Puritan
Encyclopedia
Christianity in the 16th century
- Age of Discovery :During the Age of Discovery, the Roman Catholic Church established a number of Missions in the Americas and other colonies in order to spread Christianity in the New World and to convert the indigenous peoples...
and 17th centuries
Christianity in the 17th century
The history of Christianity in the 17th century showed both deep conflict and new tolerance. The Enlightenment grew to challenge Christianity as a whole, generally elevated human reason above divine revelation, and down-graded religious authorities such as the Papacy based on it...
. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles
Marian exiles
The Marian Exiles were English Calvinist Protestants who fled to the continent during the reign of Queen Mary I.-Exile communities:According to English historian John Strype, more than 800 Protestants fled to the continent, mainly to the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France, and joined...
from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
. The designation "Puritan" is often incorrectly used, notably based on the assumption that hedonism
Hedonism
Hedonism is a school of thought which argues that pleasure is the only intrinsic good. In very simple terms, a hedonist strives to maximize net pleasure .-Etymology:The name derives from the Greek word for "delight" ....
and puritanism
Religious fanaticism
Religious fanaticism is fanaticism related to a person's, or a group's, devotion to a religion. However, religious fanaticism is a subjective evaluation defined by the culture context that is performing the evaluation. What constitutes fanaticism in another's behavior or belief is determined by the...
are antonyms: Historically, the word was used to characterize the Protestant group as extremists similar to the Cathari of France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and according to Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller
Thomas Fuller was an English churchman and historian. He is now remembered for his writings, particularly his Worthies of England, published after his death...
in his Church History dated back to 1564, Archbishop Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker
Matthew Parker was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1559 until his death in 1575. He was also an influential theologian and arguably the co-founder of Anglican theological thought....
of that time used it and "precisian" with the sense of modern "stickler".
They were blocked from changing the system from within, but their views were taken by the emigration of congregations to the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
and later New England, and by evangelical clergy to Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and later into Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, and were spread into lay society by preaching and parts of the educational system, particularly certain colleges of the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
. Initially, Puritans were mainly concerned with religious matters, rather than politics or social matters. They took on distinctive views on clerical dress and in opposition to the episcopal
Episcopal polity
Episcopal polity is a form of church governance that is hierarchical in structure with the chief authority over a local Christian church resting in a bishop...
system, particularly after the 1619 conclusions of the Synod of Dort
Synod of Dort
The Synod of Dort was a National Synod held in Dordrecht in 1618-1619, by the Dutch Reformed Church, to settle a divisive controversy initiated by the rise of Arminianism. The first meeting was on November 13, 1618, and the final meeting, the 154th, was on May 9, 1619...
were resisted by the English bishops. They largely adopted Sabbatarian views in the 17th century, and were influenced by millennialism
Millennialism
Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...
.
In alliance with the growing commercial world, the parliamentary opposition to the royal prerogative
Royal Prerogative
The royal prerogative is a body of customary authority, privilege, and immunity, recognized in common law and, sometimes, in civil law jurisdictions possessing a monarchy as belonging to the sovereign alone. It is the means by which some of the executive powers of government, possessed by and...
, and in the late 1630s with the Scottish Presbyterians
Church of Scotland
The Church of Scotland, known informally by its Scots language name, the Kirk, is a Presbyterian church, decisively shaped by the Scottish Reformation....
with whom they had much in common, the Puritans became a major political force in England and came to power as a result of the First English Civil War
First English Civil War
The First English Civil War began the series of three wars known as the English Civil War . "The English Civil War" was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations that took place between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 until 1651, and includes the Second English Civil War and...
(1642–46). After the English Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of 1660 and the 1662 Uniformity Act, almost all Puritan clergy left the Church of England, some becoming nonconformist ministers, and the nature of the movement in England changed radically, though it retained its character for much longer in New England.
Puritans by definition felt that the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
had not gone far enough, and that the Church of England was tolerant of practices which they associated with the Catholic Church. They formed into and identified with various religious groups advocating greater "purity" of worship
Worship
Worship is an act of religious devotion usually directed towards a deity. The word is derived from the Old English worthscipe, meaning worthiness or worth-ship — to give, at its simplest, worth to something, for example, Christian worship.Evelyn Underhill defines worship thus: "The absolute...
and doctrine
Doctrine
Doctrine is a codification of beliefs or a body of teachings or instructions, taught principles or positions, as the body of teachings in a branch of knowledge or belief system...
, as well as personal and group piety
Pietism
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late 17th century to the mid-18th century and later. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to...
. Puritans adopted a Reformed theology and in that sense were Calvinists (as many of their earlier opponents were, too), but also took note of radical views critical of Zwingli
Huldrych Zwingli
Ulrich Zwingli was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of emerging Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly centre of humanism...
in Zurich and Calvin
John Calvin
John Calvin was an influential French theologian and pastor during the Protestant Reformation. He was a principal figure in the development of the system of Christian theology later called Calvinism. Originally trained as a humanist lawyer, he broke from the Roman Catholic Church around 1530...
in Geneva. In church polity, some advocated for separation from all other Christians, in favor of autonomous gathered churches. These separatist and independent
Independent (religion)
In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
strands of Puritanism became prominent in the 1640s, when the supporters of a presbyterian polity
Presbyterian polity
Presbyterian polity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply...
in the Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
were unable to forge a new English national church.
Background
The term "Puritan" in the sense of this article was not coined until the 1560s, when it appears as a term of abuse for those who found the Elizabethan Religious SettlementElizabethan Religious Settlement
The Elizabethan Religious Settlement was Elizabeth I’s response to the religious divisions created over the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. This response, described as "The Revolution of 1559", was set out in two Acts of the Parliament of England...
of 1559 inadequate. Puritanism has a historical importance over a period of a century (followed by 50 years of development in New England), and general views must contend with the way it changed character and emphasis almost decade by decade over that time.
Elizabethan Puritanism
During the reign of Elizabeth IElizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
, the Puritans appeared as a reforming movement. Politically, they attempted unsuccessfully to have Parliament pass legislation to replace episcopacy with a congregational form of church governance
Ecclesiastical polity
Ecclesiastical polity is the operational and governance structure of a church or Christian denomination. It also denotes the ministerial structure of the church and the authority relationships between churches...
