UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY

The Construction of Deviance and Its Moralistic Implementation

in Anti-Ranter Pamphlets

By

John Daniel Foo Siddons

A THESIS

SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE STUDIES IN

PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIRMENTS FOR THE

DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

CALGARY, ALBERTA,

AUGUST, 2010

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1*1 Canada Abstract

This thesis will argue that anti-Ranter pamphlets should be read as pieces of moralistic historiography which, in response to contemporary stresses on English society during the

Revolution, construct the figure of the Ranter as an inversion of acceptable sexual and religious behaviour in order to advance a conservative moral program. This discursive reading of anti-Ranter pamphlets will draw on notable historical and literary developments, specifically the Blasphemy and Adultery Acts, to explore how anti-Ranter pamphlets reacted to contemporary worries regarding the growth of adultery and blasphemy. I suggest that the pamphlets can be examined as literary counterparts to the statutes passed by the legal establishment, both intending to foster obedience and correct religiosity via strategies deploying fears of retribution for illicit acts.

ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ii

Table of Contents iii

INTRODUCTIOCHAPTER ONEN: 1 Outline 2

CHAPTER TWO: THE PAMPHLETS AND THEIR HISTORICAL CONTEXT Introduction 7 Who Were the Ranters? 7 13 Sundry Tales: An Overview of Anti-Ranter Pamphlets 8 Religious and Political Context of the Pamphlets 14 "Litters of blind inuentions": The Pamphlet, the Collapse of Censorship, and the Printed Press 17 Conclusion 21

CHAPTER THREE: ACADEMIC TRENDS IN RANTER SCHOLARSHIP AND METHODOLOGICAL CHALLENGES FACING THE STUDY OF THE RANTERS Introduction 22 Ranters as "Hippies": The Early Years of Ranter Scholarship and its Influence on Later Research 23 From Broad-Based Sect to "Ranter Core": Scholarship from the 80s to Present and its Revision of the Ranter Movement 27 J.C. Davis and the Case Against Ranter Existence 30 Scholarly Critique of Davis' Hypothesis: The Case for Ranter Existence Revisited....31 Challenges of Textuality: The Perils of Reading Polemical Texts Empirically 34 Conclusion 36

CHAPTER FOUR: A NEW SHIFT IN READING RANTER PAMPHLETS: THE LITERARY FOUNDATION OF ANTI-RANTER PAMPHLETS AND A NEW INTERPRETIVE MODEL Introduction 35 The Travesty: Tales of Morality and the Macabre 35 "Rogue Literature": Revealing Secret Societies and the Representation of Criminality 43 Ranter Carnivalesque: Inversion, Misrule and the Excess of Liberty 45 Reading Ranter Pamphlets as Tales of Morality 49 Ekphrasis: The Rhetorical Mechanism of the Pamphlets 53 Conclusion 59

iii CHAPTER FIVE: THE MORAL PANIC OF 1650-1652 AND BLASPHEMY: THE BLASPHEMY ACT AND RANTER ACTS OF BLASPHEMY AND IRRELIGION IN THE PAMPHLETS Introduction 60 The Blasphemy Act 60 Antinomianism and Ranter Blasphemy in the Pamphlets 63 Theatrical Acts of Desecration in the Ranter Pamphlets 65 Conclusion 68

CHAPTER SIX: THE MORAL PANIC OF 1650-52 AND ADULTERY: THE ADULTERY ACT AND RANTER SEXUALITY PORTRAYED IN THE PAMPHLETS Introduction 70 Conventional Understanding of Marriage and Customary Sexual Norms 71 The Collapse of the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Policing of Sexuality 74 The Adultery Act 75 Scenes of Ranter Sex in the Pamphlets 78 Conclusion 82

CHAPTER SEVEN: CASE STUDIES IN RANTER LITERATURE: TWO RANTER PAMPHLETS AND AN ANALYSIS OF PAMPHLET ILLUSTRATIONS. Introduction 85 Early Modern Smut Magazines: Ranter Pamphlet Woodcut Prints and Illustrations...85 The Ranters Monster 88 The Joviall Crew 92 Conclusion 97

CONCLUSION 98

WORKS CITED 99

APPENDIX A: Table of Ranter Pamphlets 108

APPENDIX B: Illustrations of woodcut prints 109

IV List of Tables

Table 1: Table of Pamphlets

v List of Figures

Fig. 1. Cover: The Ranters Declaration

Fig 2. Cover: The Ranters Monster

Fig 3. Cover: The Ranters Ranting

Fig 4. Cover: A Nest of Serpents Discovered

Fig 5: Cover: The Ranters Religion

VI 1

Chapter One. Introduction

It will be my contention throughout this thesis that given the absence of impartial

archival sources to corroborate whether the Ranters existed or not as an identifiable sect, the ability for anti-Ranter pamphlets to recount activities and beliefs of actual Ranters is tenuous.

Instead, I argue that it is more profitable for scholarship to reappraise anti-Ranter pamphlets

as a form of historiography that captures contemporary malaise regarding the effects of

sectarianism and concerns that it would devolve into transgression, both spiritual and sexual.

Reading anti-Ranter pamphlets as ideological fabrications rather than as factual accounts marks a methodological shift in interpretation from existing scholarship which has taken anti-

Ranter texts as evidentiary sources for the activities and existence of an actual religious sect.

Given the paucity of archival sources to substantiate the claims made by anti-Ranter

pamphlets, I suggest that it is much more profitable to shift the scholarly investigation away

from questioning what these texts can tell us about the Ranters per se to what these texts can

tell us about English society during the period and its worries about incorrigible blasphemy

and sex. From this vantage point, the importance of Ranter texts rests not in their capacity to

provide corroborative evidence for the existence of an alleged Ranter movement, but for their

ability to present contextual background on the state of religion and sexuality as well as the ways in which texts could be used to mitigate worrying developments. I will argue then that

anti-Ranter pamphlets serve as a literary corrective against a perceived threat of

antinomianism that reflects the attempts made by Parliament to curb practices of adultery and

blasphemy. During the 1650s, the legal establishment of the Rump Parliament passed statues meant to instigate a moral reform by setting forth stiff punishments for illicit acts. The pamphlet writers utilized similar strategies to invoke fear and obedience by advancing 2 didactic stories in which transgressors are punished and readers cautioned from embarking on a path of perdition in order to dissuade readers from perpetrating sinful acts.

Outline

My thesis will be structured in six Chapters. Chapter two will provide a historical overview of the milieu in which the anti-Ranter pamphlets were written, isolating key factors which enabled and prompted the production of these texts. The chapter will begin with a presentation of the pamphlets themselves, describing their physical construction, general narrative framework and leitmotifs. While the vast majority of the pamphlets are of unknown provenance, individual authorship will be discussed for those texts whose creator is known.

The chapter will then proceed to an exposition of the political developments between the

Regicide and 1651 when the bulk of the pamphlets were written. This period marks both the solidification of the Parliament's authority in government and its self-appointed mandate of moral reform implemented through acts of religious and sexual legislation. Coinciding with these initiatives between 1649 and 1651 were the trials of two alleged Ranters by Parliament for the crimes of blasphemy in September and October 1650, launching the Ranters to the forefront of public consciousness as agents of unruliness and deviance. The Chapter will conclude with an in-depth analysis of the literary genre of the pamphlet and the collapse of censorship following the disbandment of the Star Chamber during the Civil Wars. Without strict oversight governing the production of printed texts during the Interregnum, the pamphlet became a useful means for ideological dissemination and the Ranter pamphlets emerged from this flurry of printed words and polemics.

Chapter three will explore the academic debate regarding the existence of the Ranters as an actual sect, focusing in part on the issue of textuality and how this methodological 3

concern has affected scholarship on the Ranters and the reading of anti-Ranter pamphlets.

One of the linchpins of the scholarly debate on the existence of the Ranters hinges on the

legitimacy of using anti-Ranter pamphlets as sources providing reliable representations of

Ranter beliefs and activities. While the majority of historians have endorsed the accuracy of

anti-Ranter pamphlets as a testimony of the actions of an actual sect, the historian J.C. Davis

argues that the Ranters never existed as a coherent movement, but were instead a fictional

product of the yellow-press. This chapter will examine how Davis' thesis recasts the reading

of Ranter pamphlets, raising the question of how anti-Ranter pamphlets should be read if

they cannot be read as empirical sources. Davis suggests that Ranter texts use the image of

the Ranter as a "folk demon," capitalizing on contemporary fears to create an image of

deviance. My thesis will use Davis' hypothesis as a starting point and will continue on the

path suggested by his research, which has not been traveled down by other scholars, by

examining the processes by which the pamphlets construct deviance, the tropes in which this

deviance is presented, and the means by which it is contained and suppressed within the

texts.

To assist me in this endeavour, I will examine the Ranter pamphlets in conjunction

with other literary genres popular during the period, specifically the travesty and rogue

literature, in order to provide a literary context which can illuminate key aspects of the

Ranter pamphlets. This will be the focus of chapter four. While they may appear novel in

form and content, the Ranter pamphlets share key characteristics and partake of a similar

literary program as rogue literature and the travesty, two genres premised on presenting to

readers a subaltern world marked by criminality and the fantastical that risks contaminating the proper order if not contained. Both genres consequently have pronounced moralistic 4 undertones, regularly concluding with the punishment of agents disruptive of the moral norm, thereby re-establishing the status quo. I will argue that Ranter pamphlets function as a variation of the travesty that incorporates elements of rogue literature, and as a hybrid of these forms, should be approached with the same questions and considerations as these genres. By comparing the Ranter pamphlets with other literary forms, an activity which previous scholarship has not undertaken, a new interpretive approach arises that enables the pamphlets to be read as the products of an ideological agenda oriented towards moralism as opposed to factually reliable texts.

Chapter five of my thesis will analyze one of the leitmotifs of the anti-Ranter pamphlets, the fear of irreligion, blasphemy, and antinomianism - the belief that one is exempt from religious laws. A considerable emphasis of anti-Ranter pamphlets is devoted to describing the Ranters' profanation of religious sacraments and their blasphemous tenets. My analysis of the pamphlets' representation of this irreligious behaviour will be related to contemporary historical events, specifically the passing of the Blasphemy Act in August

1650 which heralded the curtailment of heterodox religious ideas. Through this association with the religio-political milieu of Interregnum England, I aim to show how the publishing of the Ranter pamphlets coincides with a time of moral uncertainty when blasphemy was seen as a worrying presence in the nation requiring prevention and correction. I suggest that the pamphlets can be read as a fictional corrective to this threat of blasphemy as the punishment of Ranter heresy within the texts operates as a literary means to enforce proper religious conduct.

Chapter six will focus on issues of sexuality, particularly adultery and group sex, the benchmark characteristic of the Ranters which the pamphlets elaborate with various 5

anecdotes and salacious detail. All the anti-Ranter pamphlets demonstrate a palpable unease

with the errancy they view as endemic to Ranterism and provide various examples

demonstrating the ill-effects it exerts on the rule of law and respect towards morality,

manifested especially through sexual incontinency. My examination of the pamphlets'

representation of the Ranters' libertine sexuality will be accompanied by an overview of

established sexual customs during the period and its formulation of marriage, informed in

large part by Puritan views as well as the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which Ranter

sexual carriage stands in direct opposition against. I will also incorporate contemporary

political developments into my analysis of the pamphlets' representation of Ranter sexuality.

The pamphlets emerged during a time in England when the agencies previously responsible

for the policing of sexual activity, the ecclesiastical courts, had been dissolved, leaving

sexual misconduct largely unregulated and a source of public debate. Prompted by this

absence of regulation, Parliament passed the Adultery Act in 1650 which redefined sexual

transgressions as capital offenses punishable by secular authorities. The Ranter pamphlets are

enmeshed in these concerns and can be viewed as responding to the sexual conversation

taking place in 1650, their portrayal of the Ranters providing an extreme demonstration of

the dangers of permissive, unrestrained sex which frightened legislators and the populace.

Constructing the Ranter as an aniconic figure of proper sexuality, the pamphlets seek to

contain the force of unmitigated sexual desire in their narratives by punishing sexual

deviance, either through divine or human agents.

Chapter seven will consist of a close reading of two Ranter pamphlets The Ranters

Monster and The Joviall Crew, which encapsulate and mobilize the themes and discursive tactics outlined in the preceding portions of the thesis. They offer narratives which vividly 6 illustrate the boundaries separating deviancy from godliness by creating characters whose flirtation with Ranterism leads them from a life of probity to a life of sin. Both texts are typical of the pamphlets, serving as the most explicit examples of the genre's moralizing initiative. The second part of the chapter will examine the illustrations which accompanied the pamphlets. Keeping in tune with the ribald tenor of the pamphlets, the pornographic woodblock prints gracing the pages of the anti-Ranter tracts serve as a visual counterpart to the sexually explicit dialogue contained within the texts. These illustrations not only served to arouse extra titillation on the part of the readers' reading experience by instilling a degree of voyeurism, but occupied a vital role in the characterization of the Ranters as sexually debauched perverts by providing visible evidence of their sins. Descriptions will be provided of the most notable prints and their capacity to serve as a vehicle for polemic will also be discussed. Chapter Two. The Pamphlets and their Historical Context

The anti-Ranter pamphlets were written during a volatile political period in England's history when the nation first began its experimentation with Republicanism. One of the key initiatives set forth by the Rump Parliament was for a "reformation of manners" intended to curb the perpetuation of immoral acts, many of which can be considered as prototypically

Ranter. Adding to the volatility of the period was the rise of sectarian activity which had increased since 1641 and the beginnings of the Revolution. Another factor which contributed to the explosion of Ranter pamphlets during 1650-52 was the collapse of censorship which permitted a range of previously restricted discourse to emerge on the marketplace.

Who Were the Ranters?

The Ranters were popularly conceived as mystics who embraced the concept of the

"indwelling spirit" and consequently believed that the Divine presence was found within the individual. They additionally preached a doctrine of antinomianism- that humans were free from sin and under no obligation to follow religious law. Under this rationale, whatever act was done in the Spirit was seen as justifiable, leading to an endorsement of libertinism. For this reason, the Ranters became notorious for allegedly partaking in all sorts of debaucheries and blasphemous acts which they deemed as wholly acceptable. They were reputed to have denied the existence of Hell and the Devil, rejected the validity of scripture, and denied organized religion and its liturgical practices. The Ranters can thus be seen as the pinnacle of heresy and the inversion of what a proper Christian should be. Unfortunately, there exist few archival sources to substantiate claims of Ranter gatherings, nor are there personal testimonies describing Ranters apart from the pamphlets or polemical sources from competing sects seeking to defame them.

Two noteworthy individuals purported to have been Ranters are Laurence Clarkson

(1615-1667) and Abiezer Coppe (1619-1672). Both men wrote treatises which are often interpreted as seminal texts of Ranter theology and gained notoriety as leaders of the movement. Both men were summoned by parliamentary warrant in September and October

1650 and examined by a parliamentary committee on charges of blasphemy related to their published works. Both Clarkson and Coppe were found guilty under the provisions set forth by the newly established Blasphemy Act passed during the month prior, and both were briefly imprisoned and their works publicly burnt. Both trials garnered public attention and details can be found in the Commons Journals as well as the news weeklies, such as The

Weekly Intelligencer of the Common-Wealth 1-8 Oct 1650. This attention is no doubt one of the contributing factors explaining the explosion of Ranter pamphlets following the trials of both men.

13 Sundry Tales: An Overview of Anti-Ranter Pamphlets

My thesis will examine 13 Ranter pamphlets spanning the period during which the

Ranters were a veritable, though shortly lived, phenomenon of the press from 1650-1652:

The Routing of the Ranters (November 1650); The Ranters Religion (December 1650); The

Ranters Ranting (December 1650); The Ranters Bible (December 1650); The Arraignment and Tryall with a Declaration of the Ranters (December 1650); The Ranters Declaration

(December 1650); The Ranters Recantation (December 1650); The Joviall Crew, or the

Devill turn'dRanter, (Janl651); Hell broke loose (1651); Strange Newes from Newgate and 9

the Old-Baity (January 1651); Ranters of both Sexes, Male and Female (June 1651); The

Ranters Creed (1651); The Ranters Monster (March 1652); The Ranters Last Sermon

(August 1654). From this selection, it can be seen that the vast majority of Ranter pamphlets

were written in a highly concentrated period of four months before subsiding. J.F. McGregor points out that the outburst of Ranter works during the winter months of 1650-51 coincide

with legal proceedings against a group of individuals, alleged to be Ranters, who were

arrested at the "David and Harp" pub in Moor Lane when an exceptionally ribald evening

degenerated into drunken blasphemy. He tenuously hypothesizes that this series of arrests

could have fueled the imagination of the press, the Moor Lane trials inspiring the scandalous

scenarios subsequently described by pamphlet writers, but states that the incident at the

"David and Harp" cannot be conclusively tied to the Ranters or the exercise of

antinomianism (McGregor, "Fear" 160).

While the majority of the pamphlets were written anonymously, three are listed with

an identifiable author, although no single author can be linked to more than one text. For those authors for whom biographical information is known, John Taylor, John Reading and

Samuel Shepherd, their pen can be attributed to other politically oriented pamphlets serving the royalist cause. Unfortunately, no biographical information can be found for Gilbert

Roulston, author of The Ranters Bible. John Reading (1587-1667) was a clergyman in the

Church of England and a religious controversialist who preached forcefully against rebellion

and in favour of the King, views which he published in pamphlets. In 1642 during the wars,

Reading was imprisoned by the Kent militia, was released and appointed to a parsonage by

1644 but was imprisoned later that year after becoming embroiled in a royalist plot to seize 10

Dover. He was later released in 1645 and served as a rector of a parish, and, in addition to

publishing The Ranters Ranting, wrote pamphlets against Anabaptists (McElligot np).

Samuel Sheppard (1624- 1655?) wrote copiously from 1646 to 1654 when he penned

news weeklies, prose reports, essays, poetry, and dramas about the events of the Civil War.

Although Sheppard initially supported parliamentarian reforms, he was greatly alarmed at the

imprisonment of the king in 1646, and his subsequent writings aimed to support Charles.

From 1647-1649 Sheppard was active with the royalist mercuries and news weeklies, for

which he was imprisoned in May 1650. Following his release, Sheppard avoided further

conflict with Parliament and published the Joviall Crew alongside poetry up until his death

(King np).

John Taylor (1578-1653) began his career as a waterman ferrying passengers across

the Thames, though he turned to poetry and succeeded in published his verses. When his

poetic career failed to take off, he turned instead to publishing travel accounts of his voyages

to Hamburg, Prague and Edinburgh. During the Civil Wars, Taylor published polemical

pamphlets, some of them appearing anonymously, defending the episcopal church, and

ridiculing the radicals. A staunch royalist, Taylor assisted the monarchy throughout the wars

and published political satire vilifying an aggressive and hypocritical Parliament (Capp,

"Taylor" np). Unfortunately, no further details can be found for Gilbert Roulston or J.M.1

For these authors whose identity is known, the fact that they were all committed and

published royalists may provide further insight into potential polemical motivations behind their pamphlets. Considering that their pamphlets all contain descriptions of the religious

1 Unfortunately I was unable to locate the precise identity of J.M. author of The Ranters Last Sermon. No entry is provided for Gilbert Roulston on Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and no other works under his name besides The Ranters Bible are present on Early English Books Online. 11 apostasy gripping the nation, these tracts can be read as veiled critiques towards the government of the Rump whose inability to maintain order resulted in a flourishing of heresy. Under this view, the Parliamentarian state's deficiencies and moral bankruptness is given its most extreme manifestation in the emergence of the Ranters who come to represent the malignancy of the period eroding the religious fiber of the nation. Such an explosion of misconduct would have reflected poorly on the Parliamentarian government, underscoring the Puritan establishment's failure to maintain the religious and moral integrity of the nation.

Additionally, given Reading's position as rector in the Anglican Church and Taylor's

sympathies towards episcopalianism, their hostility towards sectarianism should come as little surprise and can account for the conservative program which they espouse in regards to radical belief. While the biographical background of these three authors is illuminating in partly fleshing out the authorial context in which the Ranter pamphlets were written, the fact is that the remaining 9 pamphlets cannot be linked to a particular author (though they all

share stylistic similarities which will be discussed shortly). Similarly, no further information

can be found via Oxford Dictionary of National Biography regarding the printers.

