governor. A vocal opposition almost immediately emerged, however, with responses to the settlement ranging from wary conformity or assertive nonconformity on the part of Puritans to Catholic refusal to attend church (a decision known as recusancy) to the emergence of more extreme separatist groups which would give rise to dissenters in the next century. The conflicting intentions and social identities of these groups, in addition to their connection to larger political developments, have made this one of the more tangled areas of English historiography, with the Puritanism bearing most of the burden. In the 19th century, for example, historians such as S. R. Gardiner equated puritanism with liberty and freedom; in the early 20th century, the sociologist Max Weber famously argued that modern capitalism was directly related to a Calvinist (and particularly English Calvinist) form of Christianity, with the Puritan divine Richard Baxter one of its foremost exponents. Such a view was criticized by, among others, Marxist historians such as Christopher Hill and Katherine George, who, nevertheless, imposed their own somewhat reified concepts onto nonmainstream groups. Recent years have witnessed such scholars as Patrick Collinson and Peter Lake exploring puritanism’s relation to the Elizabethan and early Stuart church and society, while David Como represents a new generation of historians, in this case focused on radicalism within the movement’s underground. This article attempts to encapsulate these trends, though its emphasis on English nonconformity admittedly excludes the new transatlantic focus promoted by historians such as Francis Bremer, or in the case of recusants, transcontinental perspectives. For such a perspective, see the Oxford Bibliographies in Atlantic History article on Protestantism by Carla Gardina Pestana.
Reference Works
The following reference works provide useful guidance through the dense thicket of Puritan, dissenter, and recusant historiography, offering bibliographies as well as introductory articles. Coffey and Lim 2008 is a collection of essays by leading scholars ranging across the many facets of Puritan religion and politics, with Bremer and Webster 2006 constituting an exhaustive and thorough encyclopedia with references. Abbott, et al. 2012 is an updated edition of an equally thorough dictionary, in this case relating to Quakers.
Abbott, Margery Post, Mary Ellen Chijioke, Pink Dandelion, and John William Oliver, eds.Historical Dictionary of the Friends (Quakers). 2d ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2012.
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A useful and expanded edition with more than seven hundred entries together with an introductory essay, bibliography, and chronology. Contributions relate to significant and obscure historical figures as well as events, concepts, and other aspects illuminating Quaker history.
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Bremer, Francis, and Tom Webster, eds. Puritans and Puritanism in Europe and America: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2006.
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Contributions by some of the leading historians of puritanism on both sides of the Atlantic, with nearly seven hundred entries covering Puritan biographies, ideas, events, and issues; with glossary, primary sources, and a bibliography.
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Coffey, John, and Paul Lim, eds. The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
DOI: 10.1017/CCOL9780521860888Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A comprehensive and multidimensional treatment of the subject, with articles covering Puritan and dissenting theology, gender, popular culture, politics, war, and literature. Essays also explore puritanism beyond England, not only in America, but also in Ireland, Scotland, and elsewhere. With articles by Patrick Collinson, John Morrill, Tom Webster, Anthony Milton, Francis Bremer, and other leading scholars.
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Primary Sources and Anthologies
With some notable exceptions, groups such as the Puritans, dissenters, or Catholics heavily utilized the print culture available to them, particularly with the relaxation of censorship laws in the mid-17th century. Whether cheap pamphlets or learned books, polemical tracts or devotional literature, the result was an abundance of primary sources, many of which are still untapped by students and scholars. The following books are meant to be introductory, as they anthologize or contain representative works as well as comments and bibliographies that may guide readers to further avenues of investigation. Early volumes, such as Burrage 1912, are still valuable for the documents they contain, while Black 2008 focuses on a narrower purview while providing deep commentary and critical apparatus. Porter 1971 is also an excellent source on the writings of more learned Puritans.Miola 2007 is a wide-ranging volume of Catholic writings, excerpted but with guides to further reading, as is Morrill, et al. 2011, which offers a range from the early modern to the present.Crosignani, et al. 2010 focuses more on the polemical literature that emerged during this period, while Barbour and Roberts 1973 wades through the enormity of Quaker literary production to provide a comprehensive sampling of obscure and well-known works from the Friends.
Barbour, Hugh, and Arthur Roberts, eds. Early Quaker Writings, 1650–1700. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1973.
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Known for their voluminous output, the Quakers produced thousands of pieces of writing from 1650 to 1700 alone. This excellent collection brings together some representative examples, ranging from historical tracts to letters, religious writings, testimonies, and opponents’ diatribes. With introductions, appendixes, and other scholarly material.
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Black, Joseph Laurence, ed. The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Presented in an accessible format, this edition of the anonymously penned tracts against the established church provides glosses and annotations as well as a lengthy, 111-page introduction by the leading scholar of the subject.
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Burrage, Champlin. The Early English Dissenters in the Light of Recent Research, 1550–1641. 2 vols. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1912.
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A very old two-volume work that is still valuable for the documents contained in Volume 2 and its attention to detail in providing a history of the earlier dissenters.
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Crosignani, Ginevra, Thomas McCoog, and Michael Questier, eds. Recusancy and Conformity in Early Modern England: Manuscript and Printed Sources in Translation. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2010.
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Key documents, including polemical and casuistic literature directed toward late-Elizabethan Catholics, are some of the more noteworthy inclusions in this volume. Published and unpublished material is brought together, with transcriptions of the original as well as scholarly commentary.
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Miola, Robert S. Early Modern Catholicism: An Anthology of Primary Sources. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
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An excellent and comprehensive volume of texts ranging from political and controversial tracts (including those by Thomas More, William Allen, and Robert Bellarmine) to biographies, histories, devotional and educational works, poetry, drama, and fiction. Recusants are well represented, though the emphasis is on the full range of Catholic experience. Includes guides to further reading and an introduction.
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Morrill, John, John Saward, and Michael Tomko, eds. “Firmly I Believe and Truly”: The Spiritual Tradition of Catholic England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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A comprehensive anthology of sources, with the early modern period represented in excerpted works from Margaret Beaufort and John Fisher through Mary Ward and John Dryden.
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Porter, H. C. Puritanism in Tudor England. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1971.
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Extracts from twenty-seven primary source documents, with insightful commentary. Included in the selection are writings by Robert Barnes, William Perkins, John Field, and others.
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Collections of Papers
A number of excellent edited collections exist to guide the student through the thicket of Puritan historiography, with some providing important contributions to the field. The debate over the relationship of Puritans to, and within, the established church is covered in the essays of Lake and Questier 2000, while Fincham 1993 takes the question to the early Jacobean church. Knoppers 2003explores the role that conflict played in the furtherance of Puritan politics and culture; meanwhile, a transatlantic focus is given prominence in Bremer 2005, a collection of essays that connects puritanism in England and North America. Durston and Eales 1996 widens the field to include cultural aspects of puritanism, while Pennington and Thomas 1978 examines radicals as well as Puritans (and Puritan-radicals). Radical religion apart from puritanism is the focus of McGregor and Reay 1984.
Bremer, Francis J., ed. Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth-Century Anglo-American Faith. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005.
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Offering a relatively recent sampling of current research in the field, this collection focuses on both the international as well as internal dimensions of puritanism on both sides of the Atlantic. Essays by Bremer, Peter Lake, Stephen Foster, John Ball, Margo Todd, and other noteworthy contributors to the field.
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Durston, Christopher, and Jacqueline Eales, eds. The Culture of English Puritanism, 1560–1700. New York: St. Martin’s, 1996.
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An important collection of essays by leading authorities, exploring such subjects as Puritan religious culture and the festive calendar (Patrick Collinson), the Puritan deathbed (Ralph Houlbrooke), Puritans and the church courts (Martin Ingram), Puritan identity formation (Peter Lake), and the influence of puritanism on later movements of dissent (John Spurr).
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Fincham, Kenneth, ed. The Early Stuart Church, 1603–1642. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan, 1993.
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Focusing on the Jacobean church, contributions study radical Puritans and their demands for sweeping change; moderate Puritans; conformist Calvinists committed to the national church; and anti-Calvinists who criticized doctrines of predestination and other theological matters. For Fincham in his introduction, it was the conformist Calvinists and Puritans who dominated the church at this time.
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Knoppers, Laura Lunger. Puritanism and Its Discontents. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2003.
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Ten essays that explore transatlantic puritanism across religion, politics, and culture, focusing on the manner in which the movement was created out of conflict and itself reflected and, in many respects, fed upon discontent. Essays by such prominent scholars as John Morrill (Puritanism in the English Revolution), Margo Todd (anti-Calvinism in Cambridge), and others.
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Lake, Peter, and Michael Questier, eds. Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church, c. 1560–1660. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2000.
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The expression of conformity or nonconformity in the English church as established by the 1559 settlement is the subject of these various essays by Alexandra Walsham, Pauline Croft, Kenneth Fincham, Nicholas Tyacke, and others.
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McGregor, J. F., and Barry Reay, eds. Radical Religion in the English Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.
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An enlightening collection of essays that explores the influence of politics on religious radicalism and of religious radicalism on politics. Essays by Christopher Hill, G. E. Aylmer, Bernard Capp, and the editors of the volume.
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Pennington, D. H., and Keith V. Thomas, eds. Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
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Useful essays on such topics as the Puritan-inspired Adultery Act of 1650 (by Keith Thomas), the democratic experience of the gathered churches in the 1640s (Brian Manning), and the “honest radicals” who gained power during the civil war in the counties (David Underdown). Individual Puritans are also examined.
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Data Sources
The digitization of sources and records specifically relating to religion in early modern England is still in its infancy, but the following sites contain valuable material that may direct the student to further research. Early English Books Online (EEBO) is an essential resource for all researchers of early modern England, with the writings of Puritans and other religious groups well represented. It is only available by subscription, however. By contrast, Puritan Library is a less scholarly source, but one that provides easily accessible links to the full texts of Puritan writings. British History Online, sponsored by the Institute for Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust, is also very useful, though its records tend to lean toward official documents. Finally, the Bibliography of British and Irish History is useful in its searchable listings of all books and articles that have been written on a particular subject up to the present day.
Bibliography of British and Irish History.
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Previously the Royal Historical Society (RHS) Bibliography, the Bibliography of British and Irish History is a searchable database of more than 518,000 bibliographic records, updated three times a year and containing the most recent contributions to the field. Available by subscription only.
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British History Online.
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A digital library of primary and secondary sources, created by the Institute of Historical Research and the History of Parliament Trust. The early modern period is well represented not only by state papers, but also by ecclesiastical and religious records as well as regional material.
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Early English Books Online.
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The definitive website for early modern English titles, presented in facsimile format and culled from such sources as the Short-Title Catalogue (1475–1640), Wing’s Short-Title Catalogue (1641–1700), and the Thomason Tracts (1640–1661). Available by subscription only.
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Puritan Library.
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A comprehensive storehouse of classic Puritan works available online, by authors such as Richard Sibbes, Thomas Watson, John Owen, and others. Sermons are heavily represented and available in their entirety.
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Journals
Articles relating to the Puritan or dissenting tradition are covered in the major journals, with many containing lively historiographical debates or review essays relating to particular topics. Albion, now merged into the Journal of British Studies, published many important articles that should be consulted, while the Journal of Ecclesiastical History covers some aspect of early modern English religious history in each issue (though general articles on the Reformation have tended to overtake radical religion or puritanism in recent years). Past and Present is important for its articles offering important new directions in the field as well as essays arguing with existing theses or assumptions, with Historical Journal also presenting sometimes contentious contributions. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society is significant, particularly for the review of the field by senior scholars. For specialized studies, Recusant History has contributed greatly to the study not only of recusancy, but also to early modern Catholicism in general, while Quaker History provides valuable coverage of Quakerism across history and continents, though with valuable articles relating to the first decades as well.
Albion. 1969–2005.
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Now incorporated into the Journal of British Studies (University of Chicago Press), Albion’s archives contain many important articles relating to the subject of Puritans, dissenters, or radical groups. Published by the North American Conference on British Studies.
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Historical Journal. 1958–.
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Published by Cambridge University Press, and particularly strong on review essays and important articles initiating new debates in the field.
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Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 1950–.
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Publishes on all aspects of the Christian church throughout history, but with each issue devoted nearly always to one article on early modern England. Particularly noteworthy articles on puritanism.
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Past and Present. 1952–.
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Oxford University Press’s journal covering all aspects of world and British history, with excellent coverage of early modern religion (and the debates about religion). Important articles published in the past on Quakers and other radical groups.
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Quaker History. 1906–.