, and to alter the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
. By the end of Elizabeth's reign, the Puritans constituted a self-defined group within the Church of England who regarded themselves as the godly; they held out little hope for those who remained attached to "popish superstitions" and worldliness.
Puritanism was fundamentally anti-Catholic: Puritans felt that the Church of England was still too close to Catholicism and needed to be reformed further. Many of the rituals preserved by the Church of England were not only considered to be objectionable, but were believed by some nonconformists to put one's immortal soul in peril. During the Anglo-Spanish War
Anglo-Spanish War (1585)
The Anglo–Spanish War was an intermittent conflict between the kingdoms of Spain and England that was never formally declared. The war was punctuated by widely separated battles, and began with England's military expedition in 1585 to the Netherlands under the command of the Earl of Leicester in...
of 1585 to 1604, anti-Catholicism agreed with English Three major educational foundations of the 1580s and 1590s—Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Emmanuel College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.The college was founded in 1584 by Sir Walter Mildmay on the site of a Dominican friary...
, Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge
Sidney Sussex College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England.The college was founded in 1596 and named after its foundress, Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex. It was from its inception an avowedly Puritan foundation: some good and godlie moniment for the mainteynance...
and Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin
Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...
—were strongly Calvinist in tone and became Puritan by reputation. Emmanuel under Laurence Chaderton
Laurence Chaderton
Laurence Chaderton was an English Puritan divine, and one of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.-Life:...
had a head who had earlier at Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College, Cambridge
Christ's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge.With a reputation for high academic standards, Christ's College averaged top place in the Tompkins Table from 1980-2000 . In 2011, Christ's was placed sixth.-College history:...
aimed at a Puritan training for the ministry, while still conforming to the Church of England. The Dublin college came close to being the outstanding Puritan seminary, taking Emmanuel as its model but reputedly becoming more "godly" yet.
Puritanism
The accession of James I brought the Millenary PetitionMillenary Petition
The Millenary Petition was a list of requests given to James I by Puritans in 1603 when he was travelling to London in order to claim the English throne. It is claimed, but not proven, that this petition had 1,000 signatures of Puritan ministers...
, a Puritan manifesto of 1603 for reform of the English church, but James wanted a new religious settlement along different lines. He called the Hampton Court Conference
Hampton Court Conference
The Hampton Court Conference was a meeting in January 1604, convened at Hampton Court Palace, for discussion between King James I of England and representatives of the Church of England, including leading English Puritans.-Attendance:...
in 1604, and heard the views of four prominent Puritan leaders including Chaderton there, but largely sided with his bishops. Well informed by his education and Scottish upbringing on theological matters, he dealt shortly with the peevish legacy of Elizabethan Puritanism, and tried to pursue an eirenic religious policy in which he was arbiter. Many of his episcopal appointments were Calvinists, notably James Montague
James Montague (bishop)
James Montague was an English bishop.-Life:He was the son of Sir Edward Montague of Boughton, and grandson of Edward Montagu....
who was an influential courtier. Puritans still opposed much of the Catholic summation
Anglo-Catholicism
The terms Anglo-Catholic and Anglo-Catholicism describe people, beliefs and practices within Anglicanism that affirm the Catholic, rather than Protestant, heritage and identity of the Anglican churches....
in the Church of England, notably the Book of Common Prayer, but also the use of non-secular vestments (cap and gown) during services, the use of the Holy Cross during baptism, and kneeling during the sacrament. Although the Puritan movement was subjected to repression by some of the bishops, under both Elizabeth and James, other bishops were more tolerant, and in many places, individual ministers were able to omit disliked portions of the Book of Common Prayer.
The Puritan movement of Jacobean times became distinctive by adaptation and compromise, with the emergence of "semi-separatism", "moderate puritanism", the writings of William Bradshaw
William Bradshaw (Puritan)
William Bradshaw was a moderate English Puritan, born in Market Bosworth.He was educated at Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he met both Anthony Gilby, and his future patron Arthur Hildersham, and at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He became a Fellow of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge in 1599, but left...
who adopted the term "Puritan" as self-identification, and the beginnings of congregationalism
Congregationalist polity
Congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of church governance in which every local church congregation is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous"...
. Most Puritans of this period were non-separating and remained within the Church of England, and Separatists who left the Church of England altogether were numerically much fewer.
Conflict within the Church of England under Charles I
James I was succeeded by his son Charles I of EnglandCharles I of England
Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
in 1625. In the year before becoming King, he married Henrietta-Marie de Bourbon
Henrietta Maria of France
Henrietta Maria of France ; was the Queen consort of England, Scotland and Ireland as the wife of King Charles I...
of France, a Roman Catholic daughter of the convert Henry IV of France
Henry IV of France
Henry IV , Henri-Quatre, was King of France from 1589 to 1610 and King of Navarre from 1572 to 1610. He was the first monarch of the Bourbon branch of the Capetian dynasty in France....
, who refused to attend the coronation of her husband in a non-Catholic cathedral. She had no tolerance for Puritans. At the same time, William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
, Bishop of London, was becoming increasingly powerful as an advisor to Charles. Laud viewed Puritans as a schismatic threat to orthodoxy in the church. With the Queen and Laud among his closest advisors, Charles pursued policies to eliminate the religious distinctiveness and "excesses" of Puritans. Laud became Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
in 1633, and moved the Church of England away from Puritanism, rigorously enforcing the law against ministers who deviated from the Book of Common Prayer or who refused to read the Book of Sports after its re-issue in 1633, a shibboleth
Shibboleth
A shibboleth is a custom, principle, or belief distinguishing a particular class or group of people, especially a long-standing one regarded as outmoded or no longer important...
for the Sabbatarian views spread by Nicholas Bownde
Nicholas Bownde
Nicholas Bownde, Bownd or Bound was an English clergyman, known for his sabbatarian writings.-Life:He was son of Robert Bownde , M.D., physician to the Duke of Norfolk. He was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1572, was elected a fellow later that year, and graduated...
and Nicholas Byfield
Nicholas Byfield
Nicholas Byfield was an English clergyman, a leading preacher of the reign of James I.-Life:He was a native of Warwickshire, son by his first wife of Richard Byfield, who became vicar of Stratford-on-Avon in January 1597...