With the exception of A Joviall Crew, the Ranter pamphlets are relatively short, comprised between four to five folios (or six to eight pages). They are markedly similar in tone and trope, tending towards hyperbole with the intended effect of scandalizing the reader into indignation. The "Advertisement to the Reader" of The Ranters Religion provides an encapsulation of this narrative strategy:

That idleness is the mother of all mischiefe was never so evidently proved, as by the monstrous production of a Sect, but of novell growth, yet now strangely prevalent among us, called Ranters, a people so dronish, that the whole course of their lives is but one continued Scene of Sottishness, their gestures filthy, their words obsceane, and blasphemous, and all their deed which they wretchedly glory in, impious, and horrid." (Anonymous 2) 12

When read as a group, the pamphlets evidence a formulaic structure comprised of the same narrative arch. They first begin with a lament to the current age which is crowned with the dubious distinction of producing hitherto unparalleled heresy; they then provide a synopsis of

Ranter beliefs focusing on their antinomian inversion of orthodox Christian beliefs; they describe scenes of Ranter excess accompanied by examples of the Ranters' outlandish behaviour, focusing particularly on their adulterous relationships and profanation of sacred principles; they warn those individuals who could be led astray in partaking in the same activities from traveling down the same path; they entreat those currently under the influence of Ranter irreligion to repent of their sins; and they end with the punishment of Ranters,

either through divine or human authorities, thereby concluding with retribution and the recalibration of the social order.

Reading the Ranter pamphlets is thus an exercise in reading variations of the same theme, and when read alongside one another, the material contained within the pamphlets is characterized best by its lack of novelty. The affinity among the texts is such that some of them recycle the same incidents and cover illustrations, indicating a direct knowledge and familiarity with other circulating Ranter texts. For example, The Ranters Declaration draws extensively on The Ranters Religion, adding some additional stories of adultery (both texts are authored anonymously). Strange Newes from Newgate and the Old Bailey (anonymous) uses the same illustrated prints gracing The Ranters Ranting (John Reading, but same printer as Strange Newes). This sharing of material, and in the case of the woodblock prints, the physical blocks themselves, indicates a (perhaps direct) coterie of printers who briefly made a trade out of publishing Ranter stories. Individual publishers often printed several Ranter pamphlets. J.C. for example is listed as the publisher responsible for The Ranters Bible, The Ranters Declaration, and Bloudy Newes from the North. George Horton is referenced as having printed The Ranters Monster and can possibly be associated with The Ranters

Recantation, published under the initials G.H. Likewise, a B. Aslop is credited with printing

Strange Newes, possibly the same individual as B.A., the printer for The Routing of the

Ranters. The repeat printing of scandalous Ranter stories can attest to a market primed for the consumption of such pamphlets and to the continued fascination such accounts exerted on readers, leading David Masson to deduce that "low printers and booksellers made a trade on the public curiosity about the Ranters, getting up pretended accounts of their meetings as a pretext for prurient publications" (18). The author of The Ranters Recantation admits similar goals, proclaiming:

Considering that this present Age hath produced sundry Papers, in relation to a discovery of the new Generation called Ranters; but finding they have been onely beating about the Bush, and have not discovered the Bird in its own nature, I shall here present you with a more full and infallible Discovery. (Anonymous 2)

Adding to the scintillating quality of the pamphlets is their narrative construction, routinely crafted as eye witness accounts or a "true relation" of events relayed to the author by a close associate. For example The Routing of the Ranters is allegedly premised on the testimony of "a sober man of good fashion, [who] chanced to go to a place, where a

Company of them were gathered together at a Conference, onely with a purpose to observe what was said and done" (Anonymous 7). The Ranter pamphlets are subsequently laden with voyeurism with the intended effect of incorporating the reader into the action of the text.

Filled with visual details, anti-Ranter tracts are best approached as experiential texts that rely heavily on sensorial detail to create their dramatic effect. The authors of these pamphlets were acutely aware of this voyeuristic dynamic underlying their narrative and its capacity to provide titillation for readers whose primary motivation in reading such accounts was to 14 catch a glimpse of the clandestine. In order to retain an element of the unknown, however, the authors would often feign modesty or claim they were obliged to refrain from relating all of the details of Ranter abominations in order to protect the well being of their readers, thus

setting the seed of curiosity and heightening the sense of taboo involved in reading such tales. As the author of The Routing of the Ranters states, "For to rip open, and make known to the world the abominable words and practices of these people, would fill up more paper then I have allotted herunto; and to repeat many things which I am confident might be said without wronging the truth, would make your ears tingle to hear, and my self blush to think to write" (Anonymous 2).

Religious and Political Context of the Pamphlets

The pamphlets emerged during a period of great religious instability as the

Revolution witnessed and provoked a great upheaval in sectarian growth. During January

1641, the mechanisms of the Church of England's control had broken down as ecclesiastical

government unraveled, the most significant factor of this dissolution being the impeachment

of the King's own judges and the impeachment and subsequent execution of William Laud, the Archbishop of Canterbury (Cressy, England 189-90). Although the Anglican establishment was able to persist for several years in this anemic state, its weakened position left it vulnerable to the convulsions of non-conformist dissent, eventually leading to episcopacy's final abolishment in 1646. Christopher Hill summarizes how the Revolution paved the way for sectarianism, "[ecclesiastical authority, the functioning of the church courts, had utterly broken down... The lower orders were freer than they had ever been - free from prosecution for 'sin,' free to assemble and discuss in their own congregations, free (if 15 they wished to be) from the supervision and control of a university-educated ministry, free to choose their own preachers (Hill, Upside Down 79).

Serving as the coup de grace ending the Church of England's hegemonic grip over state religion, the Revolution marked the death of the Anglican institution in England.2

Redrawing the religious map of the nation, non-conformists profited from their new found liberties to redraw the country's religious topography by exploring beliefs which had hitherto remained outside the boundaries of acceptability. As David Cressy notes, "[t]his was a remarkably fertile moment for religious experimentation, and for the proliferation of heresies old and new, as deference and decorum disappeared. The unraveling of Charles I's kingship, the undermining of magistracy and episcopacy, the collapse of press censorship and the destabilization of power hierarchies in the parish all combined to destabilize structures of authority, creating a whirlwind of cultural and political confusion" (Cressy, England 251).

The pamphlet authors voiced their unease with the confusion marking the religious context of the day, Ranters of both Sexes opening with the lament: "It is no new work of Satan, to sow

Heresies, and breede Heretickes, but they never came up so thick as in these latter times.

2 1650 occurred during a particularly complicated period in the religious organization of England. In 1646 after Parliamentarians won the war against the King, the Long Parliament adopted a system of church government based on the system set up by Scottish Presbyterianism. The Long Parliament intended to reform the government, doctrine and worship of the church, by imposing core Puritan values upon the country via a national church. Before it was fully able to solidify its control over the religious organization of the country, however, the Long Parliament was purged and removed from power by the leaders of the New Model Army. The New military government that emerged in 1649 had no desire to preside over a compulsory national church and quickly abolished obligatory church attendance in 1650, a move which created a large margin of personal liberty in religious affairs. The Presbyterian Directory remained as the state sanctioned liturgical guide, however. Consequently, the religious organization of England was left in disarray, as confusion reigned large as JPs responsible for the parishes often proved inimical to the Puritan project and permitted the practice of pre- war Anglican customs which parishioners stubbornly clung to. (See Christopher Durston 210-33). Consequently, although "victory in the Civil War had given English puritans control over the most important organs of central government, it had not delivered them a corresponding dominance over the various local jurisdictions of the English provinces" (Durston 220). So although the Puritans may have controlled the central apparatuses of government, their ability to translate their legislation and reforms into lived practice was fraught with complications and religious practices were far from uniform or aligned with the Presbyterian establishment. They were wont to peep up by one and one, but now they sprout out by huddles and clusters... The Church of Christ hath more then one Enemy to cope withal, she hath many new adversaries, that it is hard to finde names for them" (Taylor 4).

The years between which the majority of anti-Ranter pamphlets were published

(1650-52), took place during the brief tenure of the Rump Parliament post regicide, 1649-53.

Consequently, the pamphlets surfaced during a transitional phase in British history when the republican government had begun to establish itself as a unicameral house shorn of the

House of Lords and freed from the imposition of monarchical prerogative. It was in 1650 that the Rump proclaimed itself a "Commonwealth and Free State," and Parliament began devising new legislation in keeping with this new national identity. This first republican parliament, like those which would succeed it, reflected the widespread civilian unease about liberating the sects, and was composed of an influential Presbyterian faction particularly concerned to stamp out religious errors, heresies and blasphemies, and to maintain public order and conformity to a national ministry (Smith D.167). For the conservative elements in the Rump, a priority was set to prevent what were deemed religious errors, heresies, and blasphemies, the principal concern directed at devising strictures that would regulate the nation's religious life (Smith D. 172). Much of the domestic legislation passed by the Rump was consequently intended to further a moral and Godly reformation while curbing the spread of radical sects. The Rump passed various acts dealing with religious matters in the spring and summer of 1650 that included the Act for the Propagation of the Gospel in Wales,

Ireland and parts of England; An Act for the Better Observation of the Lord's Day, Days of

Thanksgiving and Humiliation; An Act for Supressing the Detestable Sins of Incest, Adultery and Fornication; an Act against the Detestable Sins of Profane Swearing and Cursing; an Act 17 against Atheistical, Blasphemous and Execrable Opinions, Derogatory to the Honour and

Destructive to Human Society" (Seel 126). Certain pamphlets voiced their approval of the steps taken by Parliament to reinforce the moral integrity of the nation via the suppression of sectarian activity, such as The Ranters Religion which offers the following endorsement of

Parliamentarians, "O wretched people! O monstrous Times! I pray God put it into the hearts of our vigilant Senators (as they have already begun to suppresse this most blasphemous,

impious Sect) to go thorow with it, and to make these Monsters of mankind, examples to the whole world" (Anonymous 8).

"Litters of blind inuentions": The Pamphlet, the Collapse of Censorship, and the Printed Press

The story of the Ranters is fundamentally linked to the history of the printing, the circulation, and the reading of texts. With the functional collapse of censorship prior to 1650, authors of Ranter pamphlets were able to publish prurient literature with relative ease.

Whether it was perceived to be a powerful mechanism in rallying the populace in the pursuit of justice, or more negatively as a promulgator of controversy and dissent, the printed press in seventeenth-century England continued to exert considerable force in directing the course of public affairs, sparking an innovation in the ways people were engaging with their world and examining it. Following the Reformation and its successful use of the printed text to foster and disseminate religious and political principles (Collinson 120), the capacity of the press to galvanize a reading audience around revolutionary ideas was understood to be an undeniable force in forming and harnessing public opinion. In Joad Raymond's assessment, the utilization of the press to unite a group around an ideological principle was a necessary precondition for mobilization into action, "[b]y the end of the seventeenth century it was self- evident that any attempt to generate public support for a political initiative, party or position would have to exploit the persuasive powers of the press" (25). The success of any ideological campaign or political venture was predicated, therefore, on its ability to take advantage of the capacity of the printed text. Cressy shares this view and demonstrates how the revolutionary ideas sweeping England during the Revolution germinated through the concomitant transformations of the printed text and its deployment in society, "[t]he period between the summoning of the Long Parliament and the outbreak of the civil war saw sudden and significant changes in writing and reading... a revolution in communications accompanied, documented, and facilitated the revolutionary changes in politics and religion"

(England 281). It is unsurprising therefore, that Ranter detractors made ample use of the press as a platform to launch their ideas into the wider public.

Following the ascendancy of Parliament during the beginning years of the Long

Parliament, Charles' jurisdiction over printers was relinquished, unleashing an opening of the press. Within the first few weeks of session, the Commons created a commission to examine all allegations of censorship abuse, particularly the denying of licenses for works which offended the Laudian establishment, and soon after dissolved the Stationer's monopoly alongside the Episcopal licensers (Cressy, England 291). The effects of these cumulative dissolutions on the accessibility to the presses were massively felt and ushered in a new advent in the liberty of expression, amplified soon after by the dismantling the Star Chamber and the Court of High Commission. In this new climate, the ease with which ideas could circulate was unprecedented and afforded a space in which the individual could promote their own particular initiative or polemic which hitherto had to remain concealed, "[b]y 1641 19

almost anyone could publish anything and writers and printers explored previously forbidden

areas, giving subaltern voices exposure in the process. With the collapse of Episcopal

licensing, bawdy songs and ballads that had previously circulated underground could be sold

on the shelves of bookstores" (Cressy, England 294).

Short quarto books, typically consisting between one and twelve sheets, or eight and

ninety-six pages in quarto (roughly under 100 pages), pamphlets were typically considered as

a "separate" distributed on its own, although they were not regarded as substantial enough in

size to constitute a volume by themselves (Raymond 7). The minimalist size of pamphlets

can also be attributed to legal restrictions as 96 pages was the maximum the Company

allowed for printed books which could be sold in order to protect the interest of bookbinders

(Nevitt 1). For this reason, pamphlets were bound without covers as opposed to being

stitched within a cover, the binding practice reserved for larger books (Raymond 5). Because

of their size and simple binding, pamphlets could be produced with relatively little

infrastructure and could be easily printed by small scale, often illicit presses, which could be

dismantled quickly to evade the authorities. While pamphlets had been a phenomenon in the

literary landscape since the advent of the printing press, it was not until the 1580s that the

meaning of the word 'pamphlet' coalesced into a defined classification, expressed in the

OED as "a short, vernacular work, generally printed in quarto format, costing no more than a

few pennies, of topical interest or engaged with social, political or ecclesiastical issues" (np).

Because of their versatility and focus on contemporary affairs, pamphlets were an adaptable

genre and their usage and reception by literate society evolved alongside reading habits, a transformation reflected by an emergent vocabulary used to describe different aspects of pamphlet fabrication. By the 1590s, the increasing prominence of pamphlets led to the appearance of several neologisms to describe the various functions of pamphlets and those responsible for their formation, such as "pamphleter," "to pamphlet," "pamphletary,"

"pamphlet treaties," "pamphlet wars," and "pamphlet-forms" (Raymond 8). These linguistic developments demonstrate the variety of applications for which pamphlets could be employed and their increasingly pointed use by writers to convey a particular polemical message in the public sphere of the printed word.

Written often in response to controversial events, pamphlets were invariably embroiled in the difficult political questions of the day and were routinely deployed in an incendiary manner to foment debate. For this reason, pamphlets quickly became viewed as purveyors of slander and scurrility and the term "pamphlet" became overlaid with pejorative overtones. As divisive tracts written for the purposes of polemic, pamphlets provide a useful avenue to investigate contemporary issues because they presented public concerns in an argumentative manner, exposing the anxieties and preoccupations regarding a particular matter. From the standpoint of discourse analysis, pamphlets are an especially enriching source for study as they serve as an indication of the "pulse" of the nation, a medium through which ideology was expressed and popular opinion galvanized. As Raymond explains, pamphlets "assisted in creating informed critical debate about news, politics, and culture. Put another way, pamphlets became a foundation of the influential moral and political communities that constitute a 'public sphere' of popular political opinion" (26).3 The simplicity of the pamphlet and the ease with which it could be printed led to an explosion of public debate by creating a form conducive to the expression of simple ideas or attacks that

3 "From the 1580s onwards the prose pamphlet began to displace the ballad as the most common medium for conveying news. The expansion in the market for domestic news, caused in part by the war with Spain, coincided with a shift in the form in which that news was conveyed. During the 1580s and 1590s occasional news pamphlets became an everyday facet of the London book trade" (Raymond 17). 21 consisted of no more than a few pages of vitriol. In fact Thomas Dekker, himself a habitual pamphlet writer, commented on the saturation of the literary world by pamphlets and noted how many of their authors acted as literary mercenaries. Calling pamphleteers "madmen"

Dekker states that they, "being free Wits Merchant-venturers, do euery new moon (for gaine only) make 5 or 6 voiages to the Presse, and euery Term-time (vpon Booksellers Stalles) lay whole litters of blind inuentions" (3).

Conclusion

The Ranter pamphlets are the product of a unique set of circumstances springing from recent developments on the political, literary, and religious stage of England during the

1640s to early 1650s. On the political front, there was growing apprehension surrounding the moral character of the nation which compelled legislators to enact laws restricting the performance of immoral acts. On the religious front, sectarian ideas had taken root in the nation and were a growing force which law makers attempted to address, worried that the potential damage caused by such heretical ideas required the intervention of the state. Lastly, the collapse of censorship allowed for a flood of texts to enter into the public sphere, the ideologies and polemics contained within them easily disseminated to reach a wide audience. 22

Chapter Three. Literature Review: Academic Trends in Ranter Scholarship and Methodological Challenges facing the Study of the Ranters

Since 1968 when the Ranters surfaced on the radar of modern scholarship, there have been several pivotal shifts reshaping the academic investigation regarding the nature and extent of the group, in turn impacting the types of questions posed by historians and their reading of Ranter pamphlets. In its incipient stages, scholarship on the Ranters was premised on the belief that the Ranters were a rogue faction whose libertinage set them apart from society as protean "hippies." Personifying the pinnacle of moral abandonment in favour of a permissive ethos, Ranters, according to the arguments of 60s and 70s scholarship, were significant because they represented the clearest articulation of rebellion against Puritan ethics. This trend, including examples, will be discussed shortly. Under this formulation, however, for the Ranters to have had any tangible historical significance it is important to ascertain that they were active in sufficient enough numbers to have constituted a broad social movement.

With his work Fear, Myth And History: The Ranters and the historians, J.C. Davis threw the very existence of the Ranters as an actual sect into question, launching the theory that they in fact never existed as a movement or group, but were instead a creation of the press and libelous tracts. Davis was the first scholar to question the veracity of anti-Ranter pamphlets and suggested that they should instead be read as creating a "folk demon." While there are contentious issues with Davis' theory that undermine its ability to adequately account for the mention of Ranters in sources other than pamphlet literature, his premise is a good launching point for examining how the Ranter pamphlets demonstrate how deviancy was conceived in the 1650s. Throughout these various transformations of scholarship, one 23 methodological problem has persisted; the question of textuality, pertaining to how Ranter pamphlets should be read and approached. This chapter will delve into these points.

Ranters as "Hippies": The Early Years of Ranter Scholarship and its Influence on Later Research

The Ranters surfaced in academia's consciousness in 1968 with A.L. Morton's book

The World of the Ranters, the first in-depth look at the history and beliefs of the sect. Morton placed great emphasis on the mystical aspects of the Ranters and argued that their conviction in the indwelling spirit motivated them to abandon orthodox religion and the ethics which it espoused, placing them in conflict with the religious and political Presbyterian establishment of the day. His study subsequently had a strong political orientation, focusing on the power dynamics of Ranter rebellion in the face of Puritan norms. His sources were mostly restricted to pamphlets, written by select individuals he considered to be Ranters, or anti-Ranter pamphlets. Although the influence of World of the Ranters was widespread, leaving its mark across scores of footnotes in subsequent studies, there are two problematical trends in

Morton's explanation of the Ranters. The first is his claim that the Ranters were inheritors of a core of mystical beliefs forming a continuing chain stretching from the Knights Templar to

William Blake. The second is that his observations were heavily tinted by a Marxist perspective which transformed the Ranters into a rebellious underclass fighting the hegemonic morality of the Presbyterian elite. Both of these stances are not entirely congruent with the period, tending to lose sight of the specificities of the period in place of grand historical narratives or anachronistic associations with 20th century political phenomena, leaving Morton's scholarship ill-equipped to explain the outpouring of Ranter literature. Throughout World of the Ranters, Morton repeatedly claims that Ranter theology was

not a new expression prompted by developments in the religious milieu, but was a rearticulation of eternal mystical principles perennially resurfacing in the past. "The ideas of the Ranters were of course, not new. They may be traced across Europe across the centuries

of time..." (72). Tracing a grand narrative of European mysticism, Morton creates a

genealogy for Ranter tenets beginning with Justin of Fiore in the 12th century and passing through the Amurians in France, the Brethren of the Free Spirit in Germany, Thomas

Munzer, leader of the peasant insurrection of 1525, and the Anabaptists of Munster among

other notable figures and groups (Morton 72). For Morton, what sets the Ranters apart in the

history of this inherited mysticism, however, is that it is among the Ranters that "such beliefs

and others related to them are found in their fullest and most uncompromising forms. What

made them different in kind from their medieval predecessors was the fact that they were the

heirs of a successful revolution which they still hoped to see carried to a victorious end"

(Morton 72). Through this portrayal of the Ranters, Morton places great emphasis on this reputed revolutionary characteristic and views it as the Ranters' defining trait, a claim

adopted and extended by Christopher Hill.