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Peer-reviewed journal published by the Friends Historical Association, with contributions relating to Quaker history, literature, and themes such as social justice and education. With book reviews and historiographical essays.
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Recusant History. 1951–.
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The twice-yearly journal of the Catholic Record Society, Recusant History was first published in 1951, and it continues to offer a range of articles on recusants as well as other facets of English Catholicism from the early modern period through the modern age. Includes literary essays.
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Transactions of the Royal Historical Society. 1872–.
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Presents the work of new and established scholars, and particularly strong on overviews or reviews on the state of the field written by leading authorities of their subjects.
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Puritans
Though puritanism can be roughly defined as a movement advocating for the furtherance of Protestant reform within the English church as it was established in 1559, few historians agree on much beyond that. Puritans themselves could range from moderate or conformist, which meant working within the boundaries of the existing church; or they could assume more radical stances that sought to change the current church into an altogether new kind of national entity. But many points existed in between, in addition to yet another category of disillusioned Puritans who wished to separate from the church altogether (the earliest such churches being the Brownists and Barrowists). Calvinism, with its tenets of predestinarianism, would become a characteristic of many Puritan tendencies, as would an emphasis on preaching and the literalness of the Bible; but again, small differences of belief could drive individuals apart, even if the movement, as some historians have asserted, was now part of the mainstream of the church. Meanwhile, authorities, including archbishops (and, with the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, the King himself), attempted to control or direct the controversies that arose, even if, like Archbishop Edmund Grindal, they held Puritan leanings themselves. By the time of Archbishop Laud in the 1630s, however, traditional and sacramental ceremonialism would be reimposed, leading to tensions that contributed to the civil war in the next decade.
DEFINITIONS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Much of the historiography on Puritans centers simply on the word Puritan, which originated as a hostile term directed by outsiders toward certain dissenters within the established church. Puritans would have referred to themselves as the godly or the elect, which many subsequent historians have used as well. Finlayson 1973 provides a good overview of the term’s libelous origins, with Collinson 1980 also adding that it was difficult to distinguish the term—and those to whom it referred—from other Protestants. Lake 1993 contributes to the debate by attempting to take into account other facets of the movement, as does Hall 1965, which is an earlier contribution. For more general treatments of the historiographical debate, Greaves 1985 is the best and most comprehensive treatment, with George 1968 extending back to the longer reach of the 19th and early 20th centuries. Finally, Baskerville 2000 adds the perspective of the revisionist historians of the 1980s onward.
Baskerville, Stephen K. “Puritans, Revisionists, and the English Revolution.” Huntington Library Quarterly 61.2 (2000): 151–171.
DOI: 10.2307/3817796Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A judicious assessment of the implications of revisionist historiography for the study of 17th-century puritanism. If revisionism overturned older whiggish or Marxist models to account for the conflicts of the mid-20th century, revisionist historians’ presentation of the Puritan movement and religious radicalism in general also was downplayed or shunted to the side, at some cost to historical understanding.
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Collinson, Patrick. “A Comment: Concerning the Name Puritan.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 31 (1980): 483–488.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900044791Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A very brief essay by Puritan’s leading historian, serving as a reminder that Puritan was a term wielded by pejorative outsiders such as ecclesiastical officials (toward nonconformist clergy) or playwrights rather than any sort of objective or self-descriptive category.
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Finlayson, Michael G. “Puritanism and Puritans: Labels or Libels?” Canadian Journal of History 8 (1973): 203–223.
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A still-useful essay that questions the use of the term Puritan, as it may obstruct understanding of a movement that actually consisted of a spectrum of thought and action.
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George, Charles H. “Puritanism as History and Historiography.” Past and Present 41 (1968): 133–146.
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An older yet very useful critical overview of the historiography that has dominated study of the Puritan movement from the beginning, including contemporary interpretations ranging from that of S. R. Gardiner in the 19th century to the modern influence of psychology, German sociology, and Marxism on analytical approaches to the subject.
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Greaves, Richard L. “The Puritan Non-conformist Tradition in England, 1560–1700: Historiographical Reflections.” Albion 17 (1985): 449–486.
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A superb and comprehensive survey of the lively if tangled historiographical tradition behind puritanism, including problems of taxonomy and definition, debates over the distinction between Puritans and Anglicans, points of consensus and opposition, and the link between theology and religious experience. Attention is also paid to Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers.
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Hall, Basil. “Puritanism: The Problem of Definition.” In Studies in Church History. Vol. 2. Edited by G. Cuming, 237–254. Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson, 1965.
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Another essay that problematizes the word Puritan, in matters of definition, particularly in terms of the movement’s diverse identities.
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Lake, Peter. “Defining Puritanism: Again?” In Puritanism: Transatlantic Perspectives on a Seventeenth Century Anglo-American Faith. Edited by Francis J. Bremer, 3–29. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1993.
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Lake joins the taxonomic debate by attempting to construct a new description of puritanism that takes into account the sociopolitical and well as religious identity of the movement. Useful for its engagement with the historiography.
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GENERAL STUDIES
The subject of puritanism continues to elicit a number of studies and debates, and though the arguments made in some of the following studies have been disputed, they nevertheless contain important points on which later works have been based. Two classic works included here areGeorge and George 1961, which critiques Max Weber’s assertions regarding puritanism and capitalism, while adding its own Marxist perspective; also important is Miller 1983, which dominated the field of New England puritanism for much of the 20th century, and is useful for the student of English puritanism to consult, particularly regarding the subject of origins. Collinson 1982 captures the author’s primary arguments regarding puritans, and Collinson 1983 is a fine sample of the author’s important essays. Adair 1998 is a useful general account of the subject and the debates it has provoked, while Marsh 1998 takes stock of popular responses to these groups. Finally, Coffey 2008 takes the narrative forward in assessing the relationship of Puritans to evangelicals of later centuries, as does Wallace 2011, which explores Calvinists in the wake of the Restoration.
Adair, John. Puritans: Religion and Politics in Seventeenth-Century England and America. 2d ed. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998.
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A comprehensive narrative account of the Puritan story as it began during the reign of Elizabeth and continued through the political turbulence of 17th-century England and the establishment of godly communities in America. Puritan ideas are placed in their political and historical context, and their longer-term influence is given a deep assessment.
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Coffey, John. “Puritanism, Evangelicalism and Evangelical Protestant Tradition.” In Advent of Evangelicalism: Exploring Historical Continuities. Edited by Michael A. G. Haykin and Kenneth J. Stewart, 255–261. Nashville: B & H Academic, 2008.
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Takes issue with common assertions of difference between 17th-century Puritans and 18th-century evangelicals, particularly as such arguments fail to account for the dynamism and diversity that actually existed in the Puritan movement, which contained many common tendencies with what came after.
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Collinson, Patrick. The Religion of Protestants: The Church of England Society, 1559–1625. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982.
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Based on the Ford lectures, this work offers a representative sample of the arguments by a leading scholar of puritanism. Most notably, Collinson argues that godly magistrates and Calvinist bishops, contrary to being countercultural figures, were a consensual part of the establishment under James, just as puritanism constituted a genuinely popular religion in England until Laud destroyed that consensus in the 1630s.
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Collinson, Patrick. Godly People: Essays on English Protestantism and Puritanism. London: Hambledon, 1983.
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Includes a number of Collinson’s essays appearing elsewhere on such topics as popular Protestantism; godly ministers Thomas Wood, John Field, and Edward Dering; women and the Reformation; the stranger churches; Archbishop Grindal’s downfall; local studies of Kent and Suffolk; and the early dissenting tradition.
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George, Charles H., and Katherine George. The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation, 1570–1640. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1961.
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An authoritative, Marxist-influenced work on English Protestantism, critiquing Max Weber’s “spirit of capitalism” thesis by citing, for example, instances of clerical sanctions against usury and claiming that Weber generally upheld abstractions at the expense of historical realities. The relations of Puritans with non-Puritans inside and outside the Church of England are also explored.
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Marsh, Christopher. Popular Religion in Sixteenth-Century England. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.
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An excellent survey that assesses popular responses to the Reformation and the religious changes that grew out of it. The historiography on the subject is extensively engaged, and reactions to puritanism are given some consideration alongside other religious movements and developments.
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Miller, Perry. The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1983.
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Though covering the American experience, Miller’s magisterial work sets about “defining and classifying the principal concepts of the puritan mind in New England, [and] of accounting for the origins, inter-relations, and significance of the ideas” (p. vii). In terms of England, Miller argues that prior to Arminianism, the Church of England was uniformly Presbyterian and Calvinist—an assertion that would be disputed by later historians.
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Wallace, Dewey D. Shapers of English Calvinism, 1660–1714: Variety, Persistence, and Transformation. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011.
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A recent contribution that explores English Calvinists in the wake of the Restoration, particularly as they were caught between church, dissent, and the emerging secular culture of the Enlightenment. Connections and continuities with Calvinists of previous decades are emphasized.
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PURITANS, 1553–1603
The following studies are important in assessing the movement between the 16th and 17th centuries and as it responded to particular historical moments within that time frame. Garrett 2010 is important in its census of Marian exiles, who partook of continental reformed ideas and began to form a communal identity in the years before Elizabeth. Collinson 2004 is a landmark work that examines the ideas and conflicts that informed puritanism under Elizabeth, with Collinson 1994 providing studies of different topics relating to the subject. Collinson takes issue with Haller 1984, thoughHaller 1984 is still useful in its inclusion of source materials and comments. Knappen 1939 is another early yet classic study that brings in many theological ideas. Lake 1982 builds on, and departs from, Collinson in its exploration of Cambridge Puritans, and Lake 1988 also looks at polemical writings in its attempt to understand Presbyterians and conformists within the church. Finally, Haigh 1977 uses the case of Lancashire to examine the impact of Puritan evangelism on the local population.
Collinson, Patrick. Elizabethan Essays. London: Hambledon, 1994.
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Another collection of stimulating essays from the leading scholar of English puritanism and Protestantism more generally. Topics include John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Puritans and Elizabethan parliaments, gender, and the contributions of other historians of the subject.
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Collinson, Patrick. The Elizabethan Puritan Movement. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004.
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An essential study of the Puritan movement from 1558 to 1603, focusing on such topics as the Vestarian conflict, the prophesying movement, and the administration of Archbishop Grindal as well as the opposing voices (including that of the Queen) to the movement. Originally published in 1967.
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Garrett, Christina H. The Marian Exiles: A Study in the Origins of Elizabethan Puritanism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511707957Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A classic work, first published in 1938, useful for its census and discussion of Protestants who fled to the Continent during the Catholic reign of Mary I (1553–1558), and the manner in which many of them were exposed to, ideas that would feed into, the Puritan movement under Elizabeth.
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Haigh, Christopher. “Puritan Evangelism in the Reign of Elizabeth I.” English Historical Review 92 (1977): 30–58.
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Surveys the impact of Puritan evangelism on the parishes of Lancashire, including the practical problems in spreading the godly message in a region still heavily Catholic. For Haigh, “In the absence of a satisfactory disciplinary structure, preaching and catechizing were the weapons available for conscientious ministers to convert the Catholics . . . and attract the ungodly to the ways of the Lord” (p. 31).
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Haller, William. The Rise of Puritanism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984.
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Originally published in 1938. A dated work but still classic, and useful for the source materials (including diaries and autobiographies) as well as the manner in which Haller brings to life the voices of Puritans.
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Knappen, M. M. Tudor Puritanism: A Chapter in the History of Idealism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939.
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An early yet important volume that traces the movement up to 1603, combining a narrative of the early development of puritanism (including its internationalism) and controversies during Elizabeth’s reign, before providing an analysis of Puritan views toward predestination, Sabbatarianism, devotional life, and the authority of the Bible.
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Lake, Peter. Moderate Puritans and the Elizabethan Church. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511560682Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A seminal study of Cambridge-based Puritans such as Edward Dering, Thomas Cartwright, Laurence Chaderton, and others. Lake argues against puritanism as an opposition movement within the official church, but he also explores the points of conflict that could and did erupt from within.
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Lake, Peter. Anglicans and Puritans? Presbyterianism and English Conformist Thought from Whitgift to Hooker. Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1988.
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An investigation of the conflict between Presbyterians and “conformists” within the Puritan movement and centering on issues of the visible and invisible church, popish ceremonies, and other matters. The polemical writings of Thomas Cartwright and John Whitgift are examined, as is the demise of Presbyterians in the wake of the Hampton Court Conference of 1604.