.
Charles relied largely on the Star Chamber
Star Chamber
The Star Chamber was an English court of law that sat at the royal Palace of Westminster until 1641. It was made up of Privy Counsellors, as well as common-law judges and supplemented the activities of the common-law and equity courts in both civil and criminal matters...
and Court of High Commission
Court of High Commission
The Court of High Commission was the supreme ecclesiastic court in England. It was instituted by the crown during the Reformation and finally dissolved by parliament in 1641...
to implement his policies, courts under the control of the King, not the Parliament, capable of convicting and imprisoning Puritans under prerogative. He adapted them as instruments of suppression, following the juristic methods of Elizabeth I in dealing in the 1590s with the supporters of Thomas Cartwright. The Puritan movement in England then allied itself with the cause of "England's ancient liberties"; the unpopularity of Laud was a major factor leading to the English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, during which Puritans formed the backbone of the parliamentarian
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
forces. Laud was arrested in 1641 and executed in 1645, after a lengthy trial in which a large mass of evidence was brought, tending to represent him as obstructive of the "godly" and amounting to the whole, detailed Puritan case against the royal church policy of the preceding decade.
Fragmentation and political failure
The Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
was called in 1643. Doctrinally, the Assembly was able to agree to the Westminster Confession of Faith
Westminster Confession of Faith
The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith, in the Calvinist theological tradition. Although drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly, largely of the Church of England, it became and remains the 'subordinate standard' of doctrine in the Church of Scotland, and has been...
, a consistent Reformed theological position. While its content was orthodox, many Puritans would have rejected portions of it. The Directory of Public Worship
Directory of Public Worship
The Directory for Public Worship was a manual of directions for worship approved by an ordinance of Parliament early in 1645 to replace the Book of Common Prayer .-Origins:The movement against the Book of Common...
was made official in 1645, and the larger framework now called the Westminster Standards
Westminster Standards
The Westminster Standards is a collective name for the documents drawn up by the Westminster Assembly. These include the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the Westminster Larger Catechism, the Directory of Public Worship, and the Form of Church Government, and...
was adopted for the Church of England (reversed in 1660).
The Westminster Divines were, on the other hand, divided over questions of church polity, and split into factions supporting a reformed episcopacy, presbyterianism
Presbyterian polity
Presbyterian polity is a method of church governance typified by the rule of assemblies of presbyters, or elders. Each local church is governed by a body of elected elders usually called the session or consistory, though other terms, such as church board, may apply...
, congregationalism
Congregationalist polity
Congregationalist polity, often known as congregationalism, is a system of church governance in which every local church congregation is independent, ecclesiastically sovereign, or "autonomous"...
, and Erastianism. Although the membership of the Assembly was heavily weighted towards the presbyterians, Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
was a Congregationalist separatist
Independent (religion)
In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
who imposed his views. The Church of England of the Interregnum
Interregnum
An interregnum is a period of discontinuity or "gap" in a government, organization, or social order...
was run as a presbyterian ministry, but never became a national presbyterian church such as existed in Scotland, and England was not the theocratic state which leading Puritans had called for as "godly rule".
Great Ejection and Dissenters
At the time of the English RestorationEnglish Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
(1660), the Savoy Conference
Savoy Conference
The Savoy Conference of 1661 was a significant liturgical discussion that took place, after the Restoration of Charles II, in an attempt to effect a reconciliation within the Church of England.-Proceedings:...
was called to determine a new religious settlement for England and Wales. With only minor changes, the Church of England was restored to its pre-Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
constitution under the Act of Uniformity 1662
Act of Uniformity 1662
The Act of Uniformity was an Act of the Parliament of England, 13&14 Ch.2 c. 4 ,The '16 Charles II c. 2' nomenclature is reference to the statute book of the numbered year of the reign of the named King in the stated chapter...
, and the Puritans found themselves sidelined. A traditional estimate of the historian Calamy
Edmund Calamy (historian)
Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...
is that around 2,400 Puritan clergy left the Church, in the "Great Ejection
Great Ejection
The Great Ejection followed the Act of Uniformity 1662 in England. Two thousand Puritan ministers left their positions as Church of England clergy, following the changes after the restoration to power of Charles II....
" of 1662. At this point, the term Dissenter
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
came to include "Puritan", but more accurately describes those (clergy or lay) who "dissented" from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
Dividing themselves from all Christians in the Church of England, the Dissenters established their own separatist congregations in the 1660s and 1670s; an estimated 1,800 of the ejected clergy continued in some fashion as ministers of religion (according to Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...
). The government initially attempted to suppress these schismatic organizations by the Clarendon Code. There followed a period in which schemes of "comprehension" were proposed, under which presbyterians could be brought back into the Church of England; nothing resulted from them. The Whigs, opposing the court religious policies, argued that the Dissenters should be allowed to worship separately from the established Church, and this position ultimately prevailed when the Toleration Act
Act of Toleration 1689
The Act of Toleration was an act of the English Parliament , the long title of which is "An Act for Exempting their Majestyes Protestant Subjects dissenting from the Church of England from the Penalties of certaine Lawes".The Act allowed freedom of worship to Nonconformists who had pledged to the...
was passed in the wake of the Glorious Revolution
Glorious Revolution
The Glorious Revolution, also called the Revolution of 1688, is the overthrow of King James II of England by a union of English Parliamentarians with the Dutch stadtholder William III of Orange-Nassau...
(1689). As a result, a number of schismatic individuals were legally tolerated in the 1690s. The term Nonconformist generally replaced the term "Dissenter" from the middle of the eighteenth century.
Terminology and scholarly debates
Puritans who felt that the ReformationEnglish Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
of the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
was not to their satisfaction but who remained within the Church of England advocating further reforms are known as non-separating Puritans. This group differed among themselves about how much further reformation was necessary. Those who felt that the Church of England was so corrupt that true Christians should separate from it altogether are known as separating Puritans or simply as Separatists. Especially after the English Restoration
English Restoration
The Restoration of the English monarchy began in 1660 when the English, Scottish and Irish monarchies were all restored under Charles II after the Interregnum that followed the Wars of the Three Kingdoms...
of 1660, separating Puritans were called Dissenters
English Dissenters
English Dissenters were Christians who separated from the Church of England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries.They originally agitated for a wide reaching Protestant Reformation of the Established Church, and triumphed briefly under Oliver Cromwell....