One of the most pronounced maneuvers in Hill and Morton's seminal examination of the Ranters is their transmutation of the Ranters, by way of a Marxist perspective, into revolutionary figures fighting the imposition of Puritan values and Presbyterian morality. In

World of the Ranters this mentality can be discerned in Morton's assertion that

"antinomianism was not merely a claim upon personal liberty- it was also a positive weapon against the hypocritically righteous, the Calvinist elect who were trying to force a 'reprobate' majority into conformity to the pattern of living which they thought proper... it was also a 25 reaction against Presbyterian discipline" (78-79). Similarly, Hill's portrayal of the Ranters transforms them into freedom-fighters rebelling against a nascent Protestant work ethic which was later to burgeon into the bourgeoisie of post-Enlightened Europe (Hill, Upside

Down 12). In characterizing this vector in Hill's scholarship, Davis notes that Hill's construction of the Ranters rests on a perceived

struggle between the Protestant, Calvinist or Presbyterian sense of sin, imposed from above and controlling those below, and an 'antinomian rejection of the bondage of moral law' that was not only a theological conflict but a desperate struggle against social, cultural, political and personal repression, the outcome of which has determined the last three hundred years of history and human experience. It was the Ranters who most vigorously, if crudely, led the attack against sin, and gave fullest expression to the longing for self-determination and liberation. (9)

For both Morton and Hill, the importance and novelty of the Ranters was their iconoclastic refutation of an increasingly repressive and institutionalized Presbyterian authority whose disciplinarian restraint weighed a heavy hand on matters of personal conscience.4

In order for the Ranters to have had a tangible historical impact, however, it was first necessary to ascertain that they engaged in activities which exerted an influence during the

Interregnum. For Morton and Hill, the significance of the Ranters rests in their theory that the

Ranters were a broad movement with social implications, as opposed to a collection of a few figures publishing manifestos. In recreating a portrait of what this movement would have looked like, Hill and Morton trace its lineaments according to a pattern of class struggle heavily inflected by Marxist undertones. Morton places great emphasis on the Ranters preaching to the economically dispossessed who, impressionable and uneducated, literalized subtle Ranter spiritual teachings by actually putting theory into practice. He explains, "[i]t was among the urban lower orders that the Ranters undoubtedly made their greatest appeal

4 See Christopher Hill Nation of Change and Novelty 174; Morton (78-79). 26

and there were elements in their theology which attracted many who did not fully understand

it but who disliked being dragooned by the 'armed-fury Saints" (Morton 79). At another

point, Morton casts the Ranters as avant-garde proletarians struggling in camaraderie against

"moral law" imposed by an imperious religious establishment, "... politically their [the

Ranters] conclusions were of an equalitarian nature - their common mode of address among

themselves was 'Fellow Creature' and Ranter writers have a marked tendency towards a

nai've communism" (17).

Morton and Hill were not the only scholars who viewed the Ranters as a counter-

cultural movement. During the 60s and early 70s when interest in the Ranters surfaced,

comparisons were quickly drawn between the iconoclastic program of the Ranters and the

anti-establishmentarianism of hippy culture, particularly the rejection of morality in favour of

an espousal of free love. According to Barry Coward, the fear which extreme sects instilled

in the conservative order comprised "the hippy-like counter-culture of the 1650s which flew

in the face of morality and which was considered with horror by respectable society" (209).

Gordon Ellens and Norman Cohn extended the hippie analogy, further typifying Ranter

spirituality as the rejection of oppression and positive liberation from the guilt and moral

repression understood as the essence of puritanism.5 Davis comments on this vector of

academic investigation into the Ranters noting that "in the late 60s and early 70s, Western

society was witnessing a profound counter-cultural rejection of institutional, social and moral

norms and conventions in the name of individual liberation and authenticity. The Protestant

ethic and its apparatus, so it briefly appeared, were about to collapse" (7). In scholarship, there is a gap between the word Ranter as employed by seventeenth-century commentators

5 See Cohn "The Ranters." Encounter 34.4 (1970): 15,25. Ellens. "The Ranter Ranting." Church History 40.1 (1971): 105-07. and Ranter as it is understood by modern academics, due in part to the latter's habit of perceiving the Ranters in terms of the ideological conflicts of the 20th century.

From Broad-Based Sect to "Ranter Core": Scholarship from the 80s to Present and its Revision of the Ranter Movement

For both Hill and Morton, the Ranters were significant in English history because they were seen as a collective refutation of the nascent Puritan ethic. One dilemma which confronted both scholars, however, was in ascertaining how this collective rebellion was organized in group form. In World of the Ranters, Morton was at pains to identify how the

Ranters coalesced communally, viewing them ambivalently as a movement and as a sect (17,

92). Hill rejected the label of "sect" and "movement," preferring instead a "Ranter milieu,"

"a milieu with recognized beliefs and attitudes" ("Lost" 135). Despite this difference of opinion, Morton and Hill's analysis of the Ranters rests on the conclusion that the Ranters enjoyed a wide following holding a diffuse set of attitudes. Following World Turned Upside

Down, the question of which social category best accords with the Ranter phenomenon has persisted. During the 80s, a divergent conception of Ranter activity emerged which viewed the Ranters as a small group of individuals holding a core of consistent ideas which they left behind in a legacy of a few printed texts. No longer seen as a sect or a movement, recent scholarship has constricted membership to the Ranters to a select four or five individuals.

Another aspect unifying recent scholarship on the Ranters is the agreement that a Ranter core can be unified through a shared antinomian theology.

If the Ranters did not constitute a sect, how should the Ranter phenomenon be classified? Bernard Capp provides one possible assessment of the situation "[historians are agreed that it is wrong to speak of a Ranter sect or movement.. .The Ranters were not a sect 28 but a number of groups, loosely linked, with related and alarming ideas about the nature of

God and on sin" ("Fear" 165-66). Unfortunately, Capp is unable to provide further clarification as to how these "groups" interacted internally or with each other. McGregor perhaps provides more thorough argumentation supporting the premise that the Ranters comprised a small coterie of men who shared similar theological views and were in communication. McGregor states that "[t]here is little objective evidence that either Seekers or Ranters formed coherent movements or that they existed in any considerable numbers.

And examination of the source and context of the types of surviving evidence for the two sects suggest that they are largely artificial products of the Puritan heresiographers' methodology; convenient categories in which to dispose of the bewildering variety of enthusiastic speculation" ("Seekers" 122). He goes on to state that the authors of purported

Ranter theology "were not spokesmen for a sect or movement but prophets of certain universal truths which they had come to comprehend through personal revelation" ("Seekers"

129). Perhaps the most important development in Ranter scholarship was the discovery of a letter written from one of the key Ranter figures, Abiezer Coppe, while he was held at

Newgate Coventry on suspicion of blasphemy, detailing his affection for two other individuals commonly associated with Ranterism, Joseph Salmon and Andrew Wyke.6 While the letter is invaluable in proving that Ranter individuals were known to each other and were in contact with one another, it unfortunately does little to illuminate the nature of these affiliations, although it leads McGregor to the somewhat excessive extrapolation that "it suggests a Ranter network with a busy core of itinerant evangelists, in close contact by

6 Letter from Coppe to Salmon and Wyke. A Collection of Ranter Writings from the 17,h Century. Ed. Nigel Smith. London: Junction Books, 1983. 29

correspondence, who enjoyed considerable prestige among groups of enthusiasts in Wiltshire

and Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Essex, and London" ("Fear" 159).

While scholars have rallied around the hypothesis that the Ranters were active as a

small group of individuals, there is extensive discord as to whom to include within this

coterie. John Robins, Thomas Tany, Abiezer Coppe, Joshua Garment, Joseph Salmon, Jacob

Bauthumley, Richard Coppin, Laurence Clarkson, Edward Ellis, Giles Calvert, George

Foster, John Pordage, Mary Adams, Francis Freeman, Mary Gadbury, Anne Cargill and Rice

Jones are all individuals whom scholars have at one point or another claimed as being a

Ranter, although there is no agreement among scholars, however, on which of these

individuals should qualify as a Ranter. For example, while the Biographical Dictionary of

British Radicals considers Richard Coppin a firm Ranter, C.E. Whiting and Christopher Hill

consider him as a near-Ranter or associate, while McGregor rejects him entirely. If those

individuals whose involvement with the Ranters remains contested are removed from a

possible Ranter-roster, the only figures acknowledged by all commentators as Ranters are

Jacob Bauthumley, Abiezer Coppe, Laurence Clarkson and the anonymous author of A

Justification of the Mad Crew. This is quite a sparsely populated list, comprising only a

handful of published works that lack a coherent theology to unify a practicing community.

Davis elaborates on the implications of this relatively small list, and asserts that rather than

having formed a sect, the Ranters would be more aptly characterized as "[t]hree or four

disorganized individuals, flirting momentarily with something, which may have looked more

like extreme antinomianism than it really was, [who] became enmeshed in a force which made out of them a group, a sect, a mass movement" (94).7 Davis' caution should be given

7 In this reference, Davis is passing comment on the Ranters specifically and the movement's ambiguous membership. extra consideration when discussing the Ranters considering that all the publications deemed to be written by Ranters were written by individuals whose religious affiliations were known to be promiscuous or unascertainable apart from the tenor of their writing.8 Consequently, while it is possible to locate alleged Ranter writings within a similar paradigm concerning the nature of sin, grace, and humanity's relationship to the divine, to override the individualistic character of these writings by subsuming them under shared sectarian association could misleadingly overstate a connection between them.

J.C. Davis and the Case Against Ranter Existence

In 1986, J.C. Davis published Fear, Myth And History: The Ranters and the historians, a revisionist work which directly challenged the very existence of the Ranters as an active sect. Arguing that the Ranters were the fictional product of the printed press, Davis' thesis served as a pointed refutation of previous scholarship on the Ranters which he argued was premised on a flawed use of historical sources. Fear, Myth And History countered the accepted notion that anti-Ranter pamphlets could serve as evidentiary texts for Ranter theology and behaviour, suggesting instead that they functioned as a means to crystallize an image of deviance projected outwards as a folk demon. In summary, according to Davis, the Ranters were the product of a moral panic instigated by the printed press. The reception of Davis' work was universally hostile and critics were unreservedly eager to dismiss his notion that the Ranters were an entirely fictional phenomenon. Christopher Hill,

J.F. McGregor, Bernard Capp, Nigel Smith, B.J. Gibbons and B. Reay all provided rebuttals to Davis' theory and firmly maintained that there were practicing antinomians who can be

8 At varying points in his life Laurence Clarkson was involved with the Church of England, Ranterism, Anabaptism and Muggletonianism. 31

safely presumed to have been Ranters, providing reasons for the veracity of this existence by

drawing on sources aside from the pamphlets.9

While their analysis of Fear, Myth and History has been thorough at reclaiming the

possibility that a small group of individuals holding Ranter tenets existed, Davis' critics have

never adequately responded to his valid suggestion that the ability of anti-Ranter pamphlets

to convey factual occurrences is compromised, if not entirely discredited. The debate

regarding how anti-Ranter texts should be read has become an impasse impeding the further

advancement of scholarship on the Ranters.10 This disagreement, at its most fundamental

level, can be boiled down to the question of how textuality is related to historicity, and to

what degree anti-Ranter pamphlets correlate with seventeenth-century empirical reality.

While anti-Ranter texts ostensibly describe the practices of real life Ranters, given the

paucity of archival documentation to substantiate the claims presented in polemical literature,

any attempt to recreate a sketch of Ranter existence based on such sources remains

indeterminate. In the absence of little external evidence to verify the claims purported in these texts, the debate of whether they contribute to our understanding of the Ranters remains

inconclusive. This does not entail that research on the Ranters has reached its terminus, however, as an entirely new field of inquiry opens up once a different interpretive trajectory

is applied to these texts which approaches them as contextual, rather than corroborative

sources for the Ranters.

9 Two notable archival sources which reference the Ranters will be discussed shortly. 10 Nicholas McDowell has demonstrated different avenues from which Ranter scholarship may embark. In his work The English Radical Imagination, McDowell examines the discursive underpinnings of Ranter forms of rhetoric by demonstrating how Coppe's works engage with dominant academic discourse in a subversive manner verging on the parodic. In doing so, McDowell shows how Coppe fought to collapse the dichotomy between formal learning and sectarian enthusiasm, thus demonstrating the legitimacy and erudition of sectarian discourse while undermining the academic epistemologies often used to buttress ecclesiastical authority over sects (89-136). 32

Scholarly Critique of Davis' Hypothesis: The Case for Ranter Existence Revisited

Fear Myth And History and Davis' later article "Reappraising the Ranters," apart from instigating heated debate, was rejected by scholars as revisionist history gone awry.

One of the primary criticisms was aimed at Davis' inflexible methodology in defining what constitutes a sect which other scholars perceived as entrenched in an uncompromising skepticism. It has been argued by Capp, McGregor and Aylmer that Davis applies such stringent criteria in assessing sectarian identity that his project is essentially annihilative and would disqualify most radical movements of the seventeenth century. As Keith Lindley comments on Davis' work: "[i]f skepticism extends too far, the study of popular radicalism becomes impossible or most of it relegated to the status of mythical projections of contemporary fears and anxieties" (17). Because of his rigorous classification, scholars have noted that Davis' hypothesis leaves little room for incorporating the ambiguity of seventeenth century sectarianism, insisting on identification standards that are untenable given the fluid nature of sectarian membership. Similarly, scholars have suggested that Davis' argument overstates the vagueness of the pamphlet material to make its point, particularly in terms of linguistic usage

Davis' thesis is superficially plausible because it exploits the ambiguity of much of the evidence. Many sources cannot be taken at face value because they reflected current usage and linguistic restraints, not a mythical fantasy.. .In the 1650s 'Ranting' used substantively and adjectivally, described both doctrine and discipline... but it remains the sensible conclusion that there were advocates of practical antinomianism called 'Ranters' in England during the Interregnum. (McGregor, "Fear" 163-64)

One of the greatest lacunas in Fear, Myth And History revealed by scholars was

Davis' own suspect use, or complete disregard, of non-pamphlet source material. Notable absences in this category were the autobiographical works of John Bunyan and George Fox 33

who both describe meetings with Ranters. While Davis discounts both autobiographies

peremptorily as hostile, and therefore, as inadmissible sources, it can be assumed that if there

were in fact no Ranters, it is unlikely that both men would have fabricated such meetings or

felt the impetus to include them in their works. Other sources absent in Davis' analysis are

entries in the Parliamentary journals preceding the enactment of the Blasphemy Act which

discuss the formation of a committee charged with producing "a bill against Raunters" and

indicating speeches given to the Commons arguing for the passing of legislation forestalling

the threat of spreading Ranter tenets.11 An equally glaring omission is Davis' failure to take

into account Abiezer Coppe's letter to Joseph Salmon which serves as irrefutable evidence

that men alleged to have been Ranters were in communication, and were not active in

isolation. Additionally lacking in Davis' discussion is the interaction between Ranter figures

and the courts, including the hearings given to Laurence Clarkson and Abiezer Coppe, as

well as Joseph Bauthumley's cashiering and punishment by military tribunal. Nigel Smith

caustically draws attention to Davis' lack of adequate documentation, "Why should this have

been so? Was it because the book was written mostly in New Zealand (I suppose), where

microfilms of Thomason and Wing are available, but where there are no relevant archives?"

(173). By limiting the scope of his examination to pamphlet material, Davis' hypothesis is resultantly one dimensional and lacks the comprehensive reach to definitively prove that the

Ranters did not exist in more attenuated forms aside from a sect in the strictest sense of the term.12

11 A Perfect Diurnall of the Passages in Parliament 24-30 June 1651 .Journal of the House o/Commons. Vol.6. (1648-1651):423,427,493. House of Commons Journal Volume 6: 1 February 1649', Journal of the House of Commons: volume 6: 1648-1651 (1802), pp. 127-129. URL: http://www.british- history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=25584&strquery=common journal volume 6 Date accessed: 24 March 2010. 12 David Como's recent work in particular has made significant contributions in demonstrating ways in which antinomian identity and activity can be understood. In his work Blown by the Spirit, Como takes an in-depth 34

My thesis sidesteps the main question which has fixated scholarship since Fear Myth,

And History and embroiled all subsequent scholarship: did the Ranters exist as a sect,

movement, or individually? While I do not find Davis' assertion that the Ranters were the purely fictive creation of pamphleteers tenable in light of non-pamphlet evidence, I will use

the main premise of his hypothesis, that anti-Ranter pamphlets functioned to project an image

of deviance, as my springboard. In many respects, the implications of Davis' argument in

regards to anti-Ranter pamphlets have never been fully developed. In fact, the primary

concern of Fear, Myth, And History was restricted to disproving Ranter existence. For this

reason, questions related to the discursive nature of the pamphlets are present only peripherally in his work, the question posed, though never explored.

Challenges of Textuality: The Perils of Reading Polemical Texts Empirically

The greatest historiographical and methodological problem which has besieged

Ranter scholarship is the uncritical reliance upon polemical sources to create a composite

picture of the Ranters. The major failing of previous scholarship on the Ranters has been that

academics have read anti-Ranter and Ranter tracts without giving due consideration to the

ostensibly distorted representation these texts promulgate. Abiezer Coppe would have

certainly endorsed a circumspect reading of the anti-Ranter pamphlets that were written

about him which he excoriated as "scandalous and bespattered with Lyes and Forgeries, in

setting me in front of such actions which I never did, which my soul abhors; such things

look at the roots of antinomianism in Pre-Civil war England, and although this period of focus excludes the Ranters, his meticulous archival research unearths the links between individual sectarians and provides a template which may be usefully applied to the Ranters. Como argues that antinomianism did not generate sporadically, but was enmeshed with puritanism and was a set of beliefs shared amongst a loose grouping of individuals in contact with one another whose sensibilities were informed by the suppositions and debates of puritan culture. A similar approach could be applied to the Ranters, looking more closely at the religious affiliations and contacts of Ranter figures and the cross-fertilization of their ideas with other active sects at the time. 35 which mine eyes never beheld, such words which my tongue never spake and mine ears never heard" (6). Both Morton and Hill recognize, in passing, the hostile and suspect character of contemporary accounts about the Ranters, yet they proceed to exclusively rely upon them to provide evidence of the Ranters' alleged behaviour without qualifying or 1 ^ interrogating the representation these texts convey. This unacknowledged credulity is the primary lacuna weakening scholarship on the Ranters simply by view of the reality that its documentary underpinnings rest on questionable sources. So despite slight qualifications that overtly sensationalist literature should be endorsed cautiously, scholars have regularly employed such accounts to be indicative of supposed Ranter behaviour and belief. Given the contested ideological and religious arena in which these texts were produced and deployed, however, their veracity cannot be simply assumed, despite the conveniences such readings may provide.

Because few archival sources exist documenting first-hand encounters with Ranters, it can be conjectured that the average individual would have had contact with the Ranters principally through the works of the printed press. Consequently, Ranters would have been largely experienced by the average individual as a product of the printed word as opposed to in the flesh; the illicit thrills of Ranter debauchery were more likely experienced vicariously by readers with an appetite for the risque than witnessed in person. Because of the unrestrained publishing context which produced pamphlets, they are uniquely placed in the literary world of the seventeenth century since they give voice to a segment of authorship unrepresented in formal literary venues, thereby offering an entry into the world of popular culture. As Cressy argues, "[bjroadsides and pamphlets should be understood as

13 See Morton, 76,81, 108-09. interventions in popular culture, or contributions to popular culture, as well as reflections of popular beliefs and attitudes" (Cressy, Agnes 34). Grantham Turner echoes this understanding of the link between the world of literature and social history. Describing how literature responds to and captures the social concerns surrounding its production, he notes how texts serve as a repository for these views (Turner x). By paying close attention to the

irreverent tales of sexual misconduct contained in anti-Ranter pamphlets, the reader is

offered an opportunity to peruse the underbelly of early modern sexuality to gain a fuller insight into how deviant sexuality was configured during the period.