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PURITANS, 1603–1660
Puritans of whatever proclivity were behind the dramatic developments of the 17th century, beginning with the changes taking place in the church under James. The extent to which Puritans contributed to the civil wars of the 1640s—with Haller 1955 stating that the conflict’s origins extended back to Elizabeth—has been questioned, however, by revisionists, who have been challenged in turn. Como and Lake 2000 provides a useful analysis of the “construction” of orthodoxy and consensus between Puritans, while Hill 1997b explores the kind of individuals who gravitated to the movement. Hill 1997a (first published in 1958) is a study of the subsequent contribution of the Puritans to the revolution, particularly through their status as a propertied class, with Lamont 1969attending to the political ideas of Puritans in the revolutionary years. Liu 1973 examines the role of millennialism in the mainstream of Puritan thought during the revolution, and Hill 1971 the idea of Antichrist and the part it played in animating Puritan and radical sentiment. For an excellent synthesis of Puritans in this period, and the historiography about it, students should consult Spurr 1998.
Como, David R., and Peter Lake. “‘Orthodoxy’ and Its Discontents: Dispute Settlement and the Production of ‘Consensus’ in the London (Puritan) ‘Underground.’” Journal of British Studies 39 (2000): 34–70.
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Addresses the subject of internecine Puritan debate and the manner in which, according to the authors, “the godly in the capital tried . . . to control and ameliorate their in-house doctrinal disputes,” constructing a kind of “consensus” or “orthodoxy” in the process (p. 34). The London Puritan underground provides the focus for the authors in elucidating their thesis.
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Haller, William. Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution. New York: Columbia University Press, 1955.
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Following his Rise of Puritanism (New York: Harper, 1938), Haller traces the development of Puritan thought in the tumultuous period from 1640 to 1649, and the manner in which Puritans responded to crisis, and, in the process, formulated their own notions of natural law, contract, and the ends of government.
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Hill, Christopher. The Antichrist in Seventeenth Century England. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
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Based on Hill’s Riddell Lectures, this volume explores 17th-century Puritan millennialism and the association of the papacy and prelacy with the Antichrist. The class overtones of the concept, particularly among political and religious radicals, are also explored.
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Hill, Christopher. Puritanism and the Revolution: Studies in the Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997a.
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A classic work first published in 1958, making the case for puritanism as a distinct movement that emphasized sermons, Sabbatarianism, godly discipline and the household, all of which appealed to the urban propertied classes. Hill’s contribution is to provide a vast (if ideologically fraught) framework of social history behind these claims, with an impressive array of evidence to render the Puritan’s world in vivid detail.
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Hill, Christopher. Society and Puritanism in Pre-revolutionary England. New York: St. Martin’s, 1997b.
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An examination of what Hill considers to be the “middling men” or the “industrious sort of people” in town and country who gravitated to puritanism, particularly with its emphasis on preaching. Puritan attitudes toward the poor, and the manner in which issues such as Sabbatarianism served their class interests, are explored in detail.
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Lamont, William. Godly Rule, Politics and Religion, 1603–1660. New York: Macmillan, 1969.
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An investigation of Puritan ideas regarding civil power and jurisdiction as well as Puritan ambitions for national regeneration in the years from 1640 to 1660.
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Liu, Tai. Discord in Zion: The Puritan Divines and the Puritan Revolution, 1640–1660. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1973.
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A study of Puritan millennialism which argues that it constituted the mainstream of Puritan thought, shared between the Independents and Presbyterians until they would become divided over the nature of that vision; the conflict in the Westminster Assembly was therefore essentially eschatological, Liu asserts.
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Spurr, John. English Puritanism, 1603–1689. New York: St. Martin’s, 1998.
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An excellent synthesis that focuses on the response of ordinary English people of all social groups to the bourgeoning movement. Includes an extensive discussion of the term Puritan, followed by explorations of Calvinist theology, the Puritan way of life, and the public positions assumed by Puritans from Elizabeth onward.
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CLERGY, CHURCH, AND STATE
The relationship of Puritans to the “mainstream” of the early Jacobean church (with historians such as Collinson asserting that they were, in fact, the mainstream) has been the subject of some examination. New 1964 is an important study that delineates the divisions that existed between Puritans and Anglicans—another problematic term—within the church, with Christianson 1984seeking to complicate such distinctions. Lake 1987 focuses simply on the Puritans and the manner in which they were deemed to share a “Calvinist consensus.” The emergence of figures such as Archbishop Laud, and the Arminian theology and ceremonialism he brought with him, disrupted the consensus within and between puritanism and other groups, which for Tyacke 1987 led to the civil war. Atkins 1986, however, refutes this thesis. Studies of the godly clergy are particularly illuminating in understanding these various issues. Webster 1997 is a significant work that explores how Puritan clergy met the challenges of Laud and others; Seaver 1970 describes the manner in which Puritan messages were disseminated through the institution of the lectureship. Activities and networks of Puritan clergy were not limited to England, however, as pointed out in Bremer 1994.
Atkins, Jonathan M. “Calvinist Bishops, Church Unity and the Rise of Arminianism.” Albion18.3 (1986): 411–427.
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Examines the emergence of Arminianism in the 1620s, while refuting the thesis of Tyacke 1987 that predestination was a doctrine commonly shared by Puritans and the Jacobean church earlier on.
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Bremer, Francis J. Congregational Communion: Clerical Friendship in the Anglo-American Puritan Community, 1610–1692. Boston: Northwestern University Press, 1994.
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An important work that has shaped recent research in its emphasis on the transatlantic connections, arguing that the movement was nourished by “friends helping friends,” as they “[relied] upon each other’s assistance to sustain and nourish their faith” in international communion (pp. 233–234).
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Christianson, Paul. “Reformers and the Church of England under Elizabeth I and the Early Stuarts.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 463–482.
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Explores the origins of the categories “Puritan” and “Anglican,” attempting to modify the terms to better fit historical, political, social, and religious realities. Particularly engages with questions concerning the boundaries that did or did not exist between Anglicans and Puritans.
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Lake, Peter. “Calvinism and the English Church, 1570–1635.” Past and Present 114 (1987): 32–76.
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Complicating the accepted idea of a “Calvinist consensus” that prevailed in the Jacobean church, Lake makes the case for a more heterogeneous and not necessarily uniform Calvinism among Puritans—a Calvinist “hegemony,” in other words, though not necessarily a Calvinist “monopoly” (p. 34). Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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New, John F. H. Anglicans and Puritans: The Basis of Their Opposition, 1558–1640. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1964.
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Argues for a distinct theological division between Anglicans and Puritans in the later 16th and 17th centuries, their differences residing not only in matters of religious authority and ceremony, but also in fundamental “metaphysical presuppositions,” including the nature of grace and the deeper meanings of the sacraments.
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Seaver, Paul S. The Puritan Lectureships: The Politics of Religious Dissent, 1560–1662. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1970.
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An examination of the institution of the Puritan lectureship, or an arrangement in which godly lecturers were paid to deliver sermons. The financing of the institution, the men who delivered the sermons, and church and state efforts to bring the lectureships under control are some of the topics extensively treated.
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Tyacke, Nicholas. Anti-Calvinists: The Rise of English Arminianism, c. 1590–1640. Oxford: Clarendon, 1987.
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An essential work that presents Tyacke’s important thesis regarding the conflicts that arose in the 1620s, as Arminians, or those who adhered to innovations in doctrine and ceremonial practices, disrupted the consensus that had largely prevailed until then, significantly contributing to the outbreak of conflict in the 1640s.
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Webster, Tom. Godly Clergy in Early Stuart England: The Caroline Puritan Movement, c. 1620–1643. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583186Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A detailed and important analysis of the networks and pious practices of godly clergy during the time of Charles I, and the manner in which Puritans offered sometimes aggressive resistance to Archbishop Laud and his followers.
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REGIONAL STUDIES
The regional studies that proliferated in the late 1960s and continued through the 1970s and 1980s were essential in contributing to an understanding of puritanism, dissent, and Catholicism across various counties in England. Based on parish, diocesan, and municipal records, these works illuminated both local and national history, revealing patterns as well as exceptions across a variety of religious practices and beliefs. Cliffe 1969 is a classic study of Yorkshire, which students should also consult for what it has to say about Catholics; Howell 1967 investigates Newcastle upon Tyne, and Hunt 1983 examines the situation in Essex. Reynolds 2005, meanwhile, takes on Norwich, andRichardson 1972 covers the Puritans in the diocese of Chester. Sheils 1979 is also a classic study, in this case of Northampton. Conflict between groups is captured in MacCulloch 1981, in the case of the Puritans and Catholics of Suffolk, and in Richardson 1972 with the Anglican establishment attempting to enforce its will over recusants. Finally, Marchant 1960 focuses on the groups, including the Quakers, in the diocese of York.
Cliffe, J. T. The Yorkshire Gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War. London: Athlone, 1969.
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The first of a triptych (see also The Puritan Gentry: The Great Puritan Families of Early Stuart England [London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984], and The Puritan Gentry Besieged, 1650–1700[London: Routledge, 1993]), this heavily documented work explores a social group across three or four generations, arguing in part that it was not simply the middling classes—as traditionally asserted—that were religiously affiliated with puritanism.
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Howell, R. Newcastle upon Tyne and the Puritan Revolution: A Study of the Civil War in North England. Oxford: Clarendon, 1967.
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A detailed investigation of the political and economic as well as religious life of the community, emphasizing the heterogeneous nature of puritanism in that area and across classes.
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Hunt, William. The Puritan Movement: The Coming of Revolution in an English County. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983.
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A significant contribution to puritanism through the lens of regional studies, in this case Essex, utilizing an abundance of records and placing the subject under extensive socioeconomic, religious, and political scrutiny.
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Marchant, R. A. Puritans and the Church Courts in the Diocese of York, 1560–1642. London: Longmans, 1960.
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Working from extensive diocesan records, Marchant scrutinizes the workings of the church courts in the diocese of York and the Puritans or more radical groups that intersected with, or fell under, the purview of the courts.
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MacCulloch, Diarmaid. “Catholic and Puritan in Elizabethan Suffolk: A County Community Polarizes.” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 72 (1981): 232–289.
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Traces the manner in which one county shifted from being powerfully and traditionally Catholic to broadly accepting Puritan ideals and the conflicts between the groups that ensued throughout Elizabeth’s reign.
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Reynolds, Matthew. Godly Reformers and Their Opponents in Early Modern England: Religion in Norwich, c. 1560–1643. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2005.
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An investigation, utilizing a range of municipal, diocesan, and parochial sources, of puritanism in the major city of Norwich, with extensive attention also paid to local opponents of the godly such as Samuel Harsnett and Matthew Wren.
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Richardson, R. C. Puritanism in North-West England: A Regional Study of the Diocese of Chester to 1642. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1972.
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An exemplary local history arguing that Puritans in the diocese of Chester had a different experience with the Anglican establishment than those of their brethren to the south, due, in part, to the challenge of recusancy in their midst.
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Sheils, W. J. The Puritans in the Diocese of Peterborough, 1558–1610. Publications of the Northamptonshire Record Society. Vol. 30. Northampton, UK: Northamptonshire Record Society, 1979.
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A meticulous study of provincial puritanism, particularly as it related to the movement on a national level. Sheils emphasizes the strength and persistence of puritanism, particularly in the town of Northampton, where it was accepted by all sectors of society.
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INDIVIDUAL PURITANS AND ANTI-PURITANS
The following secondary sources are by no means comprehensive, though they represent some of the finer recent studies of individual puritans. Students may wish to consult the works of Samuel Clarke (b. 1599–d. 1683) for a series of contemporary portraits of godly clergy and laymen and women. Collinson 1979 is a classic study of the Elizabethan archbishop Edmund Grindel, whose Puritan sympathies led to his downfall; Holland 1994 provides a biographical treatment of another archbishop, George Abbott, and his own stance toward nonconformity. Biographies of notable Puritans include Cross 1967, a standard account of the third Earl of Huntingdon, and Eales 1990, which examines the Harleys of Brampton Bryan. Puritan writers or apologists are treated in Lake 1985, for William Bradshaw; Pearson 1925, for Thomas Cartwright; Knox 1962, for Walter Travers; and Spalding 1975, for Bulstrode Whitelocke.
Collinson, Patrick. Archbishop Grindal, 1519–1583: The Struggle for a Reformed Church. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.
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A largely favorable portrait of Elizabeth’s “godly pastor” and archbishop, from the international theological influences that shaped him, the ministry he promoted, the institutional frameworks in which he was embedded, and the political circumstances that facilitated his downfall.