. The term "puritan" cannot strictly be used to describe any new religious group after the 17th century.
The practitioners knew themselves as members of particular churches or movements, and not by a single term. The word "Puritan" is applied unevenly to a number of Protestant churches (and religious groups within the Anglican Church) from the later 16th century onwards, and Puritans did not originally use the term for themselves, considering that it was a term of abuse that first surfaced in the 1560s. "Precisemen" and "Precisians" were other early antagonistic terms for Puritans who preferred to call themselves "the godly." The word "Puritan" thus always referred to a type of religious belief, rather than a particular religious sect, and the attribution has been determined, generally, by a polemical context. Patrick Collinson
Patrick Collinson
Patrick Collinson CBE was an English historian, known as an authority on the Elizabethan era. His most influential work has been about Elizabethan Puritanism. He was Emeritus Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, having occupied the chair from 1988 to 1996...
has an extreme view that "Puritanism had no content beyond what was attributed to it by its opponents."
The literature on Puritans, particularly biographical literature on individual Puritan ministers, became large already in the 17th century, and indeed the interests of Puritans in the narratives of early life and conversions made the recording of the internal lives important to them. The historical literature on Puritans is, however quite problematic and subject to controversies of interpretation. The early writings are those of the defeated, excluded and victims. The great interest of authors of the 19th century in Puritan figures was routinely accused in the 20th century of consisting of anachronism and the reading back of contemporary concerns. Peter Gay
Peter Gay
Peter Gay is Sterling Professor of History Emeritus at Yale University and former director of the New York Public Library's Center for Scholars and Writers . Gay received the American Historical Association's Award for Scholarly Distinction in 2004...
writes of the Puritans' standard reputation for "dour prudery" as a "misreading that went unquestioned in the nineteenth century", commenting how unpuritanical they were in favour of married sexuality, and in opposition to the Catholic view of virginity
Virginity
Virginity refers to the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. There are cultural and religious traditions which place special value and significance on this state, especially in the case of unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honor and worth...
, citing Edward Taylor
Edward Taylor
Edward Taylor was a colonial American poet, pastor and physician.-Early life:...
and John Cotton.
Much of the religious history of the Puritans is written with a degree of anachronism or denominational bias, also. The analysis of "mainstream Puritanism" in terms of the evolution from it of separatist and antinomian groups that did not flourish, and others that continue to this day such as Baptists and Quakers, can suffer in this way, as well as risking an incoherent view of where the burden of belief lay for the "godly". The national context (England and Wales, plus the kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland) frames the definition of Puritans, but was not a self-identification for those Protestants who saw the progress of the Thirty Years' War
Thirty Years' War
The Thirty Years' War was fought primarily in what is now Germany, and at various points involved most countries in Europe. It was one of the most destructive conflicts in European history....
from 1620 as directly bearing on their denomination, and as a continuation of the religious wars of the previous century, carried on by the English Civil Wars. Christopher Hill
Christopher Hill (historian)
John Edward Christopher Hill , usually known simply as Christopher Hill, was an English Marxist historian and author of textbooks....
, who has contributed Marxist analyses of Puritan concerns that are more respected than accepted, writes of the 1630s, old church lands, and the accusations that Laud was a crypto-Catholic:
Puritans were politically important in England, but it is debated whether the movement was in any way a party with policies and leaders before the early 1640s; and while Puritanism in New England was important culturally for a group of colonial pioneers in America, there have been many studies trying to pin down exactly what the identifiable cultural component was. Fundamentally, historians remain dissatisfied with the grouping as "Puritan" as a working concept for historical explanation. The conception of a Protestant work ethic
Protestant work ethic
The Protestant work ethic is a concept in sociology, economics and history, attributable to the work of Max Weber...
, identified more closely with Calvinist or Puritan principles, has been criticised at its root, mainly as a post hoc ergo propter hoc
Post hoc ergo propter hoc
Post hoc ergo propter hoc, Latin for "after this, therefore because of this," is a logical fallacy that states, "Since that event followed this one, that event must have been caused by this one." It is often shortened to simply post hoc and is also sometimes referred to as false cause,...
fallacy aligning economic success with a narrow religious scheme.
Beliefs
There were substantial works of theology written by Puritans, such as the Medulla Theologiae of William AmesWilliam Ames
William Ames was an English Protestant divine, philosopher, and controversialist...
, but there is no theology that is distinctive of Puritans. "Puritan theology" makes sense only as certain parts of Reformed theology, i.e. the legacy in theological terms of Calvinism, as it was expounded by Puritan preachers (often known as lecturers), and applied in the lives of Puritans.
Core views
In the relation of churches to civil power, Puritans believed that secular governors are accountable to God to protect and reward virtue, including "true religion", and to punish wrongdoers. They opposed the supremacy of the monarch in the church (Erastianism), and argued that the only head of the Church in heaven or earth is Christ.The idea of personal Biblical interpretation, while central to Puritan beliefs, was shared with Protestants in general. Puritans sought both individual and corporate conformity to the teaching of the Bible, with moral purity pursued both down to the smallest detail as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level. They believed that man existed for the glory of God; that his first concern in life was to do God's will and so to receive future happiness.
Like some of Reformed churches on the European continent, Puritan reforms were typified by a minimum of ritual and decoration and by an unambiguous emphasis on preaching. Calvinists generally believed that the worship in the church ought to be strictly regulated by what is commanded in the Bible (the regulative principle of worship
Regulative principle of worship
The regulative principle of worship is a teaching shared by some Calvinists and Anabaptists on how the Bible orders public worship. The substance of the doctrine regarding worship is that God institutes in the Scriptures everything he requires for worship in the Church and that everything else is...