Conclusion

One vitally important question which has surfaced from Fear, Myth And History: The

Ranters and the historians, is what are we to make of anti-Ranter pamphlets if we do not read them as empirical sources? Unfortunately, lost amidst the scholarly debate about the existence of the Ranters has been the Ranter pamphlets themselves. In the uproar caused by

Davis' argument, questions regarding the nature and purpose of anti-Ranter pamphlets have been completely elided apart from examining the extent to which they can be considered credible. Other academics have avoided looking at the implications of Davis' premise that

Ranter pamphlets cannot be read at face value as sources describing Ranter activity, a proposition which dramatically alters how these texts should be approached historiographically. Davis himself has only outlined the parameters in which this question can be addressed without elaborating on the details. By providing an overview of the academic study of the Ranters, this chapter has aimed to show how the Ranters cannot easily be explained as a sect or a movement, thereby implying that the pamphlets ostensibly said to contain descriptions of Ranter activity cannot be read at face value. 37

Chapter Four. A New Shift in Reading Ranter Pamphlets: The Literary Foundation of

Anti-Ranter Pamphlets and a New Interpretive Model

To determine the best interpretive approach to use in reading the pamphlets, it is

advantageous to examine the texts in light of their generic precursors with which they share notable similarities, a project which previous scholarship has yet to undertake. Drawing on

Cressy's analysis of the "travesty" as well as other scholarly work into the genre of "rogue

literature," I will argue that anti-Ranter literature, in ways comparable to these genres, provides the reader a window into a subaltern world that inverts normative morality and

sexuality to create an image of a deviant other. Counterpoised against proper modes of

conduct, the figure of the Ranter as delinquent is used as a foil in elucidating orthodoxy and

acceptable sexual conduct. By outlining the parallels existing among these genres, I will

demonstrate how reading Ranter pamphlets with the same considerations applied to other

literary texts partaking of the same moralizing agenda can open a new interpretive angle

which can take into account the ideological nature of these texts. This chapter will also

examine how the pamphlets employ ekphrasis, a rhetoric of vivid imagery, in order to invite the reader to pass judgment on scenes of Ranter misbehaviour.

The Travesty: Tales of Morality and the Macabre.

If Ranter pamphlets are not read as historically factual documents, how then should they be approached? In responding to this quandary, I am indebted to Cressy's work on the

"travesty" and have incorporated the interpretive framework he develops to read tales of

scandal and deviancy into my analysis and understanding of the Ranter pamphlets. In Agnes 38

Bowker's Cat: Travesties and Trangressions in Tudor and Stuart England, Cressy examines

several "travesties," both in manuscript and printed form, whose subject matter is related to the fields of the paranormal or transgressive, including episodes of bestiality, monstrous births, symbolic violence and iconoclasm, irregular burial, nakedness and cross-dressing.

Travesties as a genre are tales whose narratives are woven around the abnormal, involving events or acts which cross the bounds of propriety, offending religious, social, legal, or customary forms (Cressy, Agnes 3). Oftentimes involving a supernatural or criminal

dimension, the travesty lies at the juncture between the acceptable and the abominable, reflecting the strains between these two realms by recounting events challenging the margins.

Shaped by contests over gender, authority, deference and belief, the travesty is an inherently disruptive genre which reflects the strains and stresses, both real and imaginary, which could

confront established norms.14

Because travesties are often couched in supernatural phenomena that extend beyond the limits of empiric verifiability or anecdotal criminal activity difficult to substantiate, reading such texts comes with certain methodological difficulties. Given the florid nature of travesties and their questionable rootedness in the real world, Cressy suggests that an

interpretive shift must be made away from attempting to answer what really happened or how

"true" these texts are, to examining instead how they conceived of the illicit and imagined

subversive occurrences or activities. In order to answer such questions, a greater sensitivity

14 Other examples of travesties are the numerous accounts of Monstrous births, for example A Declaration, Of a strange and Wonderfull Monster: Born in Kirkham (1646) which describes the birth of a headless child to a Catholic woman. More examples of Monstrous births Prodigies and Apparitions. Or Englands warning Pieces (1643). Other examples of travesties which Cressy analyzes from court records and printed material include cases of abortion, male cross-dressing, secret and illegal burial on church grounds, murders, demon possession and exorcism. 39

has to be given to matters of religious sentiment and allegiance, the context of language and

images, and polemical uses of deviancy and their institutional values and concerns. To

undertake such a reading, in Cressy's opinion, is "to posit a double set of negotiations, a

nested epistemology, involving present and past" (Cressy, Agnes 24). He goes on to explain

that at one level we are concerned with ordinary individuals and governors and their problem

in making sense of what happened and the processes they engaged in to explain what they

saw and heard. Yet at the academic level, we are faced with the need to reconstruct the past

in intelligible terms (Cressy, Agnes 24). Consequently to unpack the travesty requires a

closer look at the relationship between texts and events and the environment of reading and

writing, requiring answers to such questions as who were the authors of such texts, what was

their intended audience and what did they intend their audience to believe? How accurate

were written accounts, how hostile their treatment? How was sexuality used, either in graphic

descriptions or illustrations, to contribute to the sensational quality of these accounts? Was

the tenor of these texts weighted towards opprobrium, fear-mongering, or derision? While it

may not be possible to provide answers to all of these questions, asking them and questions

similar to them follows a different vector of inquiry into the significance of the Ranter pamphlets during the Interregnum.

When tales of Ranter exploits are read in conjunction with travesties, multiple

similarities emerge in terms of narrative structure, thematic concerns and character

portrayals, highlighting parallel generic conventions that indicate possible influences shaping the imagining of the Ranter figure. One key feature shared by the Ranter pamphlets and the travesty is their conscious crafting of language and scenarios to shock their readers through

scandal. The authors of anti-Ranter pamphlets were highly conscious of the sensational 40 element of their work and were aware that the lurid subject matter of their texts had an immense potential to keep their readers riveted, either through shock or disapproval. The

Ranters Declaration begins with the lament, "thousands have been possest by him [the

Devil], to leave off their Gospel Christianity, and to betake themselves to the Gulf of the dreadful torments and misery, as is evidently demonstrated by this ensuing Subject, never before published (Anonymous 2).

A second feature shared by the travesty and the Ranter pamphlets is the quasi- fictionality of both groups of texts. The travesty was not a fabrication of pure fiction but was deliberately crafted in such as way as to bridge the world of the commonplace with a world slightly beyond the limits of believability, purposefully blurring the boundary between fiction and what they alluded to as "fact." The fodder for such stories could be comprised of actual occurrences lending easily to far-fetched exaggeration, or fanciful anecdotes presumably indebted to imagination while containing an element of plausibility (analogous in ways to the modern urban legend or other orally transmitted stories). Court cases involving sordid crimes with colorful perpetrators sure to pique a reader's intrigue were a staple for sensational stories and acts ranging from abortion, beheading, and buggery (including with boys, farm animals or household implements) were recounted in manuscripts and pamphlets in vivid detail.15 One anti-Ranter pamphlet, Strange Newes from Newgate and the Old-Bailey, presents itself as a journalistic retelling of the most noteworthy occurrences and trials which took place during sessions, particularly the arraignment of several Ranters for participating in desacralizing acts. Its credibility as a faithful transcription is undermined, however, by its embellishments, such as its account of a recalcitrant Ranter being struck dead by God in the

15 See Cressy Agnes, Ch.5 and 6 for cases of women brought before magistrates for transgressive activity, including illicit sex and murder. street (Anonymous 4). Similarly, The Ranters Ranting states that it contains material from

Ranter "examinations before the Magistrate" (Reading 2). Despite their fanciful episodes, anti-Ranter pamphlets and travesties as a genre routinely go to great lengths to stress the factuality of the events they relate, often claiming that they are based on eye-witness testimonials. For example, The Ranters Religion advertises itself as "a true discovery of some of their late prodigious pranks and unparalleled deportments" presented "verbatim" by the author's friend who had happened in on a Ranter orgy by accident (Anonymous 3). The

Routing of the Ranters "being a full Relation of their uncivil carriages" contains Ranter examinations "taken before a Justice of Peace," as does The Ranters Bible. For readers skeptical of the shocking events being relayed, The Ranters Declaration and The Ranters

Monster provide a list of witnesses who, it was asserted, could attest to the certainty of the particulars of the case. In all of the anti-Ranter pamphlets, an attempt is made to legitimize their account, indicating the desire for these texts to be read as reportage of actual occurrences. Unfortunately, none of these cases can be related to existing court records.

Another commonality shared by both groups of texts is that travesties and Ranter pamphlets do not limit themselves to human delinquency but routinely recount occurrences in which deviancy was provoked or intermeshed with the otherworldly. Peppering the occult throughout their outrageous accounts, authors combined elements of human criminality with the demonic as a means to heighten the thrill of the narrative as well as to provide an explanatory means to account for felonious behaviour. Literalizing the trope of the devil on the shoulder, demon possession was seen as prompting criminal activity by inducing a state of psychological malaise leading to aberrant conduct, although this rarely elicited exculpation from the author's perspective, merely solidififying the culpability of the wrongdoer. In The 42

Ranters Declaration, when the leader of a Ranter gathering, "a cunning Gnostick," was facing arrest, he "went to the chamber door, and called for Turks head; in plain English, a pisse-pot, and in an instant, upon a great flash of fire, vanished and never was seen more, to the great admiration of the spectators" (Anonymous 4).

While the fanciful character of such accounts stretches the limits of their credulity, for the reader willing to set aside an empirically-based hermeneutic, the quixotic themes and conclusions in these travesties can shed light on how contemporary concerns were creatively

addressed through literature and resolved in narrative fashion. These stories do not necessarily, therefore, represent an escape into the realm of fancy, but are uniquely positioned as ficitionalized responses to controversial developments of the period. "Each

story emerges from the contested culture of post-Reformation England, and each reflects the

strains and stresses of its local time and circumstance. From the mid-sixteenth to the mid-

seventeenth century, England was beset by moral, spiritual, and religious difficulties, economic and demographic problems, cultural and political crises" (Cressy, Agnes 2-3). In many respects, the travesty serves as a fulcrum on which such socio-political transformations could be explored with the intent of finding a balance between the disorder produced by such convulsions and the order required to stabilize such movements. Early modern society was governed by principles of order and consensus, but this aspired stability was complicated by the countervailing tendencies of discord and dissension (Cressy, Agnes 4). Travesties highlight these disruptive stresses in order to engage with complex cultural issues through imaginative discourse. In the following sections on blasphemy and adultery, I will demonstrate how the Ranter Pamphlets manifested such negotiations in a contested sphere and mimicked the tactics of obedience and retribution set forth by legal statutes. 43

"Rogue Literature": Revealing Secret Societies and the Representation of Criminality

Ranter pamphlets can additionally be analyzed in terms of another literary genre

popular since Elizabethan times that was also premised upon exposing deviant activity,

"rogue literature." Similar to the Ranter pamphlets which involved authors who claimed to

have infiltrated a clandestine underworld to disclose its secrets to their audience, rogue

pamphlets, otherwise known as cony-catching pamphlets, contained eye-witness accounts of

crimes perpetuated by thieves, fraudsters and prostitutes. The pamphlets ostensibly attempted

to educate their audience into the ways of the criminal underclass so that they could protect

themselves from becoming victims of such scams. Published between 1550-1620, these

pamphlets reshaped the image of the criminal into a willing and stealthy member of a vast

criminal network of organized guilds, complete with their own internally coherent barter

economy, secret languages and patrons (Dionne & Mentz 7).16 The pamphlets were filled

with scenes of indoctrination ceremonies into underworld mysteries, detailed protocol of

unlawful gatherings, and descriptions of criminal and underworld activity. Through these

accounts, the urban underworld was revealed to readers as an autonomous social space

operating apart from the rule of law that fostered the criminal blights plaguing English

society.

The protagonists (or antagonists as the case may be) of these pamphlets were rogues,

which as Dionne & Mentz explain, "became a catchall term for a variety of social deviants

16 Perhaps one of the most well known rogue pamphlets is Robert Greene's a Discovery of Cosenage, Now Daily Practiced by Sundry Lewd Persons (1592). One of the vignettes which Greene describes is of a man who is extorted of his money following his solicitation of a prostitute by a group of men working alongside the prostitute. Other rogue pamphlets from the seventeenth century include Thomas Dekker's The Bellman of London (1604) Lantern and Candlelight (1608). 44 and outcasts, from rural migrants to urban con artists. Images of the rogue took on varied associations, signifying the pervasive concern with self-invention as well as ideas of coterie culture or secret bonds.... Rogue articulated a private camaraderie or intimacy that can be connected to its identification with covert fraternities" (Dionne & Mentz 2). One of the narrative goals underlying rogue pamphlets was therefore to provide readers knowledge of this secret world. Similar to the Ranter pamphlets which involved authors who claimed to have infiltrated a clandestine underworld to disclose its secrets to their audience, "rogue literature consisted of warnings to the public against petty crimes and tricks of street people, mainly in a comic vein with a thin veneer of moralizing. The promise of disclosure animates the whole genre" (Woodbridge 3). For example, William Harrison in his pamphlet

Description of England (1587), relates the observations of one of these eye-witnesses who infiltrated to rogue world to reveal its secrets to members of respectable society so they will not be caught off-guard should they cross paths with one, "he setteth down and describeth three-and-twenty sorts of them, whose names it shall not be amiss to remember, whereby each one may take occasion to read and know, as also by his industry, what wicked people they are and what villany remaineth in them"(184).17

Just as Ranter pamphlets enunciated the belief that Ranter societies operated as the antithesis to the godly world, rogue literature described a criminal parallel society that functioned as a topographical opposite to the godly commonwealth straining towards order and harmony (Long 9). Establishing their own community in which the breaking of normative law formed the ethics of personal conduct, "the rogue pamphlets describe the criminal underworld as an autonomous social space with different classes of thieves who

17 Harrison proceeds to list 23 different types of rogues listed as "The Several Disorders and Degrees Amongst our Idle Vagabonds." This list includes Priggers of Prancers [horse thieves], Dummerers [sham deaf-mutes], Bawdy baskets [female peddlers], and Morts [prostitutes and theives] (184-85). 45 voice an incredulous and cynical perspective about the conventional views of order and degree promulgated by England's church and court" (Dione & Mentz 15). Rogue culture could hence serve as a dark mirror for English society, reflecting a distorted image of an ordered and law-abiding commonwealth. In this fashion, rogue literature provides another literary template for the construction of delinquency that shares affinities with Ranter pamphlets, primarily through establishing criminal activity with culturally accepted forms of vice. As M. Long describes, "the characterization rogues receive is designed to defame by associating them with pre-conceived cultural evils known to the public. It is a process that constructs guilt, evil, and malice through associations with firmly entrenched taboos" (11). In this fashion, rogues, Ranters, and their dysfunctional social order can by seen as a dystopian commonwealth whose pattern of government stands as the shadow image of idealized society.

Ranter Carnivalesque: Inversion, Misrule and the Excess of Liberty

The Ranters' rejection of conventional conduct is given its liveliest demonstration through their carnivalesque gatherings involving copious amounts of alcohol, sex, food and music. The image put forward by anti-Ranter tracts is of extemporaneous meetings in clandestine venues facilitated by alcohol. Serving as a narrative means through which the

Ranters are projected as an inverted image of godly conduct, the pamphlets' representation of

Ranter gatherings as a site of misrule and carnivalesque activity further underscores the reckless perils of antinomianism. This fear of the criminal by-products of unrestraint is shared by rogue pamphlets in which "early modern criminologists record the rogue's hidden practices by inscribing their derelict and mischievous activities as a dangerous excess of liberty.... [in] what appears to be a spontaneous generation of social decay that encroaches upon the public space of the commonwealth" (Dionne 45). For both the authors of rogue and

Ranter pamphlets, unrestrained liberty was the catalyst for deviant activity threatening the moral health of the nation.

During these gatherings the complete lack of guidance or liturgical program is duly highlighted by an atmosphere of misrule where individuals are inspired to engage in whatever lewd acts the hubris of the moment compels them to perform. Decadent, debauched and depraved, Ranter meetings are depicted as an orgiastic event catering to all of the body's sensual pleasures. One Ranter meeting "began about four of the clock in the afternoon, and was continued by some until nine or ten of the clock the next day; which time was spent in drunkenness, blasphemous words, filthy songs, and mixt dances of men and women stark naked" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 3). Like a Dionysian ritual in which reason and sobriety are completely supplanted by the frenetic effects of ecstatic release, the Ranters are portrayed as losing all inhibitions during their intoxicating gatherings. "[T]hey were accommodated with the chieftest wine, and many delicates; of which being plentifully filled, the women withdrew themselves into another room, and disrobed themselves of the apparel in which they were" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 4). Included in the Ranters' palette of transgressive tastes was a love for theatre. "[T]hey went into Charterhouselane, where they had a lesson played on the Organs, danced mixed dances, and had an Antick Maask; and during the time of the masking, the Musick that played, was, the Treble-viol, the Hand-

Symbal and Tongs" (Reading 6). The fact that the theatres were illegal during the period further highlights the Ranters' enjoyment of all things taboo. 47

To achieve a fuller understanding of how disruptive such a roguish upset of social norms would have been, it is necessary to have an awareness of the paradigmatic outlook of the seventeenth century. Stuart Clark suggests that a distinctive aspect of the seventeenth century mentality was its predisposition to see things in terms of binary oppositions (105).

Characterized by positive and negative referents, the cognitive map of the seventeenth century was drawn by "reducing all logical opposites to contraries, the juxtaposition of which enabled men to grasp moral and by extension, all relations" (Clark 110). The logical topoi and didactic backbone of the seventeenth-century epistemology can hence be viewed as rooted in an ordered separation between poles dictating religious and moral life. Although this perspective rested on the belief in the existence of dualities, Clark observes that this axiomatic foundation was riddled by a language of "contrariety" in which the most extreme relations of opposition would intersect at the juncture of ritual performances, such as charivari and carnival, which would temporarily suspend such binaries by collapsing the boundaries between dualisms (105-07). In the discordant space left by this intersection of contraries, individuals were able to play or negotiate social norms through acts of "misrule" challenging the status quo by exchanging roles or qualities which were considered opposites.

Clark notes that misrule was a form of social experimentation that required three preconditions 1) a general awareness of the logical relation of opposition, without which inversion could not even be entertained 2) familiarity with the relevant linguistic and social conventions under which a specific action might be seen as one of inversion 3) an understanding of just what positive rule or order was implied by any individual act (104). In the abstemious climate of Puritan rule, the Ranters stand out for their disregard of austerity, espousing a Bacchanalian lifestyle in which "to Feast, Revell, Drinke, Sing, Roare and to 48

sweare great Oathes, and to lye with a Whore, though in the Marketplace, was as good

Actions, as to Pray, Preach, or perform other duties of Christian Religion" (J.M. 4).

Disavowing any renunciation of sensual pleasures, the Ranter ethos premises itself in

indulging in depravities of all sorts, "being given over to all manner of filthiness and

uncleanness" (J.M. 8), and is held as the pattern of ideal behaviour. In this way, the Ranter

pamphlets superimpose image upon image of disorder. This overlaying of meaning made the

Ranters' ideas and habits ideal material for the literary imagination.

Throughout the pamphlets the Ranters are constructed as the inversion of proper

conduct and religiosity, a grotesque reflection of Christianity:

All true Christians know that it is not lawfull for them to flatter themselves with any thing of their owne judgement, nor to adhere to that which any man brings forth in his owne head; we have the patterne of the Apostles to imitate... where on the contrary these licentious Sciolists affirme, that each whimsy, each motion, whether to sweare, to whore, yea to commit incest or buggery, is of God and proceeds from him, he being the Author, Orderer and Origen of it. (Anonymous, Ranters Religion 4)

Depicted as a composite of all the morally depraved possibilities offered by a life of sin, the

Ranter, as portrayed in the pamphlets, becomes a parody of a proper Christian. The Ranters

can therefore be approached as a case study in the pathology of a religious disease,

embodying the worst aspects of blasphemy deserving expurgation, "O wretched people! O

monstrous Times!...such Devils clad in flesh are not fit to have subsistence amongst those

who boast themselves Christians, but merit (as unsavoury salt) to bee thrown out, and to

betrodden under foot of men" (Anonymous, Ranters Religion 8). As a negative reference point from which the nature of true religion could be ascertained, the Ranters can be read as

an aniconic figure of religiosity, embodying the exact opposite of the Christian ideal.

"[TJhese Ranters are merely sensuall and devilish, and with St. Augustines warrant, that they

are of their Father the Devill, whose workes they doe" (Anonymous, Ranters Religion 4). According to Jerome Friedman, antinomians were the most vulnerable of all religious groups subject to popular condemnation since any of those "who could scrap scripture and other commonly held guidelines for human behaviour in favour of the vagaries of the ethereal spirit were easily condemned as dangerous libertines if only because of the perceived potential for abuse" (282). Counterpoised against Christian civility, the polarization of the image of the Ranters as religious deviants created a spectrum straddling orthodoxy and radicalism in which Ranters occupied the terminal end of extremism, or as is stated in The

Routing of the Ranters, "I cannot term these persons to be of any Sect, for that I do not learn, either in profession or practise, they do any thing that hath the least stamp or tincture of that which may be rightly called religion" (Anonymous 2). The image of the Ranters could be subsequently used to explore the dilemmas of sectarianism and the limits of toleration,

"[ajgainst sectarian order may be set the sectarian anarchy of the Ranters.. .Against the agonizing problem of ordinances could be set the Ranterish consequences of the repudiation of all ordinances. Against the disciplinary underpinning of sin and hell could be put the

Ranters' denial of both" (Davis 121).