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Cross, Claire. The Puritan Earl: The Life of Henry Hastings, Third Earl of Huntingdon, 1536–95. London: Macmillan, 1967.
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A valuable biography of Hastings and his persistent efforts to instill puritanism in the region through the sponsorship of preachers, the persecution of Catholics (in his capacity as president of the Council of the North), and other godly acts of enforcement.
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Eales, Jacqueline. Puritans and Roundheads: The Harleys of Brampton Bryan and the Outbreak of the English Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
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Not only an examination of the causes behind the outbreak of the English civil war, but a fine study of a deeply Puritan Herefordshire family dominated by Sir Robert Harley and his wife, Lady Brilliana Harley. Relations between the Harleys and Puritan churchmen in the 1620s and 1630s are investigated as are their fervent beliefs in their defense of the “true religion.”
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Holland, S. “Archbishop Abbot and the Problem of ‘Puritanism.’” Historical Journal 37 (1994): 23–43.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00014680Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of Archbishop George Abbot’s approach to Puritan nonconformity, which was characterized not by laxness, as his critics contended, but by detachment, which allowed him to make distinctions between mild or dangerous threats to the church.
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Knox, S. J. Walter Travers, Paragon of Elizabethan Puritanism. London: Methuen, 1962.
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A good overview of the life and thought of the chief apologist (along with Thomas Cartwright) of Presbyterian puritanism. Travers’s experiences in Geneva, Cambridge, and Dublin (as provost of Trinity College) are documented in full.
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Lake, Peter. “William Bradshaw, Antichrist and the Community of the Godly.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 36 (1985): 570–589.
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An analysis of the moderate Puritan William Bradshaw in terms of larger questions regarding puritanism and the rhetoric of Antichrist; for Lake, Puritans did not distance themselves from the national church but only tied themselves closer to it through their writings regarding the popish threat.
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Pearson, A. F. S. Thomas Cartwright and Elizabethan Puritanism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1925.
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A very early portrait of the Cambridge Puritan, including his intellectual development, his exile, and his writings.
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Spalding, Ruth. The Improbable Puritan: A Life of Bulstrode Whitelocke, 1605–1675. London: Faber, 1975.
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A solid biographical treatment of the lawyer, member of Parliament, diplomat and Puritan, based on the extensive documents, including a diary, that he left behind.
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PURITAN THEOLOGY AND ECCLESIOLOGY
Puritan theology could encompass a number of diverse strains, but its Calvinist origins led it to embrace certain doctrines such as predestination, original sin, unconditional election, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the elect. Davies 1997 remains an excellent source for the study of Puritan theology, liturgy, and ecclesiology, while other studies focus more deeply on specific aspects of godly thought. Wallace 1982 is an excellent study by the leading authority on the subject of grace and predestination in Puritan (and Anglican) theology, with Pettit 1989 also providing an account of the Puritan conversion experience, with particular emphasis on grace. Parker 1988, meanwhile, looks at the importance of the Sabbath in Puritan practice, and Nuttall 1946 investigates the centrality of the Holy Spirit in Puritan as well as radical thought. Bozeman 2004 offers an analysis of the implications of these ideas for the historical development of the godly in England and New England.
Bozeman, Theodore Dwight. The Precisianist Strain: Disciplinary Religion and Antinomian Backlash in Puritanism to 1638. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004
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A heavily theological work that focuses on Puritan religious history in England and New England, including the antinomian controversy, matters of predestination, and the contributions of figures such as Richard Greenham.
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Davies, Horton. The Worship of the English Puritans. 2d ed. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria, 1997.
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A useful handbook that delineates points of Puritan theology, including its biblicism, attitudes toward prayer, psalmody, preaching, and the sacraments.
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Kendall, R. T. Calvin and English Calvinism to 1649. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979.
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Referring to Puritans as “experimental predestinarians,” Kendall argues that their Calvinism owed more to Theodore Beza than to Calvin, as evidenced in the writings of William Perkins, Richard Sibbes, and others. The Arminian controversy as well as points of theology, such as the doctrine of assurance, are examined.
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McGee, J. Sears. The Godly Man in Stuart England: Anglicans, Puritans, and the Two Tables, 1620–1670. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1976.
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An exploration of Anglicans and Puritans through the prism of the “Two Tables,” or Ten Commandments; parallels are drawn between the two groups, including their mutual preoccupation with visible signs of election, the importance they placed on charity, and the virtue of obedience to a godly ruler.
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Nuttall, Geoffrey. The Holy Spirit in Puritan Faith and Experience. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1946.
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An informative work that traces developments in Puritan thought, broadly defined to include more radical separatists, including Quakers. Focusing on the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the relation between the spirit and the word, Nuttall tracks the idea through a range of thinkers, preachers, and writers who wrestled with the doctrine’s many implications.
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Parker, Kenneth. The English Sabbath: A Study of Doctrine and Discipline from the Reformation to the Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511555305Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Discusses the origins and development of the English Sabbath, which was not a Puritan invention even if contemporaries such as Peter Heylyn and other Laudians claimed it to be so. This “fraudulent” (p. 216) association of Puritans with the doctrine is discussed at length.
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Pettit, Norman. The Heart Prepared: Grace and Conversion in Puritan Spiritual Life. 2d ed. Middleton, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
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A classic exposition of the Puritan conversion experience, including individuals questioning themselves about how they could best prepare for the reception of God’s grace. The writings of Zwingli and Calvin as well as the New England Puritan school of “preparationists” are discussed at length. Originally published in 1966.
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Wallace, Dewey D. Puritans and Predestination: Grace in English Protestant Theology. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.
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A thorough exposition by the leading authority on the subject of the role of grace and predestination in the development of Puritan and Anglican theology and church practice.
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RADICALISM, MILLENNIALISM, AND PROVIDENCE
Millennialism and radicalism have often been associated with mid-17th-century radicals and separatists, though Puritans displayed those tendencies as well. Como 2004 looks at the radical underground, with its antinomian and millennialist sympathies within the Puritan movement, whileLamont 1996 rejects the idea that the mainstream could hold any such proclivities. Solt 1958 also denies any sort of “revolutionary” element akin to that experienced in Calvin’s Geneva, though Solt 1959 describes the prevalence of antinomian thought among the chaplains in Cromwell’s army.Walzer 1982 not only asserts a revolutionary tendency among sectarians, but within the godly movement as well. Finally, Walsham 1998 explores an early case of messianism in Elizabethan England, with Walsham 1999 providing an overview of providential thinking among the Puritans and other religious movements of the early modern period.
Como, David R. Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in Pre-Civil War England. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
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One of the more important recent contributions to the study of puritanism, focusing on the radicals (or “antinomians”) embedded within the movement’s “underground.” In addition to tracing the theological justifications used to uphold radical ideas, Como also discusses the campaign against these sometimes shadowy figures, while engaging on a larger level with the claims made by scholars such as Christopher Hill and Patrick Collinson.
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Lamont, William. Puritanism and Historical Controversy. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1996.
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Drawing on his earlier studies of William Prynne, Richard Baxter, and Lodowicke Muggleton, Lamont argues that such figures did not seek freedom, liberty, and revolution (as the Tawney-Weber thesis had it) but were authority-respecting men who followed a communalist (as opposed to an acquisitive/capitalist) ethos, and one that also rejected any kind of antinomian millennialism.
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Solt, Leo. “Revolutionary Calvinist Parties in England under Elizabeth I and Charles I.”Church History 27 (1958): 234–239.
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Applies historian Robert Kingdon’s definition of “revolutionary Calvinism” in Geneva to the case of England, including its criteria of “synodical organization, noble leadership, and a resistance theory” (p. 234). In the end, however, Solt concludes that the connection between “revolutionary” Genevan and English Calvinists is negligible, given the more relatively accommodating nature of Puritans and the different historical conditions behind the civil war.
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Solt, Leo. Saints in Arms: Puritanism and Democracy in Cromwell’s Army. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1959.
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A short essay examining the radical sectarianism that ran through Cromwell’s army and which was particularly manifest in the chaplains, who shared a certain strain of anti-intellectualism and antinomianism in their thought.
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Walsham, Alexandra. “‘Frantick Hacket’: Prophecy, Sorcery, Insanity, and the Elizabethan Puritan Movement.” Historical Journal 41 (1998): 27–66.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X97007632Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A consideration of the Elizabethan false prophet–messiah William Hacket, and the manner in which his life and career illuminates the culture of illiterate and rural believers existing in the outer reaches of mainstream puritanism.
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Walsham, Alexandra. Providence in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
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Arguing that Puritans were simply a “hotter sort of providentialist,” Walsham sets out in this important work to argue that providentialism belonged to an emergent English and protestant national identity as it was shaped in the years from 1560 through 1640.
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Walzer, Michael. The Revolution of the Saints: A Study in the Origins of Radical Politics. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982.
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A controversial though well-argued work, asserting that Calvinists—not only English nonconformists, but also their Genevan, Swiss, Dutch, and Scottish counterparts—aimed for radical social reconstruction in pursuit of political ideals, in the manner of the Jacobins or Bolsheviks, and in doing so contributed to a process of modernization. Walzer, however, has been refuted by historians such as Conrad Russell.
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PURITAN ICONOCLASM
Much of what is known about the subject of Puritan iconoclasm is derived from hostile sources that sought to taint the godly as barbarous and revolutionary, particularly in the wake of the Laudian innovations and ceremonial impositions of the 1630s. Though many studies have focused on the subject of official and unofficial iconoclasm, students should begin with Aston 1988, a now-classic two-volume study tracing its history above and beyond puritanism; and Spraggon 2003, which emphasizes godly acts of destruction in the context of the civil war.
Aston, Margaret. England’s Iconoclasts. 2 Vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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A magisterial and learned two-volume survey of the theology, legal injunctions, and practice of iconoclasm in early modern England, including the participants involved on both sides. A huge range of sources are utilized, including but not limited to the writings of Puritans.
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Spraggon, Julie. Puritan Iconoclasm during the English Civil War. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 2003.
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An excellent study of iconoclasm and the attack on “innovations” during the 1640s. Attention is paid to parliamentary legislation as well as “official” and “unofficial” acts of image-breaking that were sanctioned (or not) by the military and the state.
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PURITAN PSYCHOLOGY AND SPIRITUAL EXAMINATION
The imperative on the part of the godly to undertake acts of spiritual self-examination has led to many studies of Puritan writings as they are seen to have influenced the emergence of a new kind of subjectivity in the early modern period. Webster 1996 provides an excellent analysis of spiritual journals, while Todd 1992 examines one particular journal and the conventions it deployed toward a Puritan identity formation. Taking another angle, Cohen 1986 explores the psychological aspects of the Puritan experience, and Stachniewski 1991 examines the inward experience of despair that emerged as the result of many such self-examinations.
Cohen, Charles L. God’s Caress: The Psychology of Puritan Religious Experience. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
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An exploration of the inner life of Puritans, and particularly the conversion experience, drawing on the psychological or anthropological works of Victor Turner, Clifford Geertz, and others. Cohen argues against scholars’ emphasis on the darker and anxious psychology of the Puritan and asserts, instead, that grace was the initiating drive toward a life of “love, joy and labor” (p. 13).
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Stachniewski, John. The Persecutory Imagination: English Puritanism and the Literature of Religious Despair. Oxford: Clarendon, 1991.
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A consideration of the manner in which unease over the doctrine of election impacted Puritan subjectivities, with analysis of such writers as John Bunyan, and extensive readings on the influence of Calvinist ideas on such disparate figures as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Browne, Richard Burton, and John Milton.
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Todd, Margo. “Puritan Self-Fashioning: The Diary of Samuel Ward.” Journal of British Studies31.3 (1992): 236–264.
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An examination of the diary of a young Cambridge Puritan, not only placing it within its literary context, but also interrogating its composition, style, and rhetoric.
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Webster, Tom. “Writing to Redundancy: Approaches to Spiritual Journals and Early Modern Spirituality.” Historical Journal 39 (1996): 33–56.
DOI: 10.1017/S0018246X00020665Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Explores the genre of the Puritan diary, conjoining the literary and historical approaches deployed by previous scholars of the subject. Close reading of the texts is followed by analysis of their relation to the literature of practical divinity; the article is also useful for the citations of existing literature on the subject.