), and condemned as idolatry
Idolatry
Idolatry is a pejorative term for the worship of an idol, a physical object such as a cult image, as a god, or practices believed to verge on worship, such as giving undue honour and regard to created forms other than God. In all the Abrahamic religions idolatry is strongly forbidden, although...
many current practices, regardless of antiquity or widespread adoption among Christians, against opponents who defended tradition. Simplicity in worship led to the exclusion of vestments, images, candles, etc. They did not celebrate traditional holidays which they believed to be in violation of the regulative principles.
Diversity
Various strands of Calvinist thought of the 17th century were taken up by different parts of the Puritan movement, and in particular AmyraldismAmyraldism
Amyraldism primarily refers to a modified form of Calvinist theology...
was adopted by some influential figures (John Davenant
John Davenant
John Davenant was an English academic and bishop of Salisbury from 1621.-Life:He was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, elected a fellow there in 1597, and was its President from 1614 to 1621...
, Samuel Ward
Samuel Ward (scholar)
Samuel Ward was an English academic and a master at the University of Cambridge.-Life:He was born at Bishop Middleham, county Durham. He was a scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge, where in 1592 he was admitted B.A. In 1595 he was elected to a fellowship at Emmanuel, and in the following year...
, and to some extent Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter
Richard Baxter was an English Puritan church leader, poet, hymn-writer, theologian, and controversialist. Dean Stanley called him "the chief of English Protestant Schoolmen". After some false starts, he made his reputation by his ministry at Kidderminster, and at around the same time began a long...
). In the same way, there is no theory of church polity that is uniquely Puritan, and views differed beyond opposition to Erastianism (state control), though even that had its small group of supporters in the Westminster Assembly. Some approved of the existing church hierarchy with bishops, but others sought to reform the Episcopal churches on the Presbyterian model. Some separatist Puritans were Presbyterian, but most were early Congregationalists. The separating Congregationalists believed the Divine Right of Kings
Divine Right of Kings
The divine right of kings or divine-right theory of kingship is a political and religious doctrine of royal and political legitimacy. It asserts that a monarch is subject to no earthly authority, deriving his right to rule directly from the will of God...
was heresy
Christian heresy
Christian heresy refers to non-orthodox practices and beliefs that were deemed to be heretical by one or more of the Christian churches. In Western Christianity, the term "heresy" most commonly refers to those beliefs which were declared to be anathema by the Catholic Church prior to the schism of...
; but on the other hand there were many royalist Presbyterians, in terms of allegiance in the political struggle.
Migration also brought out differences. It brought together Puritan communities with their own regional customs and beliefs. As soon as there were New World Puritans, their views on church governance diverged from those remaining in the British Isles, who faced different issues.
Demonology
Puritans were believers in the demonic forces as were almost all Christians of this period. Puritan pastors undertook exorcismExorcism
Exorcism is the religious practice of evicting demons or other spiritual entities from a person or place which they are believed to have possessed...
s for demonic possession in some high-profile cases, and believed in some allegations of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
. The exorcist John Darrell
John Darrell
John Darrell was an Anglican clergyman, noted for his Puritan views and practice as an exorcist.Darrell was a sizar of Queens' College, Cambridge. In 1586 he exorcised a girl in Derbyshire, and published an account of his work. In 1596-7 he conducted further exorcisms, mainly at St. Mary's...
was supported by Arthur Hildersham
Arthur Hildersham
Arthur Hildersham was an English clergyman, a Puritan and nonconforming preacher.-Life:Arthur Hildersham was born at Stetchworth, and brought up as a Roman Catholic. He was educated in Saffron Walden and at Christ's College, Cambridge. Through the patronage of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of...
in the case of Thomas Darling; Samuel Harsnett
Samuel Harsnett
Samuel Harsnett , born Samuel Halsnoth, was an English writer on religion and Archbishop of York from 1629.- Early life :...
, a skeptic on witchcraft and possession, attacked Darrell. But Harsnett was in the minority, and many clergy, not only Puritans, took the opposite viewpoint. The possession case of Richard Dugdale
Richard Dugdale (demoniac)
Richard Dugdale, Richard , a domestic gardener and servant from Surey, near Whalley, Lancashire, became notable as a result of the publication of a number of pamphlets describing his apparent possession by the devil, and subsequent exorcism....
was taken up by the ejected nonconformist Thomas Jollie
Thomas Jollie
Thomas Jollie was an English Dissenter, a minister ejected for his beliefs from the Church of England.-Biography:Thomas Jollie was born at Droylsden, near Manchester, on 14 September 1629, and baptised on 29 September at Gorton Chapel, then in the parish of Manchester...
, and other local ministers, in 1689.
The context of the Salem witch trials
Salem witch trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
of 1692-3 shows the intricacy of trying to place "Puritan" beliefs as distinctive. The publication of Saducismus Triumphatus, an anti-sceptical tract that has been implicated in the moral panic
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
at Salem, involved Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill
Joseph Glanvill was an English writer, philosopher, and clergyman. Not himself a scientist, he has been called "the most skillful apologist of the virtuosi", or in other words the leading propagandist for the approach of the English natural philosophers of the later 17th century.-Life:He was...
(a latitudinarian
Latitudinarian
Latitudinarian was initially a pejorative term applied to a group of 17th-century English theologians who believed in conforming to official Church of England practices but who felt that matters of doctrine, liturgical practice, and ecclesiastical organization were of relatively little importance...
), Henry More
Henry More
Henry More FRS was an English philosopher of the Cambridge Platonist school.-Biography:Henry was born at Grantham and was schooled at The King's School, Grantham and at Eton College...
(a Cambridge Platonist) as editor, and Anthony Horneck
Anthony Horneck
Anthony Horneck was a German Protestant clergyman and scholar who made his career in England. He became an influential evangelical figure in London from the later 1670s, in partnership with Richard Smithies, curate of St Giles Cripplegate....
, an evangelical German Anglican, as translator of a pamphlet about a Swedish witch hunt; and none of these was a Puritan. Glanvill and More had been vehemently opposed in the 1670s by the sceptic John Webster
John Webster (minister)
John Webster , also known as Johannes Hyphastes, was an English clergyman, physician and chemist with occult interests, a proponent of astrology and a sceptic about witchcraft. He is known for controversial works.-Life:...
, an Independent
Independent (religion)
In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
and sometime chaplain to the Parliamentary forces.