Reading Ranter Pamphlets as Tales of Morality

At their most basic level, the Ranter pamphlets operate as moralistic literature which attempt to redress the moral ills of the present day. Depicting the present as beset by perdition and a fall away from righteousness, the Ranter pamphlets portray England as having descended into a slough of depravity filled with blasphemy. "The ill spirit was never so busie, he never made such a harvest, or had such a latitude of power given him, to take his

Diabolical progress in any part of Europe, as he hath had lately in this Island" (Anonymous, 50

Strange Newes 1). Similarly bemoaning the nation's collective jettisoning of Christian values and the endemic corruption resulting from such abandonment, the Ranters Bible comments on the prevalence of evil since "as God is the Authour of all good, so the Devil is the Author of all evil, being now very busie and active in this Nation" (Roulston 2). In his work Folk

Devils and Moral Panics, Stanley Cohen attests that in the wake of revolutions, moral uncertainty can lead to great anxiety or "moral panic" and to the demand for a reassertion and redefinition of moral boundaries. Such demands can be met, in part, by redefining the image of deviance through the creation of the character of the folk devil (Cohen 7-9). The Ranter pamphlets provided the fictional means through which such a folk devil could be made manifest before readers' eyes, offering a specific conceptualization of deviance against which the contours of normative morality could be gauged, indicating to the reader, as a result, the boundaries beyond which one should not venture. As Davis argues, "[t]he image of

Ranterism had become a weapon with which serious and God-fearing men could fight the good fight" (87).

The image of the Ranter and their religious and moral deviance was hence exploited to forward a moralistic ideology, the Ranter pamphlets providing "horror stories of those who acted out the beliefs and practices of such extreme spiritual individualism and of the fates that befell them. The Ranters were an image of this horror; Ranterism a frontier which should never be crossed" (Davis 93). Ranter pamphlets were thus a cautionary take directing readers towards a life of probity. The author of The Routing of the Ranters explains that his pamphlet was written to assist readers of infirm moral rectitude, "it is conceived usefull and profitable to many, that some of their deeds of darknesse should be brought forth into the light, to the 51 end, that such as are weak and apt to be drawn aside by every wind of vanity, may be deterred from coming into such company" (Anonymous 2).

Indeed, the result of not taking preventative measures in protecting potential Ranter converts could be deadly,

.. .take warning and avoid their company which may prove dangerous to the body as well as to the soul: for I am able to justifie that one Evanap Bevan born of good Parentage... fell into strange opinions & would admit of no Scrament[sic], no Baptisim, no Duty, no Obedience, no Divell, no Hell &c. in a short time after his fall into these grand errours (the Divel growing strong with him) that for no other cause but that they were conscientious and finding opportunity, he cut off the heads of his own mother and brother, for which he was hanged in chains near Shrewsbury. (Reading 10)

In fact, Ranters and their heresies were so insidious that "[t]hese creep into houses, leading silly captive women laden with sins, and led away with ever lust. These lay waid as he that setteth snares, they set a trap, they catch men. They deceive every one his Neighbour and will not speak the truth" (Anonymous, Ranters Creed 2). Described as predatory evangelists unscrupulously recruiting ingenues to partake in their lifestyle of ill-repute, the Ranters were to be feared precisely because they actively sought to propagate their heresy. In order to counteract this alleged proselytizing, the authors of the pamphlets explicitly make clear that they provide an expose of the Ranters' debauched activities not with the aim of engaging with readers' furtive imaginations, but rather "to decipher their words and behaviour in publick, to the end, that if any man chance to fall into their company, they be known and avoided... .which by the observation of their words, and actions you may easily do, for although they carry the image and shape of men and women, yet they have the manners onely of a beast" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 6). Lurking on the fringes of respectable society under the cover of false propriety, Ranters embodied a danger to the 52 health of the Commonwealth, "who shall cure the Tumor? All the world now is in the

Ranting Humour" (Sheppard 2).

Although the Ranters were portrayed in the pamphlets as enjoying the highest degree of conviviality, they are invariably punished for their blasphemy and sexual incontinence by either human or divine authorities. One memorable example is found in Strange Newes:

There is one notable example of God's judgement upon an open and prophane Ranter, which were it laid to heart would be sufficient to deter all that should ever hear thereof from uttering all grosse and wicked blasphemies.... [A] man named Kendall perswading to have his pleasure with her [a young woman]... When they had made this wiked compact and agreement together they parted with an intention to go two several waies... but no sooner gone from her, but he was suddently strook dead in the place to the great amazement and astonishing of many beholders. (Anonymous 3-4)

The Devil was likewise used as an instrument to punish Ranters for their sins, The Ranters

1J? Last Sermon recounting how a "Crew of Ranters" in Hammet Germany, "after many dayes spent Riotting and Revelling, Drinking, Swearing & Blaspheming... the Devil appeared amongst them in a very High, Terrible and Monsterous shape, like an incincible [sic] Gyant, carrying away a Hundred and Thirty of the Children in a great smoake, and a fiery Flame; that they were never seen again to this day" (J.M. 7). The Devil also appeared "at Ranter-

Meetings both in this City of London and in the Countrey" to give Ranters their just dues,

"sometimes in the shape of a man, and othertimes in the shape of a Woman, and taking them by the hands very familiarly, he leaves the print of his fowl Paws behind him which the

Ranters can never after get out... Others are pluck'd out of their beds and carried out of their

Chambers by the Haire of their heads, and tossed up & down" (J.M. 7). Ranters did not enjoy their sins with impunity, but were eventually faced with retribution, and pamphlet authors concluded their tracts with such dispensation of justice restoring balance offset by Ranter practices. 18 This is the only reference to Ranter activity occurring outside of the British Isles. 53

Ekphrasis: The Rhetorical Mechanisms of the Ranter Pamphlets

The moralistic tenor of the pamphlets is additionally activated by their rhetorical

construction which draws the reader into the action of the text and compels them to pass judgment on Ranter misdeeds. One of the most salient features of the pamphlets is their vivid

recounting of Ranter gatherings, providing a play by play of the various transgressions

unfolding during the heat of apostasy. Through this illuminative liveliness, the pamphlets

employ the rhetorical device of ekphrasis, a species of vivid description which can be simply

defined as "verbal pictorialism" (Preston 115). Ekphrasis seeks to fabricate a virtual reality

that strives to recreate physical objects or experiences through rhetorical vividness, and like

all rhetorical forms which attempt to persuade, Ekphrasis at its best induces the reader into

believing in such events and objects. Indeed, the authors of the Ranter pamphlets provided as

much description as possible to persuade their readers that what was recounted was in fact

real, The Ranters Religion advertising itself as "A faithfull and infallible Narrative of their

damnable and diabolical opinions & actions. With a true discovery of some of their late

prodigious pranks, and unparalleld deportments... rendered verbatim" (Anonymous 1).

Originating in classical legal oration to influence a jury into arriving at a particular

verdict, ekphrasis, through its presentation of detail, attempts to elicit a particular

interpretation from readers in passing judgment (Preston 116). Ekphrasis can thus be

understood as a graphic, and often dramatic, description of a work of art or event which aims

at funneling the reader's understanding toward a particular interpretation. As Claire Preston

states, "Ekphrastic description, deliberately designs and compels scrutiny, carefully directing 54 that attentiveness away from narrative sequence and toward precise interpretive responses to obtruded and ostentatious physical facts which encode abstract meaning." (119). Perhaps the most explicit voicing of the ekphrastic mechanism underlying the Ranter pamphlets occurs in

The Ranters Religion when the author begins his pamphlet with the instructions, "I beseech thee, good Reader, to peruse this Pamphlet as thou wouldest Aretines Pictures, with a will to know such filthinesse, that thou mayest be incited the more heartily to abominate it"

(Anonymous 2). If seeing is indeed believing, the authors of the pamphlets strove to provide enough detail to substantiate the claims they made regarding the Ranters, intending that readers would recoil at the repugnancy of what was laid before their eyes. Or, as the The

Ranters Last Sermon makes clear, "it is thought fit and necessary that there should be a more perfect discovery of them, to the end that when they appear more in their proper colours

(according to their deserts) they will be rendered a hissing and byword to the nation... that they may be distinguished and known, and that which the Apostle cals pure Religion and undefiled may shine with more splendor" (Reading 1).

Arguably, however, the great cache which the pamphlets would have provided to their readers was their detailed description of pornographic scenarios and the thrill which reading such material would have engendered. One example is found in The Routing of the

Ranters where a meeting is described, "when a competent number of them were gotten together, they began to sing filthy bawdy songs to the tune of Davids Psalms; after which, they drank a health to him, in whomy they live move and have a being-, this being over, one of them lets fall his breeches, and turning his shirt aside, another of the company runs and kisses, saying they must all do like, for it was their fellow creature" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 3). Inviting the reader to witness such illicit activities, the pamphlets are saturated with a voyeuristic feel and draw the reader in as a spectator. The dynamic of this

audience participation is premised on titillation as the reader's eye lurks along the periphery

of Ranter gatherings, absorbing all that takes place, consciously aware that what one is

witnessing is transgressive and immoral. Another instance of this witnessing is found in

Strange Newes where the author recounts "one merry Christmas Frolick" in which,

four or five women being very merry, and having but one man in their company, they agreed together to have a bout at Hot-cockles upon bare breeches, unto which full consent or approbation was given by all parties, and one of the women would draw cuts with the man, which should lie down first, and it fell to the womans share, and thereunto she presently submitted; the man being something eager of the sport, set it so home, that it made her whole body to rebound." (Anonymous 4)

This passage is riddled with the taboo and the improper, and it can be safely assumed that

readers would have been reconstructing such a scenario in their mind's eye as they read,

becoming participants, in however imaginary a fashion, with the Ranters in these acts.

Toying with this curiosity and the illicit material which served as its fodder, the

authors would often allude to further horrors which they were obliged to refrain from

disclosing because of modesty or the worry that knowledge of such acts would taint the probity of their readers. Knowing full well what their readers expected, however, authors would concede in providing salacious details in spite of its lurid content "neither in modesty

can I relate in such broad speeches as [testimonies] were then delivered... yet having promised to give you some satisfaction I shall give you some of the perticulars proved"

(Anonymous, Ranters Relgion 3). The authors of anti-Ranter pamphlets possessed an

awareness of what their readers sought, and were prepared to satisfy these demands, drawing attention to a literary economy geared towards the satisfaction of readers' prurient interests through vivid descriptions. 56

The authors of the pamphlets took steps to distance themselves from being perceived

as purveyors of pornography, however, by defending their literary creations as edifying texts which could elevate their audience. Routinely, the authors argued that their texts had a pedagogical function in that, by exposing Ranter horrors, respectable readers would be aware

of them and would attempt to distance themselves from them should they ever be

encountered, "I pray God that such as heare this relation, and the wickedness of their ways, may be preserved from following them in the same excess of ryot, that every one may keep a watch over his own ways" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 5). The pamphlets were hence to be read as enforcing morality by imploring readers to maintain their integrity in the face of circulating heresy or one's inner proclivities to sin. This was especially important for readers whose moral character was in danger of falling astray, the author of The Ranters

Ranting offering the following apologetic for the crudeness of his texts, "it is conceived usefull and profitable to many, that some of their deeds of darknesse should be brought forth into the light, to the end, that such are weak and apt to be drawn aside by every wind of vanity, may be deterred from coming into such company" (Reading 2). Through the use of ekphrasis, the pamphlets draw the readers into the text, ultimately intending to direct the reader's interpretation toward judging the Ranters while enforcing a life of probity.

There is therefore ambivalence in the rhetorical representation of the Ranters in the pamphlets producing a conflicting reader response. On the one hand, the explicitly sexual material of the texts promotes an eroticism that draws the reader into complicity with the

Ranters, engaging them as witnesses to the acts described. Such vivid descriptions would have no doubt induced an element of arousal on the part of the reader, creating a degree of collusion between Ranters, text, and reader. The authors, aware of this dynamic, attempt to 57 neutralize the reader's titillation by redirecting it toward feelings of scandalized indignation.

Describing moral rot in vivid detail was thereby, according to the pamphlet authors, a way of enforcing the moral salubriousness of the individual and their spiritual well being. "I thought to have given you many other particulers, but I hope these are sufficient to satisfie all good people concerning the wicked practises and blasphemous opinions of this generation which have too long increased, and from what hath been said by way of discovery, take warning

and avoid their company which may prove dangerous to the body as well as for the soul"

(Reading 7).

If indeed the Ranters did not exist as a sect, then it can be surmised that such a

moralist program was not intended to protect the individual against Ranters in real life.

Rather, it would have operated to increase the reader's own self-surveillance and vigilance

against sin and the temptation perceived both in the outside world, and in the reader's own

mind. By provoking such reflections in the reader, the texts alert the reader to the possible

Ranter lurking within each individual who needs to be supervised and contained. Titillation

would thus oscillate with guilt as the reader could simultaneously be aroused and ashamed by their prurient responses to the pamphlets and thereby called to scrutinize their own moral

fortitude.

Following an exposition of various Ranter misdeeds, many of the pamphlets conclude

with an invitation for the reader to repent for their sins, ending on a note of contrition seeking

absolution. Thus the author of The Ranters Bible finishes with the invocation, "friends, I do humbly implore you, in the name of Jesus Christ, to leave off your wicked ways, and to lay hold of the truth; for he that acts against truth, acts against God" (Roulston 3), an invitation, 58

perhaps, to remain within the folds of orthodoxy. Similarly, The Ranters Recantation

concludes with the author imploring potential Ranters reading his text to

joyn no longer in the ways of sin, by denying my Creator to be the true God, and refusing to walk in the way of holinesse; and dear friends, I can assure you, that all your wayes and actions are of your father the Devill and that like a cunning Fisher- man, he endeavours to hang you with a hook baited with sensual objects... and draggeth you up and down in the sea of your sensual contentment, til at last he hath drowned you in your own element, to the burying of your peace and felicity for perpetuity .(Anonymous 4)

While the author is ostensibly speaking to Ranters in this passage, it can be surmised that this

declaration functions as a rhetorical tool to invite any reader to seek forgiveness for the

potential Ranter within, or for those aspects of their personhood which delights in Ranterish

sins. Additionally this passage, by indicating that each sin shall receive its due recompense,

provides a counter argument to the carpe diem mentality of antinomianism. Strange Newes

partakes of the same rationale and cautions its reader that "although A sinner doth wickedly

an hundred times, and his days be prolonged, yet remember for all this he must come to judgement. Then will they confesse and gnashing their teeth say, We fools thought the ways

of God madnesse, behold they are happy, and we are miserable and tormented' (Anonymous

7). The alleged Ranter convert who purportedly authored The Ranters Last Sermon following

his renunciation of Ranterism describes his return to the fold of orthodoxy as a rebirth into an

ethical lifestyle, "I praise God, that he hath given me grace to come out of Babylon, leave

them in the broad way, and seek out the good old way, the right Path that leads to eternall

felicity" (J.M. 8) The pamphlets also suggest a positive model of behaviour to counteract that

of the Ranters, The Ranters Religion drawing attention to the fact that "we have the patterne

of the Apostles to imitate, who tooke no thing to bring in after their owne pleasure, but faithfully assigned to the Nations that they had received of Christ" (Anonymous 4). 59

Conclusion

By drawing attention to the literary affinities between the Ranter pamphlets and their

literary counterparts, it is possible to discern that the pamphlets are not novel in form or

content, but participate in a wider narrative project. At the crux of the travesty and rogue

literature lies the confrontation between order, embodied by a world governed by laws and

morality, and its dystopic other whose presence threatens to upset this equilibrium. The narrative arch of these genres is characteristically conservative, however, as it strives toward the containment of disruptive forces by working towards strengthening regulatory

conventions. In a similar fashion, the Ranter pamphlets go into great detail describing the

secret society of the Ranters and their practices behind closed doors which stand in direct

opposition to established morality. Invariably, however, the pamphlets conclude by buttressing the moral order through the punishment of Ranter transgressions, and are therefore permeated with moralistic undertones. Read through these parameters, the Ranter pamphlets can be evaluated as ideological works forwarding a polemic in favor of customary

sexual and religious behavior. 60

Chapter Five. The Moral Panic of 1650-1652 and Blasphemy: The Blasphemy Act and Ranter Acts of Blasphemy and Irreligion in the Pamphlets

Another way to unravel how the pamphlets conceive of deviancy is to place them in connection to the historical developments forming the backdrop during the time of their publishing. In August 1650, just a few months prior to the emergence of the first pamphlet,

Parliament passed the Blasphemy Act outlining heresy, itemizing the various doctrinal errors which would henceforth be considered blasphemous and punishable by the civil authorities.

The passing of such a law attests to a rising worry regarding the state of irreligiosity in the nation and the accompanying desire to slow the spread of such blasphemy with the threat of retribution. I suggest that the anti-Ranter pamphlets capitalized on this circulating anxiety and responded to the fears of irreligion by representing the figure of the Ranter as an embodiment of the definition of heresy set forth in the Act. The pamphlets can thus be seen as a form of heresiography, cataloguing the various misdeeds of sectarian activity. Key among such misdeeds was the Ranters' antinomianism. My analysis will discuss how the

Ranters' rejection of morality and religious laws was a major focus for the pamphlets which feared that an excess of liberty would devolve into anarchy, represented in the texts by scenes in which Ranters denounce any form of external control over their lives. Particular attention will also be devoted to the pamphlets' description of Ranter theatrical acts of desecration parodying religious ritual and the ideological implications of such acts as they relate to critiques of sacerdotalization within the Church of England.

The Blasphemy Act

One factor accounting for the cluster of Ranter pamphlets in the later months of 1650 was the growing prominence accorded to questions of blasphemy and adultery in public consciousness due to the passing of legislation by the Rump Parliament to mitigate the spread 61 of heresy and immoral activity. In May 1650 the Rump passed the Adultery Act, followed by the Blasphemy Act in August, both acts part of Parliament's legislative program in 1650 for the "reformation of manners," that also included acts for the observance of the Lord's day

(McGregor, "Fear" 158). The nature and purpose of these acts become evident when they are considered as part of an attempt to promote a moral reform. Prasanta Chakravarty notes that one way in which Parliament was able to effect such changes was through legislation as

"Cromwellians realized the need for the simultaneous deployment of ideological state apparatuses through statutes and acts, along with more repressive and brutish forces, in order to crush radical forces. Once such maneuver was the Parliament's act of August 9" (155).

Parliament's belief that it was responsible for promoting social propriety permitted it to encompass affairs of personal conduct and religion under its purview, evident in opening declaration of the Blasphemy Act:

The Parliament holding it to be their Duty, by all good ways and means to propagate the Gospel in this Commonwealth, To advance Religion in all Sincerity, Godliness and honesty; have made several Ordinances and Laws for the good and furtherance of Reformation, in Doctrine in order to the suppressing of Prophaneness, Wickedness, Superstition and Formality, that God may be truly glorified, and all might in Well- doing be encouraged. (England and Wales Parliament, Blasphemy 2)

The passing of both acts was a public affair as Parliament ordered the acts to be read in public and printed copies affixed in public space such as town squares and markets.

Consequently, it can be surmised that the issues of irreligion and adultery were a source of public discussion and intrigue, especially since transgressions in these areas were now a civil offence punishable by secular law. The cleansing of antinomian beliefs was not limited to

England's populace, however, as Oliver Cromwell conducted a purge of Ranter and similar 62 doctrines, as well as the deviant practices they were supposed to promote, from the ranks of the New Model Army (McGregor, "Seekers" 131).

The extent to which the Blasphemy Act was a direct attempt to curtail Ranter activity is difficult to ascertain, although it can be demonstrated that Parliament was aware of the existence of Ranter doctrine during the passing of legislation. The Commons Journals show that the Blasphemy Act emerged from a committee created to investigate the "abominable practices of a Sect called Ranters," and both Abiezer Coppe and Laurence Clarkson, two prominent figures commonly held to be Ranters, were called to testify before this committee.19 Similarly, the Adultery Act was ordered to be presented to the House immediately following the condemnation of Coppe's A Fiery Flying Roll, and following three days of debate, parliament voted it illegal to proclaim the legitimacy of sins committed under pretence of liberty (England and Wales Parliament, Blasphemy 2).