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WOMEN
Godly women were notable presences in English Puritan history, even if an emphasis on spiritual egalitarianism conflicted with gender expectations and their subordinate social status. Willen 1992takes a broader view in exploring the place of women and gender in puritanism, and Brown 2001discusses the acceptability and unacceptability of what godly women were allowed to do and say both theologically and as women. Como 1998 explores similar themes while also asserting women’s central place in the movement. Eales 1990 examines those writings of Samuel Clarke in which his own views on gender are revealed, with Botonaki 1999 focusing on women’s spiritual diaries. In more overtly literary treatments, Kusunoki 1992 seeks out representations of, and statements about, godly women across a variety of genres, and Moore 1998 investigates gendered assumptions in conventions underlying Puritan rhetoric.
Botonaki, Effie. “Seventeenth-Century Englishwomen’s Spiritual Diaries.” Sixteenth Century Journal 30.1 (1999): 3–21.
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Botonaki examines women’s spiritual diaries as they related to the Puritan imperative toward self-examination, emphasizing the tensions that could ensue between their subsequent empowerment and the directives of the male-authored manuals they were expected to follow.
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Brown, Sylvia. “The Eloquence of the Word and the Spirit: The Place of Puritan Women’s Writings in Old and New England.” In Women and Religion in Old and New Worlds. Edited by Susan E. Dinan and Debra Meyers. New York: Routledge, 2001.
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Argues that “women’s words intersected in more complicated ways with religious orthodoxy and radicalism” (p. 189) as it explores the manner in which godly women’s words were deemed acceptable or unacceptable, and the local contexts that made such determinations so.
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Como, David R. “Women, Prophecy, and Authority in Early Stuart Puritanism.” Huntington Library Quarterly 61.2 (1998): 203–222.
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An exploration of the central place of women in 17th-century Puritan culture and the nature of their participation in the movement, from their interaction with male counterparts to the assertion of their own voices in the spiritually egalitarian yet still patriarchal movement. Focuses especially on the godly prophetess and writer Anne Fenwick.
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Eales, Jacqueline. “Samuel Clarke and the ‘Lives’ of Godly Women in Seventeenth-Century England.” In Studies in Church History. Vol. 27, Women in the Church. Edited by W. J. Sheils and Diana Wood, 365–376. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1990.
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Studies the Puritan biographer of the godly and what he had to write about pious women, most notably his wife Kathryn, and what this revealed about notions and expectations of gender.
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Kusunoki, Akiko. “‘Their Testament at Their Apron-Strings’: The Representation of Puritan Women in Early Seventeenth-Century England.” In Gloriana’s Face: Women, Public and Private, in the English Renaissance. Edited by S. P. Cerasano and Marion Wynne-Davies, 185–204. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1992.
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Examines the relationship between women and puritanism in early-17th-century England, both positive and negative, from the perspective of men and women. Representations of women, and women’s speech, on stage are also explored.
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Moore, Susan Hardman. “Sexing the Soul: Gender and the Rhetoric of Puritan Piety.” InStudies in Church History. Vol. 34, Gender and Christian Religion. Edited by R. N. Swanson, 175–186. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1998.
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An astute study of the gendered use of rhetoric in Puritan writings, including Puritan exegesis on the Song of Songs and other biblical or devotional works as well as godly writings on the quality of men’s and women’s souls.
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Willen, Diane. “Godly Women in Early Modern England: Puritanism and Gender.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43 (1992): 561–580.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900001962Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that puritanism interacted with ideas about gender in the 17th century, particularly in terms of the emphasis on individual experience, spiritual egalitarianism, literacy, and godly reciprocity.
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PURITANS, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY
The Puritan drive to reform culture and society elicited a number of often-hostile responses in turn.Underdown 1985 is the standard treatment of such responses in times of war, as it also describes elites’ attempts to reform society toward godly ends; Underdown 1992 then takes the story to the town of Dorchester, and one minister’s efforts to impose such reform. Spufford 1987 is also concerned with issues of social control, though it questions whether Puritans truly exerted such control. For its part, Durston 1985 raises the matter of the Puritans’ “war on Christmas,” while Goring 1983 discusses the godly attack on various popular culture practices. Finally, Seaver 1988 is an outstanding general study of one godly artisan’s life, including his relationship to the society around him.
Durston, Christopher. “‘Lords of Misrule’: The Puritan War on Christmas, 1642–1660.” History Today 35.12 (1985): 7–14.
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Addresses the Puritan “war” not only against Christmas, but also against other festivities, in the 16th and 17th centuries. For Durston, Christmas represented one of many “deep religious cleavage[s]” that would culminate in the civil war.
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Goring, Jeremy. Godly Exercises or the Devil’s Dance? Puritanism and Popular Culture in Pre-Civil War England. London: Dr. William’s Trust, 1983.
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A lecture on the sometimes-violent pre-1640 Puritan campaign against popular cultural practices such as the devil’s dance.
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Seaver, Paul. Wallington’s World: A Puritan Artisan in Seventeenth-Century England. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988.
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Explores the life and copious autobiographical writings of a 17th-century London artisan, focusing on his spirituality as well as his business practices, his network of friends, and his social world. The influence of Puritan preachers and teachers on Nehemiah Wallington is also extensively traced.
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Spufford, Margaret. “Puritanism and Social Control?” In Order and Disorder in Early Modern England. Edited by Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson, 41–57. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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An astute reconsideration of the common assumption that “village puritan elites” constituted a force of moral control and godly discipline over village societies, and a refutation of the idea that religion “[can solely] be equated with ‘social control’” (p. 57).
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Underdown, David. Revel, Riot and Rebellion: Popular Politics and Culture in England, 1603–1660. Oxford: Clarendon, 1985.
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A now-standard work that explores the theme of popular response to the upheavals of the 1640s, including that of the new parish elites who “wished to . . . reform society according to their own principles of order and godliness” (p. 40).
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Underdown, David. Fire from Heaven: Life in an English Town in the Seventeenth Century. London: HarperCollins, 1992.
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A portrait of the town of Dorchester and the efforts of a Puritan minister, John White, to carry out a program of conversion and godly reform during his tenure from 1605 to 1648. Not only educational programs, but also poor relief efforts and philanthropy are explored at length.
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PURITAN LEARNING AND SCIENCE
Beginning in the early years at Cambridge University, Puritans pursued highly developed fields of learning. Morgan 1986 is a useful overview of the intellectual context of the movement, while Todd 1987 elucidates its humanist origins. Puritanism has also been the center of a major debate concerning early modern science; originating with the sociologist Robert Merton in 1938, the thesis argues for a direct role played by puritanism in the emergence of modern experimental science and the scientific method in England. The terms of the thesis and its many critics can be found in Cohen, et al. 1990, while Webster 2002 makes a connection between Puritan millennialism and the new method originating with Francis Bacon.
Cohen, I. B., K. E. Duffin, and Stuart Strickland, eds. Puritanism and the Rise of Modern Science: The Merton Thesis. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990.
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A lengthy introduction followed by an overview of books and articles relating to the Merton thesis. Useful bibliography and an anthology of illustrative texts complete this valuable historiographical work.
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Morgan, John. Godly Learning: Puritan Attitudes towards Reason, Learning and Education, 1560–1640. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
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Placing “godly learning” in its larger intellectual context, Morgan elucidates Puritan writings regarding faith and reason, the value of learning, and educational reform and ministerial training.
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Todd, Margo. Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social Order. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
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Arguing not only that Puritan social thought had its origins in Christian humanism of the Erasmian variety, but also that Puritan theorists have to be viewed as “Christian humanists of the hotter sort” (p. 21), Todd proceeds to demonstrate her thesis through an astute reading of sources and specific cases across the 16th and 17th centuries.
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Webster, Charles. The Great Instauration: Science, Medicine, and Reform, 1626–1660. 2d ed. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2002.
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Working off the famous Merton thesis (in which the sociologist Robert Merton proposed a direct link between puritanism and science), Webster argues from the standpoint of Puritan millennialism for an influence on scientific and technological innovation, since improvement of earthly life would be required for the ushering in of the thousand-year period of prosperity and happiness.
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LITERATURE
Puritans and nonconformists are important in literature not only for their own contributions, as evidenced by Kaufmann 1966 and its study of Bunyan and other Puritan texts, but also for the extensive representations they were given across a range of genres. Most of these portrayals, of course, conveyed the dour and hypocritical Puritan, but Poole 2006 demonstrates how the godly, surprisingly, could also be depicted as lascivious as well as repressive. Puritans (or those who borrowed from Puritan oppositional ideas) could also, of course, themselves indulge in highly scathing, albeit sometimes masked, works of polemical intent, as Holden 1954 explores with Puritan satire, and Heinemann 1980 examines with theater. From the other end, Cambers 2011 provides a valuable recent study of the reading practices of the Puritans and the print culture in which they were embedded.
Cambers, Andrew. Godly Reading: Print, Manuscript, and Puritanism in England, 1580–1720. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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An examination of the place and practice of reading in the culture of 17th-century English puritanism, arguing for the ways in which godly reading itself constituted an oral and communal “religious engagement” with texts, as it also operated as a way to set the godly apart despite “overlap” with mainstream Protestant religion (p. 9).
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Heinemann, Margot. Puritanism and the Theatre: Thomas Middleton and Opposition Drama under the Early Stuarts. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511561160Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Focusing on the works of Thomas Middleton (and others), Heinemann explores the oppositional stance taken by playwrights and the direct or indirect critiques that were derived in part from the Puritans. Topics such as censorship, as well as a deep analysis of Middleton’s plays and pamphlets, are included.
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Holden, William. Anti-Puritan Satire, 1572–1642. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1954.
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Delving into the Marprelate controversy, Spenser’s religion, the Puritan aspects of Jacobean drama, and other topics, Holden, a literary historian, seeks to relate Puritan satire to the religious controversies of the time and the nature of satire itself.
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Kaufmann, Milo. The Pilgrim’s Progress and Traditions in Puritan Meditation. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1966.
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Relates the Pilgrim’s Progress to Puritan biblical exegesis and traditions of intellectual or heavenly meditation, in the manner of Joseph Hall or Richard Sibbes, respectively. Puritan attitudes and beliefs exerted an important influence on the development of techniques and themes in literature.
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Poole, Kristen. Radical Religion from Shakespeare to Milton: Figures of Nonconformity in Early Modern England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
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Upends the traditional notions of Puritans as being represented on stage and in literature as dour and repressive, arguing instead that there existed an alternative, hostile image in which they were satirically portrayed as licentious, sexually deviant, and carnivalesque.
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Dissenters
Extending across a wide range of belief systems, dissenters—also known as nonconformists—generally held in common their separation from the doctrine, discipline, and institutional structure of the Church of England. Historians have debated the extent to which separatist ideas had their origins in puritanism, especially when the former expressed a radical rejection of anything relating to the Elizabethan Settlement. But as with puritanism, ambiguity among and between dissenting groups tended to reign when it came to theological and ecclesiological differences. Christopher Hill contributed more than any historian to the study of such groups as the Ranters, the Quakers, or (more politically) the Levellers, with Bernard Capp offering a more extended study of the Fifth Monarchy Men. But one must also keep in mind the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, who also belong under the separatist umbrella and, with the Quakers, left perhaps a more enduring legacy, particularly in North America.
GENERAL STUDIES
Though dissenting groups could encompass so many different tendencies, a number of studies offer a comprehensive synthesis of their origins and development. White 1971 takes the story back to the underground churches of Mary I’s reign, with Watts 1978 also locating the movement’s origins in the 16th-century Reformation, and Brachlow 1988 providing a thorough account from 1570 onward.Lacey 1969 focuses on the specifically political and parliamentary activities of such groups in the 17th century, while Tolmie looks at the groups from the perspective of London churches, andHurwich 1977 does so from Coventry. As with Lacey 1969, Greaves 1986 provides an account of dissent in the early years of the Restoration, and Greaves 1990 later on. Finally, Watts 1978 takes the narrative up to the late 18th century.
Brachlow, Stephen. The Communion of Saints: Radical and Separatist Ecclesiology, 1570–1625. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988.
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An investigation of radical or separatist ecclesiology, or views of church governance, synodical authority, and the relationship between church and state. The convergence of Puritan Presbyterians and separatist congregational tendencies is emphasized, particularly in their common ecclesiological views.
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Greaves, Richard L. Deliver Us from Evil: The Radical Underground in Britain, 1660–1663. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986.
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An excellent and well-researched work that demonstrates the persistence of radical sectaries and republicans who conspired against the Restoration government and monarchy. The manner in which this “underground” undertook its various plots, and the government’s attempts to apprehend the danger, is given particularly effective treatment.