Millennialism
Puritan millennialismMillennialism
Millennialism , or chiliasm in Greek, is a belief held by some Christian denominations that there will be a Golden Age or Paradise on Earth in which "Christ will reign" for 1000 years prior to the final judgment and future eternal state...
has been placed in the broader context of European Reformed views on the millennium and interpretation of Biblical prophecy, for which representative figures of the period were Johannes Piscator
Johannes Piscator
Johannes Piscator was a German Reformed theologian, known as a Bible translator and textbook writer.He was a prolific writer, and initially moved around as he held a number of positions...
, Thomas Brightman
Thomas Brightman
Thomas Brightman was an English clergyman and biblical commentator. His exegesis of the Book of Revelation, published posthumously, proved influential. According to William M...
, Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow from 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist...
, Johannes Heinrich Alsted, and John Amos Comenius. Both Brightman and Mede were Puritan by conviction, and so are identified by their biographers, though neither clashed with the church authorities. David Brady describes a "lull before the storm" in which, in the early 17th century, "reasonably restrained and systematic" Protestant exegesis of the Book of Revelation
Book of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. The title came into usage from the first word of the book in Koine Greek: apokalupsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation"...
was seen with Brightman, Mede and Hugh Broughton
Hugh Broughton
Hugh Broughton was an English scholar and theologian.-Early life:He was born at Owlbury, Bishop's Castle, Shropshire. He calls himself a Cambrian, implying Welsh blood in his veins. He was educated by Bernard Gilpin at Houghton-le-Spring and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he matriculated...
; after which "apocalyptic literature became too easily debased" as it became more populist, less scholarly. Within the church, William Lamont argues, the Elizabethan millennial views of John Foxe
John Foxe
John Foxe was an English historian and martyrologist, the author of what is popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, , an account of Christian martyrs throughout Western history but emphasizing the sufferings of English Protestants and proto-Protestants from the fourteenth century through the...
became sidelined, with Puritans adopting instead the "centrifugal" views of Brightman, while the Laudians replaced the "centripetal" attitude of Foxe to the 'Christian Emperor' by the national and episcopal Church closer to home, with its royal head, as leading the Protestant world iure divino (by divine right). Viggo Norskov Olsen writes that Mede "broke fully away from the Augustinian-Foxian tradition, and is the link between Brightman and the premillennialism
Premillennialism
Premillennialism in Christian end-times theology is the belief that Jesus will literally and physically be on the earth for his millennial reign, at his second coming. The doctrine is called premillennialism because it holds that Jesus’ physical return to earth will occur prior to the inauguration...
of the seventeenth century".
The dam then broke in 1641 when the traditional retrospective reverence for Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
and other martyred bishops in the Acts and Monuments was displaced by forward-looking attitudes to prophecy, among radical Puritans.
Cultural consequences
Some strong religious views common to Puritans had direct impacts on culture. The opposition to acting as public performance, typefied by William PrynneWilliam Prynne
William Prynne was an English lawyer, author, polemicist, and political figure. He was a prominent Puritan opponent of the church policy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, William Laud. Although his views on church polity were presbyterian, he became known in the 1640s as an Erastian, arguing for...
's Histriomastix, was not a concern with drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
as a form. John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
wrote Samson Agonistes
Samson Agonistes
Samson Agonistes is a tragic closet drama by John Milton. It appeared with the publication of Milton's Paradise Regain'd in 1671, as the title page of that volume states: "Paradise Regained / A Poem / In IV Books / To Which Is Added / Samson Agonistes"...
as verse drama, and indeed had at an early stage contemplated writing Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
in that form. N. H. Keeble writes:
But the sexualisation of Restoration theatre was attacked as strongly as ever, by Thomas Gouge
Thomas Gouge
Thomas Gouge was an English Presbyterian clergyman, a contemporary of Samuel Pepys, associated with the Puritan movement....
, as Keeble points out. Puritans eliminated the use of musical instrument
Musical instrument
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted for the purpose of making musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the...
s in their religious services, for theological and practical reasons. Church organs were commonly damaged or destroyed in the Civil War period, for example an axe being taken to the organ of Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral
Worcester Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in Worcester, England; situated on a bank overlooking the River Severn. It is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Worcester. Its official name is The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Worcester...
in 1642.
Education for the masses was so they could read the Bible for themselves. Educated pastors could read the Bible in its original languages of Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, Hebrew
Hebrew language
Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
, and Aramaic, as well as church tradition and scholarly works, which were most commonly written in Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
. Most of the leading Puritan divines studied at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
or the University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
before seeking ordination
Ordination
In general religious use, ordination is the process by which individuals are consecrated, that is, set apart as clergy to perform various religious rites and ceremonies. The process and ceremonies of ordination itself varies by religion and denomination. One who is in preparation for, or who is...
.
Diversions for the educated included discussing the Bible and its practical applications as well as reading the classics such as Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
, Virgil
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro, usually called Virgil or Vergil in English , was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He is known for three major works of Latin literature, the Eclogues , the Georgics, and the epic Aeneid...
, and Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
. They also encouraged the composition of poetry that was of a religious nature, though they eschewed religious-erotic poetry except for the Song of Solomon
Song of Solomon
The Song of Songs of Solomon, commonly referred to as Song of Songs or Song of Solomon, is a book of the Hebrew Bible—one of the megillot —found in the last section of the Tanakh, known as the Ketuvim...
. This they considered magnificent poetry, without error, regulative for their sexual pleasure, and, especially, as an allegory
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
of Christ and the Church.
Social consequences and family life
Puritan culture emphasized the need for self-examination and the strict accounting for one’s feelings as well as one’s deeds. This was the centre of evangelical experience, which women in turn placed at the heart of their work to sustain family life. The words of the Bible, as they interpreted them, were the origin of many Puritan cultural ideals, especially regarding the roles of men and women in the community. While both sexes carried the stain of original sinOriginal sin
Original sin is, according to a Christian theological doctrine, humanity's state of sin resulting from the Fall of Man. This condition has been characterized in many ways, ranging from something as insignificant as a slight deficiency, or a tendency toward sin yet without collective guilt, referred...