The Blasphemy Act begins with a description of a rabid religious fanaticism emergent in the Commonwealth, proclaiming the Parliamentarians'

great grief and astonishment, that there are divers men and women who have lately discovered themselves to be monstrous in their Opinions, and loose in all wicked and abominable Practices hereafter mentioned, not only in the notorious corrupting and discovering, but even to the dissolution of all humane Society; Who rejecting the rule of Gospel Ordinances, do deny the necessity of Civil and Moral Righteousness among men." (England and Wales Parliament, Blasphemy 2)

The subsequent bulk of the Blasphemy Act is largely devoted to listing the multiple heresies henceforth to be deemed criminal, largely a summation of Ranter doctrine owing much to the writings of Coppe and Clarkson, and falling within a general definition of religious

19 Journal of the House of Commons: volume 6: 1648-1651 (1802), pp. 423-24. URL: http://www.british- history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=25584&strquery=common journal volume 6 Date accessed: 24 March 2010. > 63

enthusiasm, specifically claims to having divine attributes. Impugning those who would justify immoral acts as religiously defensible, the act renders culpable individuals

who shall presume avowedly in words to profess, or by writing proceed to affirm and maintain him or her self, or any other meer Creature to be very God... or the acts of Lying, Stealing, Couzening and Defrauding others; or the acts of Murther, Adultery, Incest, Fornication, Uncleanness, Sodomy, Drunkenness, filthy and lascivious Speaking are not things in themselves shameful, wicked, sinful, impious, abominable and destestable in any person. (England and Wales Parliament, Blasphemy 3)

For those who are found guilty of the above listed crimes, punishment by the legal authorities

was to be exercised " upon complaint and proof made of the same in any the cases aforesaid

before any one or more Justices or Justices of Peace, Major, or other head-Officer of any City

or Town Corporate.... Shall by the said Justice or Justices of other head-Officer committed to Prison or the house of Correction, for the space of six Moneths without Bail" (England and

Wales Parliament, Blasphemy 4-5).

Until the Restoration, the Blasphemy Act served as the default legal definition of

heresy, providing the criteria against which blasphemy was measured and ascertained

(McGregor, "Seekers" 132). Notably, a month after it had been passed, the Blasphemy Act was invoked in the trial and sentencing of Laurence Clarkson, a move which the newspaper

Mercurius Politicus interpreted as a demonstration "to stop the slanderous mouths of those that publish abroad such vile reports of the Common-wealth, as if they intended to

countenance impious and licentious practices, under the pretence of Religion and Liberty"

(Hall 7).

Antinomianism and Ranter Blasphemy in the Pamphlets

Blasphemy figures prominently in the Ranter pamphlets with a substantial portion of the tracts devoted to describing scenes of heretical behaviour and doctrine. The Ranters Bible associates the depravity affecting contemporary times with the prevalence of heresy, bemoaning "O the ignorance of these times! That men should fall from the ways of truth and comply with the spirit of darkness" (Roulston 4). Diagnosing the Zeitgeist of the

Commonwealth as plagued by individuals and opinions of the most obscene quality, the

Ranter pamphlets strike a pessimistic tone, questioning the very grounds of personal religiosity. Thus Strange News ponders "how many close and secret Blasphemers and

Atheists are there in our days, that with the Prophets Fool, say in their hearts, that there is no

God, though they be so wise as verbally not to declare it?" (Anonymous 6). In the pamphlets, the Ranter's blasphemous tenets manifest in three general categories: the advancement of antinomianism (including denial of hell and sin); the desecration of religious sacraments; and unrestricted sexual relations.

Particularly at issue for the Ranter pamphlets was the Ranter notion that all acts were deemed appropriate from the divine standpoint, a proposition which incited heated commentary, "they dare impiously affirm, that the man who tipples deepest, swears the frequentest, commits Adultery, Incest, or Buggery, the oftenest, Blasphemes the Impudentest, and pepetrates the most notorious crimes with the highest hand, and rigidest resolution, is the dearest Darling to Heaven (Anonymous, Ranters Religion 5). Amplifying the perversity underlying such an abhorrent doctrine was the Ranter defense that such actions actually constituted a display of piety. The Ranters Religion states "they affirm that God is so far from being offended at the crying sins of drunkenes, swearing, blaspheming, adultery, See. that he is well pleased therewith, and that [O strange and horrid impiety!] it is the only way of serving him aright" (Anonymous 5). Perhaps even more reprehensible was that Ranters had parlayed this permissive ethos into a lifestyle of pleasure "holding this dangerous 65

Discipline, that Swearing, whoring, Roaring, Revelling, Blaspheming, and the greatest vices they can imagine, are the only actions of honour to bring them happiness" (Roulston,

Ranters Bible 4).

Theatrical Acts of Desecration in the Ranter Pamphlets

In addition to their espousal of antinomianism, Ranter blasphemy is portrayed in the pamphlets through the profanation of the sacraments and acts desecrating Christian beliefs.

These acts are often depicted in theatrical vignettes, the most interesting being the narrative retelling of a mock performance defaming the sacramental performance of a priest found in

Strange Newes

That this Collins, Reeves, and others were sitting at table, eating a piece of Beef, one of them took it in his hand, tearing it asunder said to the other, This is the flesh of Christ, take and eat. The other took a cup of Ale and threw it into the chimney corner, saying There is the bloud of Christ. And having some discourse of God it was proved that one of these said, That he could go into the house of Office, and make a God every morning, by easing of his body, and blowing through two pieces of Tobacco pipes he said, That was the breath of God. There were also proved many other blasphemous words and uncivil behaviour, as the kissing of one anothers Breeches, more lively represented by this figure [an illustration accompanies underneath], (Anonymous 3-4)

The derision of Christian ritual detailed above can be interpreted as a crude theatrical enactment of a theological position against the role of the sacraments in liturgy. The Ranters were not the first actors to have defamed ritual and other religious observances as rebellious sentiments towards the role of sacraments in the Church had been fomenting years prior.

Such religio-politcal conflicts had been present since the Reformation surrounding Protestant anxiety towards perceived Popish influences in the religious fabric of England. During the

1630s in particular, mock religious behaviour was a common retaliatory gesture by those discontented with the counter-reforming policies of Archbishop Laud, notably in regards to 66 the sacerdotalization of liturgy (Reay 1).2 0 Such rebellious acts continued as the Civil Wars progressed, with soldiers and individuals who harboured anti-sacradotal beliefs in opposition to the Laudian reforms voicing their opposition through iconoclastic acts denigrating the perceived formalism of the Archbishop's program. Cases are documented of individuals destroying stained-glass windows, holy pictures, and statuary, the burning of altar rails and service-books, defecation and urination in church aisles and fonts, and mock baptisms of horses and cows (Reay 5). The scenarios depicted in the anti-Ranter pamphlets thus provide a recasting of counter-establishmentarian sentiments with a historical precedent. However, unlike anti-Laudian reformers whose acts of vandalism could be argued as gestures which opposed excess, the lack of piety evidenced by the Ranters is highlighted for its sheer irreverence. Within the pamphlets, such enactments further underscore the Ranters' complete lack of respect for the mores of society and flouting of religious propriety.

For example, The Routing of the Ranters describes how at a Ranter gathering "one of the men took a candle, and went up and down the room, as if he had been feeling for a needle; and after a while, one asked him what he sought after? To whom he answered, That he looks for his sins, but they were not there, he couldfind none" (Anonymous 5-6). This scene can be seen as a dramatization of the concept of antinomianism and the liberation from sin it entails, providing further demonstration that antics of Ranter irreverence found in the pamphlets were written with an intent to be symbolically significant and rhetorical.

Furthermore, the Ranter body itself becomes the site of spiritual contestation. In his examination of manifestations of libertinism in the seventeenth-century, James Turner observes that "'popular libertinism' produced a range of theatrical, emblematic, and textual

20 Notable elements of Laud's religious reforms which were perceived as sacerdotal were the erection of altar rails, obligatory kneeling to receive communion, and lavish robes for the clergy among other additions which were perceived as popish or overtly formal (Cressy On Edge, 115). 'postures,' charades of sexual violence that seem to reenact current political and religious conflicts in the grotesque body" (47). The Ranters Religion describes one such occasion in which a Ranter's "grotesque body" is symbolically mobilized, "One of these Roysters sitting over his cups (with the rest of his companions) evacuating wind backward, used his blasphemous expression, let everything that hath breath praise the Lord''' (Anonymous 8).

Debasing the worship of the divine by farcically using the body's excremental functions to

"give praise," the satirical enactment illustrated in this passage can be interpreted as possessing a semiotic register which uses the body as a contestational medium to express emancipation from prescribed modes of conduct. Another episode combining mock ritual and anal exposure is found in The Ranters Ranting where the author describes how a party of

Ranters "came into the room, where the like ceremony was offered by the rest (some Women being amongst them) presently after, one of them let his breeches slip down in the middle of the room, and another ran and kist his buttock, and called the rest to come and kisse their

God." (Reading 4) In his analysis of the "anal kiss," an act associated with witchcraft, Stuart

Clark emphasizes its capacity for inversion, "a single ritual act such as the anal kiss perverted religious worship and secular fealty, dethroned reason from a sovereign position on which individual well-being and social relations (including political obligation) were thought to depend and symbolized in the most obvious manner the defiant character of demonic politics as well as its preposterousness" (126).

There exists the danger, however, of overstating the symbolic meaning of purported

Ranter acts of desecration. Cressy warns of the perils of indiscriminately identifying seemingly iconoclastic acts as the product of radical reform. He poses the possibility that, as is the case with Laudian backlash, "it might be argued that their antics were driven by 68

boredom, anger, or alcohol, by larrikin daredevilry or 'indiscreet wantonness,' rather than

hostility to ritual and fabric of the Church... Their parodies of the sacrament could then be

understood in terms of youthful mischief and reckless high spirits which only came to official

notice because it crossed religious boundaries" (Cressy, England 183). The same could be

said of the anti-Ranter pamphlets as well. Perhaps the accounts in the Ranter pamphlets were

inspired by rumours of occurrences that had taken place in taverns whose patrons had been

overtaken by alcohol or hubris, making it difficult to ascertain whether such blasphemous

behaviour was the result of earnest religious contestation, or simply the product of carousing that partook in taboo acts to elicit a good laugh - if it took place at all.

Conclusion

The Ranter pamphlets emerged during a time in which apprehension surrounding the

growth of blasphemy figured in public debate. In many respects, the image of the Ranter promoted in the pamphlets personifies the type of religious deviant which the Blasphemy Act

described and sought to suppress. While it is difficult to ascertain the extent to which the Act

directly contributed to the imagining of the Ranter, the correlation between the charges laid down in the act and the characterization of Ranter beliefs and activity provided in the pamphlets is strengthened by numerous parallels, notably the fear of antinomianism and its delegitimization of moral laws and regulations. In this respect, both the Act and the pamphlets conceive of the archetypal heretic as an individual whose disavowal of sin breeds an amoral outlook justifying the participation in any act, no matter how taboo. In this way, the pamphlets' description of Ranter deviancy follows the same contours shared by 69

Parliamentarian legislators of the day and the harsh penalties set forth in the Act are narrativized in the pamphlets through scenes of Ranter punishment. 70

Chapter Six. The Moral Panic of 1650-52 and Adultery: The Adultery Act and Ranter Sexuality Portrayed in the Pamphlets

Participants in adultery and orgies, the Ranters' sexual antics are a focal point of the pamphlets, described in detailed and extended vignettes as evidence of their corrupted nature.

In order to gauge the upset which tales of Ranter sex would have engendered, it is necessary to measure such actions against the prevailing customs of marriage and sex during the period. 01 In the 1650s, there were two dominant ideological conceptions of marriage in circulation.

The first, which came under siege during Puritan ascendency, was the Anglican understanding, expressed in The Book of Common Prayer, which defined marriage as a strictly monogamous pact intended to serve as a productive outlet for sexual desire and for procreation. The second view was the Puritan understanding of marriage which emphasized the importance of the marital union in providing companionship and mutual spousal support.

The Ranters' sexual behaviour stood in direct opposition to both of these formulations of marriage and the restrictive parameters set forth by them, setting them apart as sexual renegades whose lusts had been allowed to proceed unleashed. In the specific context of the

1650s such reckless sexuality would have been particularly perturbing as it coincided with

21 The ritual of marriage was in a state of flux during the years in which the Ranter pamphlets were printed. Before the wars, the marriage ceremony followed the guidelines set for the in Book of Common Prayer, which outlined Anglican liturgical practices. Puritan opinion had long been opposed to a number of features of the Book of Common Prayer's marriage ceremony, however, in particular the use of the ring and the husband's promise to worship his wife with his body (Durston 215). With the publication in 1645 of the Directory of Public Worship which contained the liturgy of the new Presbyterian church, the Puritan Divines laid out a new marriage service, simpler and shorter without the ring and promise of bodily worship. Following the Parliamentarians victory after the wars, the Puritan faction of the Long Parliament outlawed the Book of Common Prayer, replacing it with the Directory of Public Worship so that all marriages would henceforth be performed under its guidelines (Durston 214). Many individuals rebelled against Parliament and the Directory, however, as there was a popular rejection of the new puritan marriage ceremonies as couples continued to be married according to the Book of Common Prayer in private ceremonies in large numbers (Durston 228). Both the Anglican and the Puritan view of marriage were thus active at the time of the Ranter pamphlets and co- existed in competition. 71 the absence of the ecclesiastical courts which had previously regulated cases of sexual misconduct. The Ranter pamphlets thus relay cases of sexual deviancy during a period when the policing of sexuality was in an attenuated form and cause for public concern. In May

1650, Parliament passed the Adultery Act making sexual misdeeds capital offenses,

reclaiming the purview which had previously been overseen by the ecclesiastical courts. The

Ranter pamphlets' lurid descriptions of deviant sex are thus enmeshed in contemporary

developments and anxieties regarding the state of sexuality and the dangers of unbridled lust.

Though they describe scenes of Ranter sex in vivid terms intended to titillate their audience, they are conservative in nature as they unequivocally voice their disdain for Ranter practices,

viewing them as indicative of a spiritual corruption which will be recompensed by punishment.

Conventional Understanding of Marriage and Customary Sexual Norms

Alongside blasphemy, deviant sexuality was the trademark characteristic of the

Ranters detailed in the pamphlets, particularly their open relationships in what can be considered an early modern version of "wife swapping." To fully gauge the upset which

stories of purported Ranter sexuality would have provoked amongst contemporary readership, it is necessary to place these scandalous acts against the normatively defended models of sexuality. During the period, conventions pertaining to acceptable sexual comportment were formed primarily by religious dictates and disseminated by sermons and doctrinal teachings. In terms of appropriate sexual conduct the prevailing principle was that intercourse was acceptable only within the bounds of marriage and that any sexual activity falling beyond these borders constituted an act of transgression, "[m]arriage entailed licensed 72

sexual activity and led to lawful procreation. It made two bodies one flesh. Sexual

intercourse outside of marriage was fornication, but within marriage it was pleasing to the

Lord, so long is it did not run to excess" (Cressy, Birth 290). Stories of the Ranters' orgiastic

discarding of all forms of sexual restraint would have served as a direct contestation of this

guiding standard, overturning in the process the supposedly divine foundation of conjugal

relations.

In the Anglican tradition, the regulations governing orthodox marriage were arranged primarily according to a Christian understanding of the nature of sexual desire and its

figuration within an ideology of perdition and salvation, a notion derived from St. Paul's

assertion that for the "unmarried and the widows" "if they are not practicing self-control,

they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion." (1 Corinthians

7:8-9). From the religious perspective of the Church of England, marriage was conceived as a

means through which an individual could channel their libido into a stewardship role under

the auspices of the divine, transforming an otherwise sinful predisposition into a tool for

improving the soul. This view is reflected in the Book of Common Prayer in which, "Holy

Matrimony" was defined as

an honourable estate, instituted of God in Paradise at the time of man's innocency, signifying unto us the mystical union that is betwixt Christ and his church; which holy estate Christ adorned and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he wrought in Galilee, and is commended of St. Paul to be honourable among all men... not to be enterprised or taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly, to satisfy men's carnal lusts and appetites, like brute beasts that have no understanding; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly and in the fear of God. (Clay 217)

Within this definition of marriage, Christ was perceived to be present within the conjugal

union, sanctifying the sexual act and removing to a certain degree its profane attributes. This

"marriage duty" entailed a lifetime of constancy, and it was the obligations of the Church and 73 community to maintain this sanctity by punishing adulterers and other sexual offenders who would abuse the sexual act by misapplying it to satiate lust (Cressy, Birth 290). The Ranters' refusal to keep their sexual activity confined to the conjugal couple signals a shift towards an emancipated sexuality in direct contradiction to prevailing Anglican mores and its attempt to contain desire.

During the five years prior to the printing of the pamphlets, the Puritans advanced their own understanding of marriage in the Directory, endorsed by the Long Parliament and subsequently by the Rump as the state sanctioned view of matrimony. Unlike the Anglican formulation of marriage which held that procreation and the containment of desire were the primary functions of marriage, the Puritans believed that marriage was an institution founded on companionship and mutual support between husband and wife (Johnson 107). For

Puritan commentators, the service and friendship required toward one's spouse stemmed from the purpose for which marriage was originally instituted in Gen: 2-18; the alleviation of

Adam's loneliness and his need for a helper. Alexander Niccholes, in his A Discourse of

Marriage and Wiving (1615), elaborates on this element of companionship and mutual service underlying marriage, explaining, "[i]n thy Marriage, the very name whereof should portend to thee Merry-age, thou not onely unitest unto thy selfe a friend, and comfort for society, but also a companion for pleasure, in some sort a servant for profite too" (5). The ideal Puritan marriage was thus defined by an affectionate and supportive bond between

22 James Johnson in his article "The Covenant Idea and the Puritan View of Marriage" suggests that the primacy of mutual help in Puritan marriage is tied to their conception of matrimony as based on a covenantal model. For Johnson, the man-wife relations celebrated by Puritan commentators are conceived on models drawn from convenantal theology with an emphasis on the mutual agreement of man and wife to live together as meet helps, in ways analogous to similar covenants between friends, within nations, and ultimately, God. 23 Perhaps the clearest articulation of the companionship fostered in the Puritan marriage is found in the marriage vows contained in the Directory. "7N. do take thee N. to be my married wife, and do, in the presence of God, and before this congregation, promise and covenant to be a loving and faithful husband unto thee, until God shall separate us by death." The wife's vow is the same accept for the addition of her promise to be an "obedient wife unto thee." 74 husband and wife, William Gouge advising that "mutuall love betwixt man and wife" "are in their kinde necessary for the good estate of mariage, and for the better preseruing of that knot: so as, if they be not performed, the end and right vse of mariage will be peruerted, & that estate made vncomfortable, & very burdensome" (224). For this reason, adultery was untenable in the Puritan theological model of marriage since it corrupted the integrity of the marital bond and the uncompromised dedication required by a spouse, "[a]n husbands affection to his wife must be answerable to his opinion of her: he ought therefore to delight in his wife intirely, that is, so to delight in her as wholly and only delighting in her" (Gouge

360).

The Collapse of the Ecclesiastical Courts and the Policing of Sexuality

Tales of Ranter promiscuity would have been all the more unsettling given that the means of policing sexual conduct were in flux during the Rump Parliament. Prior to the dissolving of the ecclesiastical courts under Cromwell, issues of sexuality that did not involve bastardry fell under the prerogative of the Church with canon law the principle arbiter in issues of fornication and adultery (Thomas 263). The punishment of sexual misconduct before the Revolution was therefore the business of the Church of England. The

Church's policing arm consisted primarily of the ecclesiastical courts which concentrated their efforts on problems associated with the preservation of marriage and the prevention of pre-marital and extramarital sex.24 Consequently, ecclesiastical judges were in charge of

24 Each case brought before an ecclesiastical court would commence with a presentment, or charge, by the churchwardens of the parish, usually founded on suspicion or rumour. The Churchwarden would then present this to local officials who would then inform authorities in the court. Ecclesiastical courts were held sessionally and the courts were presided over by judges, often the bishop, who would come to the towns by visitation. The accused would then be obliged to deny or accept the charge. A plea of innocence would be followed by purgation - the act of publicly proclaiming not guilty alongside a set number of other men who would vouch for 75

deliberating and determining punishment for a large range of sexual behaviour, including

rights of matrimony, divorces, incest, fornication, and adultery (Quaife 187). With the

disbanding of the episcopacy by Parliament in 1641, however, the ecclesiastical courts had

been stripped of their authority with no institutional body created to replace it, leaving no

way of dealing with crimes of incest and adultery. "With the abolition of the ecclesiastical

courts, the juridicial base for the maintenance of marriage and sexual morality was put in

limbo" (Quaife 39).