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Greaves, Richard L. Enemies under His Feet: Radicals and Nonconformists in Britain, 1664–1677. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1990.
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A sequel to Deliver Us from Evil, this book explores militant nonconformity in the later years of the century, continuing with the argument against a movement turned quiescent. The hopes of these nonconformists for a collapse of the regime, in light of the Anglo-Dutch War of 1664–1667, is one of the primary focuses of the study.
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Hurwich, Judith J. “‘A Fanatick Town’: The Political Influence of Dissenters in Coventry.”Midland History 4.1 (1977): 15–47.
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Analyzes the manner in which nonconformity became such a force in Coventry, with its dissenter political leaders, despite the Restoration penal laws and restrictions that still existed in the wake of the Act of Toleration of 1689. Available online for purchase or by subscription.
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Lacey, D. R. Dissent and Parliamentary Politics in England, 1661–1689: A Study in the Perpetuation and Tempering of Parliamentarianism. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1969.
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An important older contribution dedicated to the political activities of the dissenters in the Restoration as they attempted to maintain a presence in Parliament despite being excluded from positions of power. In such a capacity, they attempted not only to assert the cause of Presbyterianism in the established church, but also to defend parliamentary rights against the claims of absolutism.
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Tolmie, Murray. The Triumph of the Saints: The Separate Churches of London, 1616–1649. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
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A history of the separate churches of London, including Henry Jacob’s early (1616) church and those of the civil war, as well as the confrontation between these churches and Presbyterian conformity. Relations with the Levellers are also considered.
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Watts, Michael R. The Dissenters. Vol. 1, From the Reformation to the French Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon, 1978.
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A comprehensive study of the entire history of English dissenters up through the late 18th century, excluding Puritans who stayed within the church, and downplaying the Presbyterians until after 1660. The origins and growth of such movements, including Brownists, Congregationalists, and Methodists, are considered, as are their contributions to later historical and political developments.
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White, Barrington R. The English Separatist Tradition: From the Marian Martyrs to the Pilgrim Fathers. London: Oxford University Press, 1971.
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Locating the origins of separatism in the underground churches of Mary I’s reign, White proceeds through the Elizabethan period, downplaying the theological differences between separatists and Puritans and minimizing the contribution of Robert Browne to the tradition.
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DISSENTING GROUPS
A number of excellent studies are devoted to specific groups that deeply influenced future radical or separatist ideas in America and Europe. The following is a sample covering a range of views and movements. Hill 1991 is the classic study, criticized for its Marxist perspective but still the standard overview that every student of the subject should consult. Morton 1970 attempts to examine one of Hill’s most intriguing groups, the Ranters, despite their elusive nature; while an altogether more detailed account is provided in Capp 1972 for the Fifth Monarchy Men. Such groups have tended to overshadow equally important movements of the time, with Nuttall 2002 discussing the early Congregationalists, and White 1983 treating the Baptists. Ban 1982, meanwhile, discusses the connection, if any, between the Baptists and the Anabaptists, strongly refuting it in the end. Finally,Ball 1994 offers a comprehensive study of the Seventh-Day Sabbatarians, who would eventually find a new life away from England, while Greene 1983 explores the heated pamphlet war that took place between Quakers and Muggletonians.
Ball, Bryan W. The Seventh-Day Men: Sabbatarians and Sabbatarianism in England and Wales, 1600–1800. Oxford: Clarendon, 1994.
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Using the term Sabbatarianism to refer not to a movement of Christians who observed the last day of the week as the Sabbath but specifically to the beliefs of Seventh-Day Sabbatarians, Ball proceeds to a painstaking county-by-county analysis of the movement and its leaders, who tended to be overwhelmingly Baptist and often radical millenarians with Fifth Monarchist views.
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Ban, Joseph D. “Were the Earliest English Baptists Anabaptists?” In In the Great Tradition: In Honor of Winthrop S. Hudson: Essays on Pluralism, Voluntarism, and Revivalism. Edited by Joseph D. Ban and Paul R. Dekar, 91–106. Valley Forge, PA: Judson, 1982.
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Joins the debate on whether there existed an Anabaptist influence on the Calvinist Baptists, strongly rejecting any such influence, and locating origins instead in the Puritan-separatist strain.
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Capp, Bernard. Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Millenarianism. London: Faber and Faber, 1972.
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A classic and essential work on the radical group of individuals (including women) known as the Fifth Monarchy Men, utilizing extensive biographical detail as well as analysis. Capp describes at length, and among other things, the manner in which the Fifth Monarchy Men differed in their millennialism from other groups of the time.
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Greene, Douglas G. “Muggletonians and Quakers: A Study in the Interaction of Seventeenth-Century Dissent.” Albion 15 (1983): 102–122.
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A study of the bitter pamphlet wars between the Quakers and Muggletonians in the late 17th century, with the conflict between the two sides “reach[ing] a sustained height of invective which was rare even in such a contentious age” (p. 103). The history of the Muggletonians is discussed at length as is the conflict that also brought in the Ranters (or condemnation of the Ranters).
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Hill, Christopher. The World Turned Upside Down. London: Penguin, 1991.
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A landmark work that tracks the radical offshoots of puritanism in the mid-decades of the 17th century. Though criticized for equating religion with class interest, as befits a Marxist historian, Hill nevertheless approaches the Ranters, Quaker, Seekers, and other groups with sympathy toward their moral convictions and spiritual passions.
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Morton, A. L. The World of the Ranters: Religious Radicalism in the English Revolution. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1970.
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A readable work that, nevertheless, tackles an elusive and short-lived movement defined more by its opponents than by its leaders. Indeed, of the book’s seven essays, only three treat the Ranters themselves, the rest focusing on radical dissent in general. See J. C. Davis, Fear, Myth, and History: The Ranters and the Historians (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1986) for a refutation—itself criticized—of the Ranters’ very existence.
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Nuttall, G. F. Visible Saints: The Congregational Way, 1640–1660. Oswestry, UK: Quinta, 2002.
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A learned portrait of the early Congregationalists, including discussions of the principles of separation as well as church practice, millennialism, their role in the Barebones Parliament, and their withdrawal from politics in the 1650s. Originally published in 1957.
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White, Barrington. The English Baptists of the Seventeenth Century. London: Baptist Historical Society, 1983.
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Relates the story of the Baptists’ beginning from the years before 1660 to the time of their “great persecution” from 1660 to 1688. Baptists’ relations with authorities in this period are given particular prominence.
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INDIVIDUAL DISSENTERS
Students interested in tracing the lives and personalities of early dissenters up to 1641 may wish to consult Burrage 1912, which contains useful documents illustrative of the movement and its people. For more notable (if not fully representative or comprehensive) examples of well-known dissenters,Coggins 1991 provides a history of the life of the Baptist John Smyth, while Keeble 1982 describes Baxter, a Puritan in the beginning but a nonconformist later in life. Greaves 2002 provides an outstanding recent life of John Bunyan, and Lim 2006 offers a good beginning for those who wish to explore the dissenting aspects of Milton’s thought.
Burrage, Champlin. The Early English Dissenters in Light of Recent Research, 1550–1641. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1912.
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A scrupulous compilation of original texts from groups that include the Baptists, Congregationalists, and other dissenters. With extensive notes and commentary.
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Coggins, James R. John Smyth’s Congregation: English Separatism, Mennonite Influence and the Elect Nation. Waterloo, ON: Herald, 1991.
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Profile of the small, yet important, congregation and its leader and their new, if turbulent, life in Amsterdam. Membership of the congregation is examined as is its separatist theological positions.
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Greaves, Richard. Glimpses of Glory: John Bunyan and English Dissent. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002.
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An in-depth, definitive biography of Bunyan by a leading historian of late-17th-century dissent, analyzing the writer’s work and placing it within its historical context and traditions of nonconformity and radicalism.
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Keeble, N. H. Richard Baxter: Puritan Man of Letters. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982.
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An exemplary work focusing on the voluminous epistolatory and literary output of Baxter and its contribution to history, biography, autobiography, pastoral and religious genres, and techniques of the plain style.
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Lim, Walter S. H. John Milton, Radical Politics, and Biblical Republicanism. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2006.
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Primarily a work of literary scholarship with a political focus, this study is useful for its grounding of Milton in radical religious movements as well as politics and in delineating the manner in which he was informed by biblical ideas borrowed from some of those movements.
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QUAKERS
From its beginnings in the north of England, Quakerism was one of the most documented of all the dissenting movements, producing thousands of tracts revealing radical social theologies and religious experiences. Led by George Fox and accompanied by other contributing “messengers” such as Margaret Fell, Quakerism gained momentum in the 1650s, gathering adherents as it moved south, despite controversies such as the trial by Parliament of the “messiah” James Naylor and his conviction for blasphemy. Quaker denunciations of society, as well as the implications behind the radical doctrine of the inner light, rendered the movement controversial through the end of the century, when it redirected its focus away from the militancy of its early years. Though continuing to be subject to persecution at the hands of the state and of hostile neighbors, Quakerism nevertheless attained a measure of prosperity as well as moderation, though it did not altogether escape internal and external conflicts even in its new home in North America.
General Studies
Quakers have generated more historiography than any other radical separatist group, which accounts for their receiving a separate category in this article. Some of this abundance is due to the movement’s own memorializing practices, which included numerous biographies of Fox. Braithwaite represents a classic study of the group, with Braithwaite 1912 recounting the early years andBraithwaite 1961 taking the story forward to the end of the 17th century. Much debate has arisen over the social origins of the group, with Vann 1969 arguing for a measure of socioeconomic fluidity within the movement, and Hurwich 1970 asserting that very little changed in the social makeup from the beginning through the later years. Moore 2000 also looks at the writings of the early years, using updated computer analysis as an aid. Barbour 1964 focuses on the 1650s, revising the work of Braithwaite, and Reay 1985 adds to the analysis, discussing the movement and its relation to revolution. Finally, Davies 2000 continues the narrative from 1655 through the next century.
Barbour, Hugh. The Quakers in Puritan England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1964.
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Concentrating on the 1650s, Barbour explores the Quakers’ origins in the northern counties and their relations with Puritan authorities. The work serves as a revision to earlier Quaker histories such as those by Braithwaite.
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Braithwaite, W. C. The Beginnings of Quakerism. London: Macmillan, 1912.
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A standard though dated history of the early stages of Quakerism, including an account of George Fox and his various male and female disciples. Source material is included that would be useful for the student.
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Braithwaite, W. C. The Second Period of Quakerism. 2d ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1961.
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Continues the story of the Quakers from the Restoration to the end of the century. Persecution and repression are the themes of this later period, with Braithwaite exploring the manner in which the Quakers met these challenges; the changing corporate structure of the movement, as well as the ministry, are also treated.
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Davies, Adrian. The Quakers in English Society, 1655–1725. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198208204.001.0001Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Traces a minority religious community in its urban and rural settings, particularly in the smaller towns of early modern England. Wandering Quaker preachers and their evangelist efforts are given particular attention, especially in counties such as Essex, where the movement, as elsewhere, was domesticated over the later part of the 17th century.
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Hurwich, Judith J. “The Social Origins of the Early Quakers.” Past and Present 48 (1970): 156–162.
DOI: 10.1093/past/48.1.156Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues against the contention in Vann 1969 that Quakers originated as a wide and socially encompassing movement before narrowing into a primarily middle-class phenomenon at the end of the 17th century. For Hurwich, taking the case of Warwickshire, the socioeconomic makeup of the Quakers changed very little in the thirty years after 1660. Detailed analysis is provided; see Vann’s rejoinder at the end.
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Moore, Rosemary. The Light in Their Consciences: The Early Quakers in Britain, 1646–1666. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2000.
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A fresh look at the Quakers and their early writings, including a computer-aided analysis of the pamphlets and their dissemination, as well as theological readings of George Fox, Edward Burrough, and nearly fifty other Quaker writers.
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Reay, Barry. The Quakers and the English Revolution. London: Temple Smith, 1985.
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An excellent analytical survey of the Quakers in the 1650s from their beginnings through the years of expansion and internal growth. The Quaker views of political, social, and economic matters as well as their larger vision of society and their slow-to-arrive pacifism are examined; in addition, a discussion of the prevalence of popular anti-Quakerism is included.
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Vann, Richard T. The Social Development of English Quakerism, 1655–1755. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969.
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Surveys the Quakers, including their origins in puritanism (with its preoccupation with election and reprobation); the social makeup of the group; and the development of the organization, including membership criteria, in the wake of the persecutions of the Restoration.