, for a girl, original sin suggested more than the roster of Puritan character flaws. Eve
Eve (Bible)
Eve was, according to the creation of Abrahamic religions, the first woman created by God...
’s corruption, in Puritan eyes, extended to all women, and justified marginalizing them within churches' hierarchical structures . An example is the different ways that men and women were made to express their conversion
Religious conversion
Religious conversion is the adoption of a new religion that differs from the convert's previous religion. Changing from one denomination to another within the same religion is usually described as reaffiliation rather than conversion.People convert to a different religion for various reasons,...
experiences. For full membership, the Puritan church insisted not only that its congregants lead godly lives and exhibit a clear understanding of the main tenets of their Christian faith, but they also must demonstrate that they had experienced true evidence of the workings of God’s grace in their souls. Only those who gave a convincing account of such a conversion could be admitted to full church membership. While women were typically not permitted to speak in church, they were allowed to engage in religious discussions outside of it, and they could narrate their conversions.
The English Puritan William Gouge
William Gouge
William Gouge was an English clergyman and author. He was a minister and preacher at St Ann Blackfriars for 45 years, from 1608, and a member of the Westminster Assembly from 1643.-Life:...
wrote:
- “…a familie is a little Church, and a little common-wealth, at least a lively representation thereof, whereby triall may be made of such as are fit for any place of authoritie, or of subjection in Church or commonwealth. Or rather it is as a schoole wherein the first principles and grounds of government and subjection are learned: whereby men are fitted to greater matters in Church or common-wealth.”
Order in the family, then, fundamentally structured Puritan belief. The essence of social order lay in the authority of husband over wife, parents over children, and masters over servants in the family. John White wrote in his Genesis commentary of a wife as "but a helper", a view called "typically puritan" by Philip C. Almond.
Ideas of proper order both sharply defined and confined a woman’s authority. Indeed, God's word often prescribed important roles of authority for women; the Complete Body of Divinity stated that
- “…as to Servants, the Metaphorical and Synecdochial usage of the words Father and Mother, heretofore observed, implys it; for tho’ the Husband be the Head of the Wife, yet she is an Head of the Family.”.
Samuel Sewall
Samuel Sewall
Samuel Sewall was a Massachusetts judge, best known for his involvement in the Salem witch trials, for which he later apologized, and his essay The Selling of Joseph , which criticized slavery.-Biography:...
, a magistrate, advised his son’s servant that “he could not obey his Master without obedience to his Mistress; and vice versa.”
Authority and obedience characterized the relationship between Puritan parents and their children. Proper love meant proper discipline
Discipline
In its original sense, discipline is referred to systematic instruction given to disciples to train them as students in a craft or trade, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order". Often, the phrase "to discipline" carries a negative connotation. This is because enforcement of order –...
; , the family was the basic unit of supervision. A breakdown in family rule indicated a disregard of God’s order. “Fathers and mothers have ‘disordered and disobedient children,’” said the Puritan Richard Greenham
Richard Greenham
Richard Greenham was an English clergyman of Puritan views, known as a Sabbatarian writer.-Life:He was probably born about 1535, and went at a late age to the University of Cambridge where he matriculated as a sizar of Pembroke Hall on 27 May 1559. He graduated B.A. early in 1564, and was...
, “because they have been disobedient children to the Lord and disordered to their parents when they were young.” Because the duty of early childcare fell almost exclusively on women, a woman's salvation
Salvation
Within religion salvation is the phenomenon of being saved from the undesirable condition of bondage or suffering experienced by the psyche or soul that has arisen as a result of unskillful or immoral actions generically referred to as sins. Salvation may also be called "deliverance" or...
necessarily depended upon the observable goodness of her child. Puritans further connected the discipline of a child to later readiness for conversion. Accordingly, parents attempted to check their affectionate feelings toward a disobedient child, at least after the child was about two years old, in order to break his or her will . This suspicious regard of “fondness” and heavy emphasis on obedience placed pressures on the Puritan mother. While Puritans expected mothers to care for their young children tenderly, a mother who doted could be accused of failing to keep God present. A father’s more distant governance should check the mother’s tenderness once a male child reached the age of 6 or 7 so that he could bring the child to God’s authority .
New England Puritans
Particularly in the years after 1630, Puritans left for New England (see Migration to New England (1620–1640)), supporting the founding of the Massachusetts Bay ColonyMassachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
and other settlements. The large-scale Puritan emigration to New England then ceased, by 1641, with around 21,000 having moved across the Atlantic. This English-speaking population in America did not all consist of colonists, since many returned, but produced more than 16 million descendants. This so-called "Great Migration" is not so named because of sheer numbers, which were much less than the number of English citizens who emigrated to Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
and the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
during this time. The rapid growth of the New England colonies (~700,000 by 1790) was almost entirely due to the high birth rate and lower death rate per year.
Education
New England differed from its mother country, where nothing in English statute required schoolmasters or the literacyLiteracy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
of children. With the possible exception of Scotland, the Puritan model of education in New England was unique. John Winthrop
John Winthrop
John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer, and one of the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the first major settlement in New England after Plymouth Colony. Winthrop led the first large wave of migrants from England in 1630, and served as governor for 12 of...
in 1630 had claimed that the society they would form in New England would be "as a city upon a hill;" and the colony leaders would educate all. These were men of letters, had attended Oxford or Cambridge, and communicated with intellectuals all over Europe; and in 1636 they founded the school that shortly became Harvard College
Harvard College
Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is one of two schools within Harvard University granting undergraduate degrees...
.
Besides the Bible, children needed to read in order to “understand…the capital laws of this country,” as the Massachusetts code declared, order being of the utmost importance, and children not taught to read would grow “barbarous” (the 1648 amendment to the Massachusetts law and the 1650 Connecticut code, both used the word “barbarisme”). By the 1670s, all New England colonies (excepting Rhode Island
Rhode Island
The state of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, more commonly referred to as Rhode Island , is a state in the New England region of the United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area...
) had passed legislation that mandated literacy for children. In 1647, Massachusetts passed a law that required towns to hire a schoolmaster to teach writing.