Hill concludes that the outpouring of libertine sentiment during the Revolution was a

reaction against the previously stifling restraints imposed by "state and state-church control

over personal relations, a rejection of official notions of 'sin' and also an assertion of male

human freedom" (Hill, Nation 174). For Hill this rejection of sin and the means implemented

to curtail it in turn catalyzed the radicalization of certain pockets of the population who

advanced a lenient sexual ethos approximating Ranter libertinage. Thomas Case, worried

about the repercussions of granting liberty to sectarians, proclaimed in 1647, "Liberty of

conscience, falsely so called, may in good time improve itself into liberty of estates and

liberty of houses and liberty of wives" (34). Case's contemporary John Holland shared the

same frame of mind and similarly agreed that if an individual believed himself immaculate

and therefore exempt from religious discipline, they would invariably fall into an erroneous

understanding of conjugality. He sardonically relates the sectarians' train of though: "They

say that for one man to be tied to one woman, or one woman to one man, is a fruit of the

the defendant's innocence. Witnesses would not testify in open court, but would be examined in private by the judge or registrar, usually in the form of question and answer, prepared by each party and their lawyer. There was no cross-examination. In Canon Law the concordance of two witnesses was sufficient proof. Following these examinations, the judge would evaluate the worth of the depositions. If the defendant was found guilty, they would proceed to sentencing. Penalties for cases involving sexual behaviour was limited - admonition or penance. Penance was done in a public place such as the church or market. Serious punishments could entail excommunication or the involvement of the civil authorities (Quaife Wanton Wenches and Wayward Wives 187-90). 76 curse; but, they say, we are freed from the curse, therefore it is our liberty to make use of whom we please" (Holland 6).

In the void left by a lack of decisive governance in issues of sexuality during the late

1640s and before 1653 when the Barebone's Parliament established laws regarding civil marriage, matrimony in England was thrust into an ambiguous zone. "The interruptions and confusions of the revolutionary era had so weakened the authority of the Church of England that dissenters and others questioned the necessity of matrimony at the hands of an Anglican priest. The church courts had no effective sanction against nonconformists" (Cressy, Birth

332). In the absence of an authoritative body to standardize marriage practices, many couples during the period were married clandestinely by clergymen or sectarians and lived together in pairings which would have previously been deemed as illegal according to the laws of church and state, but were nonetheless acknowledged by the community (Chakravarty 179).

The Adultery Act

In an effort to fill the gap left by the defunct church courts, the Rump Parliament moved to pass legislation, notably the Ordinance of 1645 and the Act "For the suppressing of the abominable and crying sins of Incest, Adultery and Fornication, Wherewith this Land is much defiled and Almighty God highly displeased" (otherwise known as the Adultery Act) in May of 1650. The ordinance of 1645 was implemented to replace the Book of Common

Prayer with the Presbyterian Directory and essentially reiterated traditional marriage procedures in order to maintain the status quo, emphasizing a moderate Protestant view of marriage, founded on the principle that "marriage is to be betwixt one man and one woman only" (Quaife 40). The Adultery Act was far more comprehensive and marked a decisive 77

shift from the past in that it incorporated adultery as a civil offence punishable by death. Both

pieces of legislation can be seen as an attempt by Parliament to reassert control over the field

of sexuality and to conciliate the Presbyterian faction by showing Parliament's desire and

attempt at moral reform (Thomas 276).

The Adultery Act attests to a desire on the part of the new political regime to reaffirm

the monogamous identity of marriage and its relation to the moral constitution of the state.

To do so, Parliament reiterated the sexual exclusivity fundamental to marriage and the role of

the state in protecting this relationship. The Adultery Act explains how sexual crimes would

be pursued by the authorities:

be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That the Justices of Assize in their respective Circuits, and the Justices of the Peace in every county, at their usual and General Sessions are hereby authorized and required to give in charge to the Grand Jury to enquire of all and every the Crimes aforesaid. And the said Justices... that have power to hear and determine felonies at their usual Sessions, shall have full power and authority to enquire by verdict... of all and every the crimes and offences aforesaid. (England and Wales Parliament, Adultery 4).

The act represents, therefore, an attempt to put the full machinery of the state behind the

enforcement of sexual morality, reclassifying sexual misconduct as a civil crime requiring punishment.

The punishments for adultery outlined by the Act were severe: "that in case of any married woman.. .be carnally known by any man (other than her husband) and of such

offence or offences shall be convicted by verdict upon Indictment or Presentment, before any

Judge or Justices of the Assize or Sessions of the Peace, shall suffer death as in case of

felony, without benefit of Clergy" (England and Wales Parliament, Adultery 3). Despite the

strict tone of the act, its importance was relatively symbolic given the several limitations which were put in place before a condemnation could be had. For example the indictment 78

had to be filed within 12 months of the offence; it did not apply if the man did not know that

the woman was married; if the wife had been absent from her husband for three years; if the

husband was thought to have been dead; confession of one part was unacceptable against the

other; husbands and wives could not testify against each other. With these qualifications in

place, it was exceedingly difficult to prosecute adultery under the act, and there is no

evidence in the Quarter Session records that justices applied the act in seeking the death

penalty.25 Instead it appears many constables and tithingmen in the Commomwealth and

Protectorate felt that whipping satisfied the demands of the parish in cases of sexual

misconduct and took no further action (Quaife 198).

Scenes of Ranter Sex in the Pamphlets

In the shadow cast by the Adultery Act and its prohibition of extramarital sex, the

Ranter pamphlets abound with lurid tales of clandestine sexual habits that brazenly disrupt the bounds of morality and the law as set forth by Parliament. All the Ranter pamphlets

describe scenes of transgressive sex, the emphasis unfailingly placed on the Ranters'

disavowal of monogamy, either through adulterous wives plotting trysts without their husbands' knowledge or orgies during Ranter gatherings. Apart from their endorsement of

antinomianism, wife-swapping was the Ranters' defining feature, The Ranters Religion

explaining how "They affirme that all Women ought to be in common, and when they are assembled together (this is a known truth)... they fall to bowzing, and drinke deep healths... then being well heated with Liquor, each Brother takes his she Otter upon his knee, and the word (spoken in derision of the sacred Wit) being given, vis. Increase and Multiply, they fall

25 Quaife 197, Thomas 258 79 to their lascivious imbraces, with a joynt motion" (Anonymous, Religion 5). The sexual misbehaviour in this scene scandalizes on three fronts: it involves adulterous copulation, it takes place on a collective scale, and it heightens the illicitness of the act by invoking scripture, thereby accentuating the contravention of propriety and religion. This tripartite model of depravity is responsible for generating much of the taboo surrounding the Ranters' sexual delinquency and is repeated in several permutations throughout the Ranter pamphlets.

Throughout the literature, the Ranters are portrayed as connoisseurs of veniality, enjoying a range of sexual delectations along the spectrum of perversity, an affront compounded by the fact that such debaucheries are indulged without the slightest contrition "consecrating a continual Holyday to all licentiousness of Living, committing sin with greediness without the least sense, thereof, which is most miserable" (J.M. 8)

In denying the ordinances of marriage and conventional codes of conduct, the Ranters described in the pamphlets manifest sex in its most primal form, shorn of any attempts to contain it within accepted norms. "They are of the opinion that they may have carnall knowledge of any, and as many other women as their beastly desire can make use of'

(Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 7). Throughout condemnations such as these, a palpable anxiety can be felt towards the Ranters' libertinage and its effects on individual restraint.

Although never explicitly expressed, passages such as these presuppose an individual subject simmering with base predilections, which if unleashed through Ranter permissiveness, risks actuating a voracious libido whose desire for satiation will overtake the fragile conscience governed by reason and continence. In The Ranters Last Sermon, this juxtaposition between the countervailing pulls of sobriety and wanton license finds expression in the repentance of a "reformed" Ranter who avows that upon leaving Ranterism "since renouncing my own 80 carnall wisedom, I rather desire to be rul'd by sound Reason, then carnall senses look into my self, and my own deceitfull heart." (J.M. 8) This purported defection is noteworthy in that it establishes an evaluative system separating reason from sin and desire, holding unfettered sexual desire as contrary to the rational mind. As a corollary of this linkage, the Ranters' open sexual conduct is appraised in the pamphlets in terms of corporeality superseding reason and the dictates of godly behaviour.

Ranter sex is made particularly poignant by its admixture of sex and mock religiosity, a combination which would have affronted conservative sensibilities, especially the Ranters' exultation of wanton sexuality. "[T]hey maintaine, that to have their women in common is their Christian liberty, and very prettily, indeed la, that that Sister among them who can make the beast with two backs the most strenuously, viz. entertaine the most men longest, and oftenest, hath sufficient canonization for a Saint triumphant" (Anonymous, Ranters Religion

6). Turning vice into virtue, the Ranters' behaviour in the pamphlets consistently serves as a distorted image of acceptable decorum, twisting the lineaments of morality into a convoluted rationale for the enjoyment of sin as a path for redemption, "each Brother ought to take his

Fellow-Female upon his knee saying, Let us lie down and multiply, holding this lascivious action to be the chief motive of their salvation" (Anonymous, Ranters Declaration 3). Ranter sexuality is thus conjoined with antinomianism in the pamphlets as the indulgence in uninhibited sex comes to override any injunction to limit one's sensual pleasures, "in this kind of coupling together (or making a conjunction copulative) the woman doth commonly make choice of the man she will dwell with; and as they slight and contemn all ordinances, so do they that of marriage" (Anonymous, Routing of the Ranters 7). A "shee Ranter" in The

Ranters Religion goes so far as to proclaim that her open sexual carriage was an indicator of 81 her piety "that she should thinke her selfe a happy woman, and should esteeme her selfe a superlative servant of Gods, if any man would accompany her carnally in the open Market

Place" (Anonymous 8). Exhibitionism, it appears, was another skill in the Ranters' sexual repertoire.

In fact, the sexual exhibitionism of Ranter gatherings is a recurrent interest of the pamphlets, the authors describing the lack of modesty on the part of Ranters eager to engage in sexual activity in front of an audience.

One Mrs Hull, led them a dance, saying she would shew them a new way to be merry. And calling to one of her fellow creatures to sit on her knee, she bid him take up her coats and smock, which he did: Then, said she, Now prethee kiss me round; He answer'd, Dear sister, It is my duty. After which greeting, he was to set her on her head, to go about the room on her hands, with her coats about her ears, in performance of which uncivil action, another fellow-creature began to peep, which she perceiving said, Sir you shall pay for your peeping: and so immediately, in the presence of about 60 persons, entered into venial exercise. (Anonymous, Ranters Recantation 3)

Such exhibitionism is noteworthy in that it involves a collective dynamic, the voyeuristic participants on the periphery forming a backdrop in which sex between partners is fully exposed instead of withdrawing to the marital bed. Displayed in the presence of onlookers,

Ranter sex as depicted in the pamphlets was not an affair for the reticent, but was undertaken in the open with nothing to hide from one's "fellow creature," fomenting, perhaps, the shared complicity involved in these sexual transgressions. Rather than limiting intercourse to two consenting parties, the communal exercise of Ranter sexuality passes the threshold from the private to the orgiastic, eroding the monogamy privileged by conjugal sex. Coupled with this exhibitionist display is a theatrical impetus that transforms sex into an act of performance brazenly presented for the prurient satisfaction of gazing eyes. In The Ranters Last Sermon

"Mistris E.B. striking fire at a Tinder-box lights up a Candle, seeks under Bed Table and stooles, and at last comming to one of the men, there shee offers to unbutton his Cod-piece; who demanding at her what she sought for? She answeth, For sin: whereupon he blows out her Candle, leads her to the Bed, where in the sight of the rest, they commit Fornication."

(J.M. 4) While she may not have found sin, it appears Mistris E.B. possibly found more than

she had bargained for though it appears she was able to accommodate.

Another destabilizing aspect of the Ranters' unrestricted sexuality was the degree of

liberty accorded to Ranter women in choosing with whom and when they would have sex, a

sexual emancipation which is the cause of much indignation in the pamphlets. The author of

The Routing of the Ranters notes distressingly how Ranter women would influence their husbands into cuckholdry, "she speaks highly in commendation of those husbands that give

liberty to their wives, and will freely; give consent that she should associate her self with any other of her fellow creatures, which she shall make choice of' (Anonymous 6). That she-

Ranters would engage in adulterous affairs was surely a travesty in and of itself, but the fact that they were empowered to do so would have imparted a degree of sexual agency upsetting masculine dominance in the field of sexual choice. Not only were Ranter women free to choose with whom and when they would have sex, the pamphlets relate how such women would utilize their sexual liberty to arrange adulterous affairs without their husbands' knowledge. One conniving she-Ranter waited until she was alone in her home before luring an unsuspecting man into an unanticipated tryst, "present[ing] her self to him naked, saying,

Fellow Creature, what sayest thou to a plump leg of mutton (striking her hand upon her thigh)" (Reading, Ranters Ranting 7). It appears that this man was not in a feasting mood for he subsequently fled, the author noting he should be "commended for a badge of his Vertue and Chastitie, and characterize the deserved infamy of the lascivious behaviour of her that 83 was empty of all goodnesse, and discover her to be a true Prosolite of Cop and Claxton"

(Reading, Ranters Ranting, 7). Diagnosed by pamphlet authors as being afflicted by acute nymphomania, Ranter women come to embody the "devouring vagina" unleashed from all inhibitions, luring men towards destruction by their fiery intemperance. In this regard, the she-Ranter stands in diametrical opposition to the figure of the chaste wife extolled by housewife manuals, presenting a completely deviant model of femininity whose unbridled sexuality provokes a mixed response of disbelief and horror. The bitterness of the vitriol on the part of the pamphlets attests to the unease instigated by the destabilizing repercussions that an emancipated female sexuality would have on the family and the patriarchal household.

Such anxiety can be linked to the wider upset of gender hierarchies by sectarian groups during the Revolution which granted women a larger profile and public voice in determining religious affairs (Cressy, England 241-47). Conservatives, opposed to providing women with a more visible presence, would vilify such groups by defaming their women through sexual smear campaigns, representing them as lecherous and their conventicles as a simple excuse for orgies and other deviant behaviour (Cressy, England 244-

46). The Ranters were no exception to this trend and their women were libeled as harlots. The

Routing of the Ranters portrays the Ranter woman as hedonist divorced from any sense of decency, impacting her sense of aesthetics as well, "she commends the Organ, Viol, Symbal and Tonges in Charterhouse-Lane to be heavenly musick she tosseth of her glasses freely,

26 See also Hilary Hinds, God's Englishwomen: Seventeenth Century Sectarian Writing and Feminist Criticism. Manchester: Manchester UP, 1996; Katharine Gillespie, Domesticity and Dissent in the Seventeenth Century: English Women's Writing and the Public Sphere. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2004; Debra L. Parish, "The Power of Female Pietism: Women as Spiritual Authorities and Religious Role Models in Seventeenth-Century England." The Journal of Religious History 17.1 (1992): 33-46; Diane Willen, "Godly Women in Early Modern England: Puritanism and Gender." The Journal of Ecclesiastical History 43 (1992): 561-580. 84

and concludeth there is no heaven but the pleasures she injoyeth on earth" (Anonymous,

Routing of the Ranters 6).

Conclusion

The treatment and representation of sex in anti-Ranter pamphlets can be read as

indicators of contemporary anxieties regarding the state of sexuality; particularly that

immoral sex could take place without intervention. Such fears would have been heightened with the collapse of the ecclesiastical courts. Perhaps for the first time in England, the scenes

in the pamphlets could be entertained as a possibility rather than pure fiction. Working

against sexual conventions, Ranter sex as described in the pamphlets serves as a negative reference point from which sexual conduct should be judged. In many respects, the Ranters portrayed in these texts embodies all the crimes outlined in the Adultery Act, serving as an exemplar of deviance. 85

Chapter Seven. Case Studies in Ranter Literature: Two Ranter Pamphlets and an Analysis of Pamphlet Illustrations

This chapter will provide a case study of two Ranter pamphlets and notable

illustrations accompanying the pamphlets. The Ranters Monster and The Joviall Crew

instantiate many of the themes discussed above and serve as clear examples of the moralizing

thrust of the pamphlet literature. The pamphlets scandalize not only through the written

word, but through the visual as well, providing pictorial representations of Ranter meetings

and transgressions. While these photos add to the voyeuristic quality cultivated by the texts,

they also serve as a medium for polemic, and play an active role in maligning the Ranters.

Early Modern Smut Magazines: Ranter Pamphlet Woodcut Prints and Illustrations

The Ranter pamphlets scandalized not only through their written word, but through

their lurid illustrations which, for certain pamphlets, verged into the pornographic. Graced

with sexually explicit imagery, the frontispieces for Ranter pamphlets provide visual

titillation concomitant with the erotic material inside, and would have no doubt exerted a

strong effect on potential readers. The power for illustrated covers to entice individuals and

provide fodder for their imagination was commented on by a contemporary, George Wither,

who lamented that shocking or low woodcut prints "... did enchant/The fancies of the weak,

and ignorant,/ And caus'd them to bestow more time, and coin,/ On such fond pamphlets, than on books divine" (21). The Ranter illustrations do indeed possess a spectacular quality,

containing figures set in dramatic and sexual postures which visually vivify the tales of

Ranter debauchery contained within the pamphlets. Adding to this element of diegesis are the 86 speech bubbles which accompany many of the illustrated scenes, inserting dialogue into the image, while serving additionally as explications for the activities contained in the frame.

Two notable pamphlet covers accompany The Ranters Ranting and The Ranters

Declaration. The cover of The Ranters Ranting (fig.3) functions as a vignette of a typical

Ranter gathering, a gentleman being welcomed by a hostess with the salutation "Welcome

Fellow-Creature." It appears that the festivities are already underway as a group of three male Ranters sit down to a meal while gazing upon an adjoining group of Ranters of mixed sex dancing nude, the men with erections, accompanied by a violin. Completing the scene is a woman, kneeling to kiss the bare buttocks of a man while proclaiming "Behold our love to our Fellow-Creature." Dancing, gluttony, anal kisses- all in mixed company- the cover provides a pictorial encapsulation of antinomianism enjoyed to the fullest limits of libertinage. The woodcut print on the front of The Ranters Declaration (fig. 1) is cut into 4 squares individually illustrated, each square representing a segment of Ranter heresy. In the first, a man and woman embrace while a male and female onlooker express the dictate to

"Increase and multiply." In the second square, a preacher stands on a barrel in front of a motley audience, one man walking on crutches with a wooden leg, another man missing a head entirely and declares "We have over come the Devil." In the third square, three men gather around a table smoking pipes, proclaiming "No way to the old way," indicating, perhaps a rejection of orthodoxy. In the final square, naked men and women dance to the strains of a viol player while singing "Hey for Christmas." For Puritan reformers, yuletide was popish and pagan and often used as an excuse for debauchery and extravagance, and as a result, winter seasonal festivities were banned in 1652, two years after The Ranters

Declaration had been printed (Williams 103). 87

Not all the Ranter pamphlet covers were original prints, however. As has been described above, the cover for The Ranters Religion (fig.5) was taken from an earlier anti-

Adamite tract (fig.4). The cover of The Ranters Monster (fig. 2) was likewise taken from an earlier pamphlet from 1646, A Declaration, Of a strange and Wonderfull Monster: Born in

Kirkham in which a Catholic woman gives birth to a headless child after declaring she would rather have a child with no head than a "Roundhead." On the cover, women are surrounded by domestic pets, evocative of witches' familiars. Prayers and rosaries are present in abundance, and a friar brandishing a crucifix stands at the foot of the birthing bed. Such recycling demonstrates that associations made between Ranters and other sects were not entirely novel, or were at least visually interchangeable. The arguments made of Ranter behaviour thus participated in a dialogue with previous exercises in heresiography and made similar claims and assumptions as earlier tracts against radical sectarianism and anti-Catholic tracts.