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Individuals
Biographies of George Fox, the founder of the Religious Society of Friends, continued to be published through the early 20th century, and while many remain useful, others tend toward hagiography. Reflecting a more recent approach, the student might begin with the excellent account in Ingle 1996; for a shorter biography of Fox and the formation of the movement, Mullett 1991provides an excellent overview. Greaves 1992 is not a biography, but it does discuss the manner in which Fox shaped the movement in the wake of the Restoration. A more problematic figure was James Naylor, the Quaker messiah, who entered Bristol on a donkey, his path allegedly strewn with palm leaves. Bittle 1986 is one of the better biographical treatments. Finally, Trevett 1991 offers a good overview of Quaker women, who played a very important role in the movement, not only in England, but also in America.
Bittle, William G. James Nayler, 1618–1660: The Quaker Indicted by Parliament. York, UK: William Sessions, 1986.
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A portrayal of the Yorkshire preacher, writer, and false messiah, whose trial for blasphemy, according to Bittle, became a test case for Cromwell’s policy of toleration and a cover for a more political parliamentary struggle between radical Puritans and conservatives, with the latter supporting tradition and the kingship of Cromwell.
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Greaves, Richard L. “Shattered Expectations? George Fox, the Quakers and the Restoration State, 1660–85.” Albion 24 (1992): 237–259.
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Seeking to modify the assumption that the Quakers in the Restoration were a “defeated movement” and thus changed direction to embrace a policy of quiescence (p. 237), Greaves argues, instead, that the Quakers of this time actually embraced “engagement and vigor” as well as “the peace principle” when it came to political and legal matters (p. 237).
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Ingle, H. Larry. First among Friends: George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
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A biography of Fox that also explores the evolution of Quakerism into a mainstream religion, from the 1640s through to Fox’s death in 1691. Most of the book’s focus, however, rests on the years before 1660.
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Mullett, Michael. “George Fox and the Origins of Quakerism.” History Today 41 (1991): 26–31.
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A short and accessible overview of the life of George Fox, written on the tercentenary year of his death. Discusses his shaping of the early Quaker movement and his continued influence in the centuries to come.
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Trevett, Christine. Women and Quakerism in the 17th Century. York, UK: The Ebor, 1991.
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An appraisal of women and the significant role they played in the Quaker movement based in part on claims to spiritual egalitarianism; this did not translate into social equality, however, nor was female prophecy always welcomed by Quaker men.
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Speaking and Writing
Few groups were as prodigious as the Quakers in their production of pamphlets, autobiographical writings, and religious literature. A number of studies have explored the output of the early decades, but much remains to be done. Corns and Loewenstein 1995 provides an excellent sampling of essays covering the many facets of distinctly Quaker writing, while Bauman 1983 focuses not on writing but on oral utterances and silences, which were equally important in Quaker religious practice.
Bauman, Richard. Let Your Words Be Few: Symbolism of Speaking and Silence among Seventeenth-Century Quakers. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
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Written from the perspective of an anthropologist, this study seeks to understand “the formative period of Quakerism from the early 1650s to 1689, when the key symbols of speaking and silence gave shape to a unified system of belief, action, and meaning” (p. 153).
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Corns, Thomas, and David Loewenstein, eds. The Emergence of Quaker Writing: Dissenting Literature in Seventeenth-Century England. London: Frank Cass, 1995.
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This collection by literary scholars and historians explores different facets of Quaker literary productivity, including the rhetorical and polemical strategies deployed, the gendered aspect of female writings, and texts reflective of the Quaker culture of suffering.
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Theology and Controversy
Early Quaker theology differed from its later incarnations, with Frost 1973 placing it in its Reformation context and Ingle 2004 examining Quaker perspectives on hermeneutical authority—the latter issue leading to controversies within the movement as the years progressed. In terms of relations between Quakers and other groups and historical developments, Underwood 1997 traces the theological conflict between Quakers and Baptists; from the state’s perspective, Anderson 1977uncovers the nature of persecutory acts against the Quakers, while Horle 1988 looks at the vexed interactions between Quakers and the English legal system as a whole. Roberts 1991 examines the case of Quaker persecution in Evesham, with Miller 2005 placing such sufferings in the framework of conflicted neighborly relations. Ironically, however, Quakers were able to overcome their martyrological sufferings to gain a measure of prosperity and influence over many local communities, as demonstrated in Walvin 1997.
Anderson, Alan. “A Study in the Sociology of Religious Persecution: The First Quakers.”Journal of Religious History 9 (1977): 247–262.
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-9809.1977.tb00393.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Uncovers the patterns and forms of persecution suffered by the Quakers in Lancashire from 1652 to 1690. Anderson concludes that persecutory acts started with assaults and jailings before 1670 escalating to the targeting of property later on; hostility in general, moreover, could be due in part to the social distance that Quakers increasingly put between themselves and the authorities.
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Frost, J. William. “The Dry Bones of Quaker Theology.” Church History 42 (1973): 203–228.
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Seeks to understand Quaker theology in the period after the Reformation, particularly as it differed from the reformed and nonconformist traditions as expressed by the Synod of Dort (1619) and the Westminster Assembly.
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Horle, Craig W. The Quakers and the English Legal System, 1660–1688. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1988.
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Examines the interaction between Quakers and the law in Restoration England, resulting in frequent and inevitable conflict, given the practices of dissent and resistance encouraged by the group.
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Ingle, Larry H. “The Search for Seventeenth Century Authority during the Hicksite Reformation.” Quaker History 93 (2004): 68–79.
DOI: 10.1353/qkh.2004.0000Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A study of 17th-century Quaker approaches to the question of authority when it came to biblical interpretation, and the manner in which these approaches shaped future conflicts, for example, between the “Hicksites” (or followers of the American preacher Elias Hicks) and the “Orthodox,” or more historically minded faction.
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Miller, John. “‘A Suffering People’: English Quakers and Their Neighbours, c. 1650–1700.”Past and Present 188 (2005): 71–103.
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Claiming that “[s]uffering was an integral part of early Quaker identity” (p. 71), Miller sets out to investigate the continued popular hostility toward the Quakers, as manifested in assaults, crowd action, and other acts of violence. Successful Quaker attempts to help themselves in the face of this hostility are also discussed at length.
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Roberts, S. “The Quakers in Evesham, 1655–1660: A Study in Religion, Politics and Culture.”Midland History 16 (1991): 63–85.
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Discusses the persecution of Quakers in the Worcestershire town of Evesham from 1655 through the end of the decade, particularly as it was chronicled at the time by Friends such as Humphrey Smith. The afterlife of the Evesham Quakers was also chronicled in martyrologies and histories through the 19th century, and it is discussed here.
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Underwood, Ted L. Primitivism, Radicalism, and the Lamb’s War: The Baptist-Quaker Conflict in Seventeenth-Century England. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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Traces the conflict between Baptists and Quakers in the 17th century as played out in polemical tracts and public disputes; Underwood also emphasizes the commonalities between these groups, as well as with Puritans and nonconformists.
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Walvin, James. The Quakers: Money and Morals. London: John Murray, 1997.
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An informative study of the Quakers and the manner in which their ethos of austerity and mutual help allowed them to exert significant economic influence on local economies through their growing prosperity at the end of the century.
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Recusants
Elizabeth was more concerned with her subjects outwardly conforming to the established church than with the details of their inward belief, but Catholics presented a different kind of threat when it came to matters of loyalty. The Elizabethan Settlement and subsequent penal statutes made refusal to attend the established church a crime punishable by fines and imprisonment; but the pope’s excommunication of the Queen in 1570 put English Catholics in a further bind as they were called to answer for their newly divided allegiance. Individuals who refused to attend church were known as recusants, and their “golden age” was the 1570s onward; but, as recent historians have emphasized, recusancy was not the only option available to English Catholics, who turned to a variety of different actions and textual expressions as members of an increasingly besieged minority faith.
GENERAL STUDIES
Explorations of early modern English Catholicism have flourished in recent years representing an attempt to redress the oversights of traditional, protestant-focused historiography. The following works also explore Jesuit missionaries and Church of England papists (or those who continued to attend the established church); but the recusant experience informs these accounts above all. Bossy 1962 establishes the parameters of the field in this seminal article on the nature of the English Catholic community, with Bossy 1976 developing the thesis further and providing the classic account of post-Reformation Catholicism generally. Haigh 1981, however, criticizes many of its assumptions, and McGrath 1984 engages with the works of both scholars. For early-21st-century studies of Catholicism in this period, Lake and Questier 2002 discusses the importance of print culture in the religious debates and events that ensued, while McClain 2004 looks at the experiences of ordinary Catholics as they attempted to navigate their minority identity. McGrath 1967 also explores the latter terrain, though comparing it with the Puritan experience, with Walsham 1999 offering a much-needed perspective in discussing Catholics, or “church papists,” who continued to attend the established church while retaining their identity as Catholics.
Bossy, John. “The Character of Elizabethan Catholicism.” Past and Present 21 (1962): 39–59.
DOI: 10.1093/past/21.1.39Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
In this groundbreaking essay, Bossy argues that older forms of English Catholicism had atrophied under Elizabeth, with the religion experiencing retreat and defeat until Jesuit missionaries arrived to bring a new and vibrant community into being from the 1580s onward.
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Bossy, John. The English Catholic Community, 1570–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
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A classic and wide-ranging work that examines three centuries of post-Reformation English Catholicism through the prism of priestly, missionary, and family communities. The role of aristocratic patrons in sustaining a minority faith is given particular emphasis.
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Haigh, Christopher. “From Monopoly to Minority Catholicism in Early Modern England.”Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th ser., 31 (1981): 129–147.
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Seeks to overturn the traditional historiographical notion that a vibrant, missionizing Tridentine Catholicism, continental and largely Jesuit, came to revive an anemic and moribund Catholic Church. Instead, Jesuit missionaries actually failed to reconstruct the vibrancy of the old society, based on the weak organization and targeted goals of their own mission.
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Lake, Peter, and Michael Questier. The Antichrist’s Lewd Hat: Protestants, Papists, and Players in Post-Reformation England. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
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A book treating larger themes and subjects as it explores the ideological and religious uses toward which cheap pamphlets and the presses were used; recusants, however, make an appearance as prisoners, readers, and authors.
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McClain, Lisa. Lest We Be Damned: Practical Innovation and Lived Experience among Catholics in Protestant England, 1559–1642. London: Routledge, 2004.
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A study of ordinary Catholics in early modern England as they were confronted with often-tortuous decisions of belief and obedience. Recusancy is treated as one of many choices they opted for, as they forged their own communities that belonged neither to late-medieval Catholicism nor to Tridentine Catholicism.
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McGrath, Patrick. Papists and Puritans under Elizabeth I. New York: Walker, 1967.
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A comparative study of puritanism and Catholicism in the reign of Elizabeth and the similar trials they respectively faced. Networks of communication and patronage are also considered.
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McGrath, Patrick. “Elizabethan Catholicism: A Reconsideration.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 35 (1984): 414–489.
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046900028694Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Engages with the thesis of John Bossy (Bossy 1962 and Bossy 1976) regarding Elizabethan Catholicism as well as the arguments of Haigh 1981, particularly in terms of the relationship between traditional Elizabethan Catholicism and the recusant community that emerged in the 1570s and 1580s.
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Walsham, Alexandra. Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity, and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell, 1999.
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In a study relating to Catholics who did not separate from the established church, Walsham argues, in part, that recusancy was not the only response available to Catholics, but that casuistry could allow Catholics to accept a supreme governor. Recusancy is treated rather unsympathetically as a somewhat extremist, marginal, and uncompromising position for Catholics to assume.
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RECUSANT HISTORIES
Though embedded in studies that treat the entirety of Catholic experience in England, recusancy has merited its own focus in important studies. Aveling 1976 remains the standard study in its comprehensiveness, but other works have provided a closer analysis of some aspects of the recusant experience. McGrath and Rowe 1989 is an important article that discusses the helpers and visitors of jailed Elizabethan priests, while McGrath and Rowe 1991 explores the imprisonment of recusants themselves. Davidson 2007 provides an insightful look into recusant “spaces” that extended beyond just the hiding places and chapels provided for fugitive priests. Holmes 1982examines the casuistic options available to Catholics confronted by issues of loyalty to pope or queen, with Rose 2008 comparing the experiences of Puritans and Catholics, both under siege (to different extents, however) under Elizabeth. Finally, McCoog 1993 looks to Edmund Campion’s martyrdom as it was conveyed in print to Catholic audiences, and Tavard 1978 explores controversialist literature aimed at Catholics, as it enjoined them to uphold tradition in matters of scriptural authority.