Forms of schooling ranged from dame school
Dame school
A Dame School was an early form of a private elementary school in English-speaking countries. They were usually taught by women and were often located in the home of the teacher.- Britain :...
s to “Latin” schools for boys already literate in English and ready to master preparatory grammar
Grammar
In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
for Latin, Hebrew, and Greek. Reading schools would often be the single source of education for girls, whereas boys would go to the town grammar schools. Indeed, gender largely determined educational practices: women introduced all children to reading, and men taught boys in higher pursuits. Since girls could play no role in the ministry, and since grammar schools were designed to “instruct youth so far as they may be fited for the university,” Latin grammar schools did not accept girls (nor did Harvard). Most evidence suggests that girls could not attend the less ambitious town schools, the lower-tier writing-reading schools mandated for townships of over fifty families.
Restrictions and pleasures
Theocracy
Theocracy is a form of organization in which the official policy is to be governed by immediate divine guidance or by officials who are regarded as divinely guided, or simply pursuant to the doctrine of a particular religious sect or religion....
. The first Puritans of New England certainly disapproved of Christmas
Christmas
Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...
celebrations, as did some other Protestant churches of the time. Celebration was outlawed in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
from 1659. The ban was revoked in 1681 by the English-appointed governor Sir Edmund Andros, who also revoked a Puritan ban on festivities on Saturday nights. Nevertheless, it was not until the mid-19th century that celebrating Christmas became fashionable in the Boston region. Likewise the colonies banned many secular entertainments, such as games of chance
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
, maypole
Maypole
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer...
s, and drama, on moral grounds.
They were not, however, opposed to drinking alcohol in moderation. Early New England laws banning the sale of alcohol to Native Americans were criticized because it was “not fit to deprive Indians of any lawfull comfort aloweth to all men by the use of wine.” Laws banned the practice of individuals toasting each other: it led to wasting God's gift of beer and wine, as well as being carnal. Bounds were not set on enjoying sexuality within the bounds of marriage, as a gift from God. In fact, spouses (albeit, in practice, mainly females) were disciplined if they did not perform their sexual marital duties, in accordance with 1 Corinthians 7 and other biblical passages. Puritans publicly punished drunkenness and sexual relations outside of marriage
Fornication
Fornication typically refers to consensual sexual intercourse between two people not married to each other. For many people, the term carries a moral or religious association, but the significance of sexual acts to which the term is applied varies between religions, societies and cultures. The...
.
Opposition to Quakerism
The Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay ColonyMassachusetts Bay Colony
The Massachusetts Bay Colony was an English settlement on the east coast of North America in the 17th century, in New England, situated around the present-day cities of Salem and Boston. The territory administered by the colony included much of present-day central New England, including portions...
were the most active of the New England persecutors of Quakers, and the persecuting spirit was shared by the Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony was an English colonial venture in North America from 1620 to 1691. The first settlement of the Plymouth Colony was at New Plymouth, a location previously surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement, which served as the capital of the colony, is today the modern town...
and the colonies along the Connecticut river
Connecticut River
The Connecticut River is the largest and longest river in New England, and also an American Heritage River. It flows roughly south, starting from the Fourth Connecticut Lake in New Hampshire. After flowing through the remaining Connecticut Lakes and Lake Francis, it defines the border between the...
. In 1660, one of the most notable victims of the religious intolerance was English Quaker Mary Dyer
Mary Dyer
Mary Baker Dyer was an English Puritan turned Quaker who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts Bay Colony , for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony...
who was hanged in Boston, Massachusetts for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She was one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs
Boston martyrs
The Boston martyrs is the name given in Quaker tradition to the three English members of the Society of Friends, Marmaduke Stephenson, William Robinson and Mary Dyer, and to the Friend William Leddra of Barbados, who were condemned to death and executed by public hanging for their religious beliefs...
. In 1661 King Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
explicitly forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684 England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686, and in 1689 passed a broad Toleration act.
The Puritan spirit in the United States
Alexis de TocquevilleAlexis de Tocqueville
Alexis-Charles-Henri Clérel de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian best known for his Democracy in America and The Old Regime and the Revolution . In both of these works, he explored the effects of the rising equality of social conditions on the individual and the state in...
suggested in Democracy in America
Democracy in America
De la démocratie en Amérique is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville. A "literal" translation of its title is Of Democracy in America, but the usual translation of the title is simply Democracy in America...
that Puritanism was the very thing that provided a firm foundation for American democracy. As Sheldon Wolin
Sheldon Wolin
Sheldon S. Wolin is a political philosopher. He is professor emeritus of Princeton University and a writer on contemporary politics. He is married to Emily Purvis Wolin.-Early life:He attended Oberlin College as an undergraduate...
puts it, "Tocqueville was aware of the harshness and bigotry of the early colonists"; but on the other hand he saw them as "archaic survivals, not only in their piety and discipline but in their democratic practices". The theme of a religious basis of economic discipline is echoed in sociologist Max Weber
Max Weber
Karl Emil Maximilian "Max" Weber was a German sociologist and political economist who profoundly influenced social theory, social research, and the discipline of sociology itself...
's work, but both de Tocqueville and Weber argued that this discipline was not a force of economic determinism
Economic determinism
Economic determinism is the theory which attributes primacy to the economic structure over politics in the development of human history. It is usually associated with the theories of Karl Marx, although many Marxist thinkers have dismissed plain and unilateral economic determinism as a form of...
, but one factor among many that should be considered when evaluating the relative economic success of the Puritans.
See also
- Church covenantChurch covenantThe church covenant is a declaration, which some churches draw up and call their members to sign, in which their duties as church members towards God and their fellow believers are outlined...
- IndependentsIndependent (religion)In English church history, Independents advocated local congregational control of religious and church matters, without any wider geographical hierarchy, either ecclesiastical or political...
- List of Puritans
- Plymouth RockPlymouth RockPlymouth Rock is the traditional site of disembarkation of William Bradford and the Mayflower Pilgrims who founded Plymouth Colony in 1620. It is an important symbol in American history...
- Salem witch trialsSalem witch trialsThe Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before county court trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex in colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693...
- Separatists
- Work ethicWork ethicWork ethic is a set of values based on hard work and diligence. It is also a belief in the moral benefit of work and its ability to enhance character. An example would be the Protestant work ethic...