In addition to providing a synopsis for Ranter activity and providing an excuse to offer pornographic scenes sure to grab a reader's attention, the illustrations in the Ranter pamphlets functioned as a vehicle for polemic. The covers in and of themselves can be interpreted as a platform from which authors and printers launched religious or political opinions. Tamsyn Williams, in her examination of polemical prints of the English Revolution notes that "pamphleteers of the 1640s and 1650s hoped to characterize their victims in ways that even barely literate people could understand. The aim of the satire was to annihilate the dissidents by exposing the fickleness and errors of their creed" (96). The prominent images of exposed Ranter bodies would have been an invaluable weapon in this smear campaign and the dialogue bubbles attached to the characters were equally calculated to provoke a 88

response, one probable aim being to show Ranters in the most disparaging light. Just as the

Ranter pamphlets aimed at reasserting moral bounds, so too did their covers:

[h]uman figures were an invaluable way in which to expose the shocking sectarian tenets, and pictorial satire an effective way to re-create the appearance and dramatic behaviour of the targets. The end result was a crude form of social control. News of these so-called strange sects rested on a consensus about what was and was not normal: thus, in print, if not in the mind of the reader, ideas about socially acceptable behaviour were reinforced. (Williams 104-05)

The Ranters Monster

The Ranters Monster contains within it many of the thematic dimensions of Ranter

literature described previously, melding concerns of the occult, delinquent sexuality and

anxiety surrounding women. Unlike the other Ranter pamphlets which are presented as more

of a news report or a relation of an eye witness account, The Ranters Monster reads like a

third person narrative. A concise synopsis of the pamphlet is contained in its subtitle,

Being a true Relation of one Mary Adams, living at Tillingham in Essex, who named her self the Virgin Mary, blasphemously affirming, That she was conceived with child by the Holy Ghost; that from her should spring forth the Savior of the world; and that all those that did not believe in him were damn'd: With the manner how she was deliver'd of the ugliest ill-shapen Monster that ever eyes beheld, and afterwards rotted away in prison: To the great admiration of all those that shall read the ensuing subject; the like never before heard of (Anonymous l)27

Before coming to such a lamentable end, however, Mary Adams began life with an

exemplary piety worthy enough to be emulated, the author providing her with a pre-Ranter

character sketch, "[t]his Mary Adams was descended of good parentage, and for many yeares

deported her self both in a civil life and conversation being a great frequenter of Church, and

a most excellent pattern of true Holiness." (Anonymous, Ranters Monster 5) A participant in

27 Ariel Hessayon notes that no one by the name of Mary Adams nor any of the witnesses named in the pamphlet occurs in any of the records of the parish of Tillingham. "Adams, Mary." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com.ezproxy.lib.ucalgary.ca /view/article/40441, accessed 25 March 2010] 89 parochial religious life, Mary was an embodiment of the quintessential "girl next door," that

is until she fell under the corrupting influence of sectarianism. ".. .she fell off from these

divine and glorious principles, to the most Heretical and undeniable way of Anabaptisme"

(Anonymous, Ranters Monster 3). Apparently, Anabaptism was unable to provide enough

illicit thrills for Mary as she continued her dalliance with radical religion by flirting with progressively more reprehensible sects, passing through Familism, until finally joining the epitome of irreligiosity, Ranterism. In such a morally depraved milieu, Mary was inveigled

into the belief that "there was no God, no Heaven, no Hell... That as a woman was made to be a helper of man, and that it was no sin to lie with any man, whether Batchelor, Widdower, or married; but a thing lawful, and adjured thereunto by Nature" (Anonymous, Ranters

Monster 4). Although the pamphlet does not go into any detail regarding the paternity of her

child, the pamphlet's characterization of Mary is structured in such a way that the reader can

safely assume that Mary was eager to put her new found beliefs into practice.

While any pregnancy out of wedlock during the period would have garnished a degree of scandal, Mary could have yet retreated into the oubli of history, if not for her controversial decision to advertise her child as the progeny of God, attesting "that she was impregnated by the Holy Ghost of the true Messiah, claiming that the one which had come before was false and that the previously taught Gospel was false" (Anonymous, Ranters

Monster 2). Such a pronouncement, understandably, caused quite the furor, meriting enough intrigue to publish a pamphlet. It also leads to some interesting academic questions. There has been a great deal of academic discussion of women prophets' activity during the Civil

28 It is interesting to note that in all the Ranter pamphlets this is the only source in which the issue of bastardry arises. One could expect that given the Ranters' promiscuous sexuality, commentators would have expressed an anxiety surrounding pregnancy out of adultery or wedlock. Such a worry appears not to have materialized as no pamphlet author ever discusses the possible risks open sexuality could entail. 90

Wars, and there existed a strong relationship between women and prophetic discourse in the sects.29 While prophecy under any circumstances could have been construed as an act of rebellion, in the case of women, prophetic activity was especially transgressive as it conferred a range of religious authority and entered women directly into the public sphere

(Purkiss 140). Mary Adam's prophesying would have been especially disruptive given its eschatological message.

Personifying the worst fears of the sectarian woman as unpoliced, rampant, and outside the margins of patriarchy, Mary's tale narrates the conjunction between madness, religious opposition and sexual deviancy. On numerous fronts, Mary Adams is a liminal figure whose ambiguity ultimately renders her an embodiment of grotesque femininity, an exercise of contrasts in which the horrific come to predominate. For example, while she lays claim to a divine conception, her professed purity is sullied by her embrace of Ranter

sexuality, for though she makes pretences to being the Virgin Mary, the reader is given every indication that she is more of the Magdalene persuasion. Additionally, her unmarried pregnant body itself is a site of transgression, a signifier of unsanctioned sexuality. Rather than hiding herself, however, Mary advertises her condition publicly. Her failed attempt to imbue her state with sanctity simply becomes a parody of the Virgin birth riddled with undertones of the demonic. Perhaps the most worrisome aspect of Mary's case is her

29 Maria Magro. "Spiritual Autobiography and Radical Sectarian Women's Discourse: Anna Trapnel and the Bad Girls of the English Revolution. Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 34.2 (2004): 405-37; Diane Purkiss. "Producing the voice, consuming the body: Women prophets of the seventeenth century." Women, Writing, History 164-1740. Eds. Isobel Grundy & Susan Wiseman. London: B.T. Batsford, 1992. 138-58; Susan Wiseman. "Unsilent instruments and the devil's cushions: authority in seventeenth-century prophetic discourse." New Feminist Discourses: Critical Essays on Theories and Texts. Ed. Isobel Armstrong. London: Routledge, 1992. 91 functional status as a femme sole as she seems to drift and prophesy without any restraint imposed upon her by a male figure - or any figure for that matter.30

Fortunately for the inhabitants of Tillingham, Mr Hadley "the minister," apprehended

Mary and cast her into prison, an arrest which can be read as the re-imposition of order and the sequestering of heresy by a leading figure of conventional religion.31 In prison, Mary suffered through a labour of eight days, at the end of which she gave birth to a still-born monster "it was so loathsome to behold, that the womens hearts trembled to look upon it; for it had neither hands nor feet, but claws like a Toad in the place where the hands should have been and every part was odious to behold" (Anonymous, Ranters Monster 3). Diane Purkiss notes that monstrous births all follow the same pattern; a transgression by one or both of the parents is made visible in and physically replicated by their offspring (154). Consequently, monstrous births could be attributed to divine anger against wickedness and as portends of retribution for a disordered world. Such births were also read as cautionary to the nation as a whole, deformities in newborn children matching deformities of wider society and the body politic (Cressy, Agnes 23).

Mary, however, does not seem to have heeded the divine warning provided to her, for despite the best attempts of the women present during her birth imploring her to repent for her sins, she cries "That her heart was so hardened in wickedness, that she had no power to repent" (Anonymous, Ranters Monster 3). Denying herself final absolution as a result of her recalcitrance, Mary decides instead for suicide, deceiving one of the women into lending her

30 Cressy notes that women who conceived out of wedlock were often forced to leave their principle residence and would have been a common sight on the fringes of towns and villages {Birth 76)

31 Secular and ecclesiastical authorities routinely punished the parents of bastard children. The mother was subject to whipping, public humiliation, and even imprisonment in the house of correction (Cressy, Birth 74-75) a knife which she used to "ript up her bowels." Thus the woman who professed to be the

Virgin Mary dies in a squalid jail cell "rotted and consumed as she lay, being from the head to the foot as full of botches, blains, boils & stinking scabs" (Anonymous, Ranters Monster

3), her wounds somatic identifiers of her inner corruption. In case the moral of the story is lost on any of the readers, the author concludes with the admonition "This example may sufficiently serve as a Caveat to all true Christians, that they presume not to offend their

Heavenly Maker in such a high degree" (Anonymous, Ranters Monster 3).

The Joviall Crew

The Joviall Crew is at once both a humorous and disquieting comedy, written over five acts with 15 pages of dialogue. While the plot is relatively straightforward, it contains within it several of the leitmotifs recurrent throughout the Ranter pamphlets, notably the

Ranters' rejection of God, sin, and sexual restraint, and is most notable for its harsh treatment of wayward female sexuality. At the heart of the drama is the sexual awakening, and subsequent punishment, of two sexually dissatisfied housewives who decide to join the sect at their next meeting upon hearing tales of Ranter orgies. Right as the evenings festivities are about to begin at the local pub, however, a disgruntled drawer poisons the communal wine with a sleeping potion and all the participants fall unconscious in a pile. The pub worker proceeds to call the constable who arrests all the Ranters and carries them to Finsbury gaol.

Upon gaining consciousness, the women's husbands are called to collect their wives, at which point the men beat their partners, strip them of their clothing and repudiate them before handing them over to be whipped. The Joviall Crew can thus be viewed as a dramatization of the themes and ideas present in the other Ranter pamphlets and follows the 93

same narrative program: providing an overview of Ranter beliefs; describing their meetings

and sexual conduct; and concluding with retribution and the assertion of conventional norms.

Through its lively adaptation of Ranter themes, the Joviall Crew embodies a pamphlet

woodcut print come to life.

In case there exists any doubt as to the moral quality of the Ranters, The Joviall Crew

opens with a cameo by the Devil, who discussing the Ranters with one of his minions, revels

in that fact that "I have survey'd the Universe, as France, Spain and Italy, yet cannot parallel

the Ranters of this our English Climate; I've blinded them with pleasures of this world, by

putting a mask of Religion to make't no sin, that makes my proselites run headlong down to

the infernall lake, where Cerbeus transports them to their supposed joy, where yet at last, into

infernall flames at length they're cast" (Sheppard 6). In the play's opening acts, the Ranters

are portrayed as bon vivants taking full advantage of their libertine creed, questioning with

perplexity why "men should be such fools, to pinion their own arms, tie their own legs, and

propose such strange nothings to themselves, on purpose for to keep themselves in awe.

When they but perceive their happinness, both this world and the next is solely theirs"

(Sheppard 5). Disabused of the notion of sin and its accompanying fetters of morality, the

Ranters proceed to maximize their hedonism by organizing an orgy, abandoning any moral

strictures constraining their sexual enjoyment since "our only sacred law, every mans wife

must be at his friends use" (Sheppard 6). Not everyone appears, however, to participate

equally in this sexual communism, since it is noted in an aside that "Pigwidgin the Tayler

thwarts our custome; he is content to rant with other women, but to expose his own Spouse he denies." (Sheppard 6) Evidently, even Ranters had difficulty in negotiating polyamorous relationships. 94

Meanwhile Mrs. Idlesby and Mrs. Doe-little, whose eponymous indolence affords them ample opportunity to join one another in discussing their unspectacular sex lives, resent the fact that their religious ministers instruct them "not to make Minotaurs of our gentle husbands; no mirth, no due refreshment must be had, save what our impotent husbands will allow." (Sheppard 8) In search of more virile encounters, the two women take action and decide to join the Ranters, "resolv'd to be of their Religion, and go to heaven the nearest way" (Sheppard 8). To seize just how disruptive the wives' comportment is, it is necessary to balance their conduct against the prevailing model of chastity held as the cornerstone of femininity and marriage. The wives' candid discussion about their sexual dissatisfaction and their decision to enter into extra-marital affairs to satiate their desire signals a profound disconnect from the idealized formulation of female identity in the period during which a woman's sexual virtue was the essence of her feminine integrity (Gowing 2). With sexual chastity the marker of a woman's value as a wife, Go wing notes that "sexual conduct, the entire foundation of women's honour, became also the only measure of their marital conduct; adultery was a betrayal of the marital bond whose implications were well rehearsed in popular culture and religious rhetoric" (180). I will return to such implications in a moment, but it has already been alluded to that the story does not end favorably for the wives. The wives' rebellious assertion to seek sexual pleasure outside of the marital bed stands as a complete repudiation of a life of domesticity, silence and obedience intended to preserve chastity and its appearance. Their adultery is therefore not just limited to illicit sex, but would have cascaded into a whole range of disturbances towards the domestic and marital

sphere, "[w]omen's adultery violates the conjugal bond, imperils men's honour, and disrupts 95 the domestic economy" (Gowing 187). Under this framework the wives' adultery would have entailed moral debasement, household disorder and the humiliation of their husbands.

Undeterred by such potential repercussions, the wives arrive at their first orgy, welcomed by a toast, "Drinke to the two beauties, and then imitate them with members of our bodies" (Sheppard 13), and a song, "All lie down, as in a swown,/ to have a pleasing

Vision./ And then rise with bared thights,/ Who'd fear such sweet incision?" (Sheppard 7).

No doubt at this point in their pamphlet reading, husbands across the nation would have cast a supervisory glance to ensure their wives' safe presence nearby. Pilferers of wives, the

Ranters stand as agents of corruption, "home wreckers" whose promise of sexual delight affronts the stability of the marital relationship. Just as the disrobing is about to happen, however, all the Ranters fall unconscious and the constable arrives. The descent of the civil authorities unto Ranter meetings also occurs in The Ranters Ranting printed a year before

Joviall Crew. "[M]any uncivil words and actions were perceived and heard to pass amongst them; which put it into the hearts of some of the neighbours to acquaint the Constable therewith; who being as desirous to suppress disorders, as willing to bring such wicked persons to condign punishment, he took some others with him to apprehend them" (Reading

3). The same scenario unfolds in Joviall Crew as the constable arrives and orders, "lie have them (drunk or dead as they are) to Finsbury, 'twill be a peece of extraordinary justice"

(Sheppard 15). The wives' intended adultery is no longer a personal affair, but has become a matter of the state, subject to its policing since their actions are not merely sinful, but criminal.

Upon waking in Finsbury gaol, "a receptacle of theeves, debters, and drunkards"

(Sheppard 16), the wives are greeted by their husbands, Home and Byas: 96

Horn: Now thou vile strumpet, dost thou know this face? Idelsby. My husband! Oh I am undone.

Doe-little: Take heed Sir what you do, I am a Ranter 32 By as: Yes whore, I find thou art. I can rant too for a need. These are but fillips I should make thee bleed Beats her Doe-little: Oh, oh! dear husband Horn: This punishment is too poor for their defects: you huswife I'le not beat, or spurn, I will do more then that: these cloaths I gave you, come uncase, uncase. Pulls off her cloaths By as: You minion must participate her fate Tears off her cloaths. Idlesby: For heavens sake husband pardon me. Horn: Thou art beyond the bounds of absolution. By as: Ere go together, these would comber you: now you are fitter to dance Lavaltoes Doe-little: Can you be so hard hearted? By as: Yes I'le assure you, now th'art a right Ranter Horn: Here I for ever take my leave of thee. (Sheppard 18)

Renounced by their husbands, the wives' transgression is met with the full weight of patriarchal rule, the final scene showing them being led away by officers holding a whip,

Byas having the final word of the play, "Lash my wife well prethee, I'le oay thee for;t"

(Sheppard 19). In common law, men were entitled to beat their wives, for lawfull and reasonable correction (Gowing 207), and by the end of the play, the wives are reprimanded by both civil authorities and their husbands for their perfidiousness. Horn's decision to strip his wife of her clothing is intended to be especially grievous as it replicates the public shaming implemented against prostitutes, a gesture symbolizing the fallen nature of his wife and his disowning of her - she is now placed in the realm of public display and no longer entitled to any of the protection accorded to a married woman by her husband. The husbands' turning over of their wives to the public authorities is likewise indicative of their disowning of their wives and symbolizes a disciplinary passing of the torch. Thus the Joviall Crew

32 Defined by the OED as "A smart blow (with the fist, etc.) concludes with a clear message about the consequences of engaging in Ranterish sexuality, and can be interpreted along the lines of a morality play.

Conclusion

The Ranters Monster and The Joviall Crew provide the clearest exposition of the reckoning Ranters could invariably expect as a result of their sins. Combining elements of promiscuous sex, blasphemy, ill-directed hubris and recalcitrance in acknowledging sin, both pamphlets provide an excellent sample of the anti-Ranter pamphlets and their presiding

concerns. Additionally, the conclusions of both texts convey the moralizing impetus that underlies the narrative program of the pamphlets in general. The prints that accompany the texts are as explicit as the written material they are bound with and provide another semiotic register from which to discern how the Ranters were represented and maligned. Final Conclusion

Debauched, blasphemous and brazen, the Ranters represent the antithesis of the individual ruled by moral obedience and piety. By straddling the farthest end of radicalism, the Ranters embody heterodoxy in its most extreme form, incarnating the apotheosis of error as outlined by conservative pamphlet authors. While the debate of whether the Ranters existed as a coherent movement is inconclusive, the pamphlets which purportedly describe them remain rich literary artifacts that reveal to scholars a wealth of information regarding how deviance was conceived during the Interregnum and contained through literary means.

Once read as a form of moralistic historiography, the pamphlets recast the Ranters as an imagined response to cultural stimuli, and demonstrate how pamphlets could construct the social imaginary of the reader by directing them to arrive at a particular understanding of, and judgment against, criminality and sin. Often utilizing various modes such as the comedic, the didactic, and the sensational, anti-Ranter pamphlets served as ideological reinforcements to the legal reforms passed during Presbyterian rule intended to curtail blasphemy and illicit sex, primarily through the narrative punishment of transgression. Scenes of retribution in the pamphlets serve as a literary counterpart to the punishments outlined by the Blasphemy and

Adultery Acts and deploy similar tactics of fear to promote obedience and submission to the rule of law and morality. 99

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Table 1: Table of Pamphlets

Title Author Date Printer # Pages Illustrated The Ranters Roulston, 1650 J.C 7 Yes Bible Gilbert The Ranters Reading, John 1650 B. Alsop 10 Yes Ranting The Rovting Anonymous 1650 B.A 7 Yes of the Ranters The Ranters Anonymous 1650 J.C. 7 Yes Declaration The Ranters Anonymous 1650 G.H. 7 No Recantation The Ranters Anonymous 1650 R.H. 8 Yes Religion Strange News Anonymous 1651 B. Alsop 7 Yes from Newgate and the Old- Baily The Joviall Sheppard, 1651 W. Ley 19 Yes Crew of The Simon Devill turn 'd (Samuel) Ranter Ranters of Taylor, John 1651 John 7 No Both Sexes Hammon Male and Female The Ranters Anonymous 1651 James 8 No Creed Moxon Hell broke Anonymous 1651 Charles 6 Yes loose Gustavus The Ranters Anonymous March George 7 Yes Monster 1652 Horton The Ranters J.M. 1654 J.C. 7 No Last Sermon List of Figures: Selection of Pamphlet Illustrations

Fig.l. Cover: The Ranters Declaration Fig 2. Cover: The Ranters Monster

THE R A* N T E R S MONSTER: Being a true Relation of one MARY ADAMS, living at tiUiugham in Ejjcx-? who named her felfthe Virgin ^/jr^blafphemoufly affirming, That fhc was conceived with child by the Holy Ghoft 5 that from her /houkl fpring forth the Savior of the worldjand that all thofe that did not believe in hioi were damn'd: With the manner how (he was deliver'a of the uglieft ill-fhapen Monjfcr that ever eyes beheld, and af- terwards rotted away in prilon : To the great admiration of all thofe that Jhalt read the cttfHingju'ojctt'jhs lik$ never before heard of. Ill

Fig 3. Cover: The Ranters Ranting

The Ranters Ranting"! W t T H

The apprehending, cximinmons, airi co:ifeiftoii of lohft Collin^ /, Shahfpeart T'oo.^d^rton^ and five more which ace.to the ncKt Sdlions. And lcverall (bugs or catches, which werefung at their meetings. Alio their icvc-ral kinds of mirth., ^nd dancing* Their blaiphetnous opinions. Their' belief concerning heaven and hell* And the realon why ©pe of the fame opinion cuc off tbe heads of his own mother and brother. Set forth for the further dilcovery of this ungodly crew.

. * • i ^O N DO & Printed by B. Alfoj»y. Itfp.. 112

Fig 4. Cover: A Nest of Serpents Discovered (Anti-Adamite Tract)

A Neft of Serpents Difcovered. OR, A knot of old Hereciques revived, Called the I ADAMITES Wherein their originall, increafe,and feverall ridicu- ' lous tenets arc plainly layd open.

Printed in the years 16 41.

Fig 5: Cover: The Ranters Religion