Aveling, J. C. H. The Handle and the Axe: The Catholic Recusants in England from Reformation to Emancipation. London: Blond & Briggs, 1976.
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A survey of English Catholic laity and clergy from 1534 to 1830, focusing, however, on the recusants and especially strong on the uncertainties of the Tudor period. Aveling argues that the persistence of Catholicism in England derived from a sense of parochialism as well as devotion to the “Great Communion” rather than to traditional forms of outward loyalty to the priesthood, papacy, or institutional order.
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Davidson, Peter. “Recusant Catholic Spaces in Early Modern England.” In Catholic Culture in Early Modern England. Edited by Ronald Corthell, Frances Dolan, Christopher Highley, and Arthur Marotti, 19–51. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007.
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Looks beyond “priest holes” and hidden chapels to uncover other sorts of places and spaces connected with English recusants. Extensive use is made of devotional manuals, emblem books, and other sources to reveal how recusants imbued their spaces with a kind of religious code revealing of their larger social, political, and belief systems.
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Holmes, Peter. Resistance and Compromise: The Political Thought of the English Catholics. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1982.
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A study of the polemical defenses composed by Catholics in Elizabethan England, including their attitudes toward political as well as religious resistance. Particularly insightful is Holmes’s discussion of the manner in which the stern injunctions of the priests ran up against the more flexible strategies deployed by their persecuted flock.
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McCoog, Thomas. “‘The Flower of Oxford’: The Role of Edmund Campion in Early Recusant Polemics.” Sixteenth Century Journal 24 (1993): 899–913.
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Explores Catholic martyrologies and the functions they served in upholding figures such as Edmund Campion. Rather than attack the political order, however, such works sought to sustain the community of the faithful, even if questions of divided loyalty lingered.
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McGrath, Patrick, and Joy Rowe. “The Elizabethan Priests: Their Harbourers and Helpers.”Recusant History 19 (1989): 209–233.
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A valuable essay that tracks the men and women who helped fugitive priests during the reign of Elizabeth.
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McGrath, Patrick, and Joy Rowe. “The Imprisonment of Catholics under Elizabeth I.”Recusant History 20 (1991): 415–435.
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Examines the number of priests imprisoned in such places as Newgate and Marshalsea as well as the incarceration of the laity, not so much for debts incurred by recusancy but through their crimes of bringing in papal bulls, circulating books, or harboring priests.
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Rose, E. Elliott. Cases of Conscience: Alternatives Open to Recusants and Puritans under Elizabeth I and James I. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Focusing on “the moral issue of principled disobedience” (p. 2), Rose in this comparative study examines the extent to which Catholics (and Puritans) sought to abide by the law while also maintaining their religious principles. Casuistic tracts are examined in depth as well as other works dealing with cases of conscience. Originally published in 1975.
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Tavard, George. The Seventeenth Century Tradition: A Study in Recusant Thought. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 1978.
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Explores the writings of English Catholic controversialists as they set out to defend the primacy of tradition in matters of scripture. A variety of approaches to the idea of tradition ensued, however, on the part of writers such as Thomas White (otherwise known as Blacklo), Henry Holden, Serenus Cressy, and others.
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FAMILIES, INDIVIDUALS, AND REGIONS
The history of recusancy in England has often been told as a narrative of great families, thus ignoring the stories of lesser individuals. Studying recusancy through the prism of families is, nevertheless, illuminating of larger local and national issues, as these books demonstrate.Anstruther 1953 is a significant early study of the Vaux family, with Marshall and Scott 2009presenting a more recent view of the Throckmortons. Questier 2006 moves beyond particular aristocratic families to look at relations and networks between those families, while Aveling 1966 also focuses on a number of families, albeit in this case within the confines of Yorkshire. Finally, Manning 1969 takes the subject to Sussex, while Wark 1971 details Catholic recusancy and resistance in Cheshire.
Anstruther, Godfrey. Vaux of Harrowden: A Recusant Family. Newport, UK: R.H. Johns, 1953.
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Centered on the story of the Vaux family, this study focuses on its patronage of Jesuit missionaries (most notably, Edmund Campion) and other activities. Extensive use of original sources from legal, episcopal, and family records.
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Aveling, Hugh. Northern Catholics: The Catholic Recusants of the North Riding of Yorkshire, 1558–1790. London: Geoffrey Chapman, 1966.
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A portrait of Catholics in Yorkshire, where they constituted a significant minority of the larger population. The manner in which Catholic families met the challenge of government policy and penal laws by taking advantage of loopholes, for example, is examined, as is the means by which such families kept themselves intact through 1688.
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Manning, Roger B. Religion and Society in Elizabethan Sussex: A Study of the Enforcement of the Religious Settlement, 1558–1603. Leicester, UK: Leicester University Press, 1969.
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A study of the ways in which Elizabethan officials attempted to enforce the Elizabethan settlement in the county of Sussex, including its dealings with Catholic recusants.
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Marshall, Peter, and Geoffrey Scott. Catholic Gentry in English Society: The Throckmortons of Coughton from Reformation to Emancipation. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009.
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A recent collection of essays that studies early modern Catholicism through the prism of the Throckmorton family of Warwickshire, a gentry family that fell into the recusant category while participating in the local and national affairs of the country.
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Questier, Michael. Catholicism and Community in Early Modern England: Politics, Aristocratic Patronage, and Religion. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511496004Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A fine study of the Catholic aristocracy in England, focusing on networks of support and patronage, and negotiations by individuals and families with the various challenges confronting them in the years from 1550 to 1660.
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Wark, K. R. Elizabethan Recusancy in Cheshire. Manchester, UK: The Chetham Society, 1971.
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Explores the state of recusancy in Cheshire, comparing it to neighboring Lancashire, and detailing the manner in which enforcement of official religious policy tended to fail at the local level, resulting in Catholic evasions, refusals to pay fines, and the emergence of noteworthy community leaders, including women.
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WOMEN
As with Puritan and dissenting religious groups, recusant women became notable figures in their own right, serving as devotional subjects, writers, or supporters of priests,. Rowlands 1985 provides a comprehensive overview, while Macek 2004 points out the dilemma presented by women who undertook spiritual direction, sometimes at the point of conflict with the expectations laid upon them as women. Two prominent, yet very different women are profiled in Lake and Questier 2011, which focuses on the martyr Margaret Clitherow, wife of a butcher, and Wolfe 2006, which treats the prominent writer and patroness Elizabeth Cary; Redworth 2008 focuses on Luisa de Carvajal, a Spanish woman who came to the aid of the community. Finally, Latz 1989 calls valuable attention to the writings of recusant women, including obscure manuscript material.
Lake, Peter, and Michael Questier. The Trials of Margaret Clitherow: Persecution, Martyrdom and the Politics of Sanctity in Elizabethan England. New York: Continuum, 2011.
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A much-needed biographical study of Clitherow, who aided the Catholic cause in England and harbored fugitive Catholic priests until her trial and martyrdom in 1586. In the process, Lake and Questier strive to understand larger issues of religious change in post-Reformation England as well as its print, manuscript, and preaching culture.
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Latz, Dorothy. “Glow-Worm Light”: Writings of 17th-Centry English Recusant Women from Original Manuscripts. Salzburg, Austria: Institut fur Anglistik und Amerikanistik, 1989.
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An important unearthing of obscure material based on manuscript sources by Catholic women writers. Prominent figures such as Gertrude More and Mary Ward are treated of a piece with less well-known female writers who shared similar mystic tendencies.
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Macek, Ellen A. “‘Ghostly Fathers’ and Their ‘Virtuous Daughters’: The Role of Spiritual Direction in the Lives of Three Early Modern English Women.” The Catholic Historical Review90 (2004): 213–235.
DOI: 10.1353/cat.2004.0085Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Examines the spiritual direction undertaken by three women—Margaret Clitherow, Dorothy Lawson, and Mary Ward—and the manner in which it set them into conflict with contemporary gender expectations.
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Redworth, Glyn. The She-Apostle: The Extraordinary Life and Death of Luisa de Carvajal. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
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Working from correspondence, poems, and memoirs, Redworth recounts the story of de Carvajal, a Spaniard resident in England who aided priests, converted Protestants, collected the relics of English martyrs, and sustained the besieged community in the early years of the 17th century.
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Rowlands, Marie B. “Recusant Women, 1560–1640.” In Women in English Society, 1500–1800. Edited by Mary Prior, 149–180. London: Methuen, 1985.
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Stating that women of English recusant families formed a “distinct group” targeted by the state (p. 149), Rowlands analyzes the widows, spinsters, and wives found in the lists of those who refused to attend church. Recusant women and the law, the harboring of priests, women’s lives at home, and recusant women as nuns are some of the topics explored in this informative essay.
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Wolfe, Heather, ed. The Literary Career and Legacy of Elizabeth Cary, 1613–1680. New York: Macmillan, 2006.
DOI: 10.1057/9780230601819Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A collection of essays that explores the writings of Cary, including but not limited to her Tragedy of Mariam. Cary’s patronage and support of recusant networks are explored in different essays.
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RECUSANT LITERATURE AND PRINT CULTURE
The study of English Catholic literature has proliferated since the 1990s, though earlier scholars such as Louis Martz and Helen White, among others, were notable in calling attention to the various forms of Catholic devotional poetry and prose. Walsham 2000 reminds us, on a broader level, that Catholics were hardly averse to using the printing press to get their message across. Roberts 1966is useful for its sampling of recusant devotional prose, with Rogers 1968–1979 presenting many facsimile works through the 17th century. Guiney 1939 is an earlier contribution in the study of English Catholic writers, while Shell 1999 is one of the most important studies of Catholic literature in England. Dillon 2002 examines the polemical literature centering on martyrdom, while Sullivan 1995focuses more specifically on recusant-related writings, and Strauss 1995 deals with prison writings.
Dillon, Anne. The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community, 1535–1603. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2002.
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A thorough account not only of Catholic martyrdom in early modern England, but also the dissemination and reception of martyrologies in manuscript and print.
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Guiney, Louise. Recusant Poets. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1939.
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Covers the writings and poetry of such recusant and non-recusant figures as Sir Thomas More, John Heywood, William Alabaster, Henry Constable, Robert Southwell, and Ben Jonson; for Guiney, “The invisibility of Recusants to the literary eye, and even the historical eye, of the Great Protestant Tradition is one of their most highly developed qualities” (p. 112), though biographical information and original source material redresses this invisibility.
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Roberts, John. A Critical Anthology of English Recusant Devotional Prose, 1558–1603. Pittsburgh, PA: Dusquesne University Press, 1966.
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A descriptive bibliography, considering recusant texts historically arranged.
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Rogers, D. M., ed. English Recusant Literature, 1558–1640. Menston, UK: Scolar Press, 1968–1979.
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Facsimile edition of the works of Leonardus Lessius, Sir Tobie Matthew, and the anonymous Holy Churches Complaint of 1598.
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Shell, Alison. Catholicism, Controversy, and the English Literary Imagination, 1558–1660. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511483981Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
A literary study that highlights the variety of Catholic writing in Tudor and Stuart England, including writings about Catholics by figures such as Spenser and Sidney. Chapters on Robert Southwell and Robert Crashaw are particularly strong, as is the discussion of rhetorical strategies deployed by Catholics of a divided loyalty.
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Strauss, Paul. In Hope of Heaven: English Recusant Prison Writings of the Sixteenth Century. New York: Peter Lang, 1995.
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Discusses the prison writings of John Fisher, Thomas More, Robert Southwell, and Benedict Canfield, including the consolatory effects of such writings on a Catholic audience.
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Sullivan, Ceri. Dismembered Rhetoric: English Recusant Writing, 1580 to 1603. Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1995.
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Examines devotional publications, issued by the secret Catholic presses at home and abroad in the last two decades of Elizabeth’s reign, and the rhetoric deployed by writers such as Robert Persons or William Allen to guide the faithful. According to Sullivan, such texts were part of the mission enterprise to reconvert England, even though they were also read by Protestants.
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Walsham, Alexandra. “‘Domme Preachers’? Post-Reformation English Catholicism and the Culture of Print.” Past and Present 68 (2000): 72–123.
DOI: 10.1093/past/168.1.72Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
Argues that Catholics from the reign of Mary I on understood the value of the printing press and effectively exploited its potential in creating devotional tracts, primers, and homilies for an eager readership.
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LAST MODIFIED: 06/25/2013
DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780195399301-0218
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