D

Dissenters from the Anglican and “Free Churchmen,” depending on the circum- Church stances and nature of their Dissent. Two different theological sources were at the Manuela Bragagnolo root of English Dissent, which mainly followed Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, two streams, one radical and the other Calvinist Frankfurt am Main, Germany (Watts 1978). The first one can be traced back to the pre-Reformation movement of the Abstract Lollards, based on the teaching of John Wycliffe were Protestant Christians (ca. 1330–1384) (McFarlane 1966), which who chose to worship outside of the was subsequently influenced by continental established in the early Anabaptism. This tradition then went under- modern period. English Dissent mainly ground, moving to the with John followed two streams, one of which was Smyth (1554–1612), and reemerged in England radical and influenced by continental with the seventeenth-century “General Baptists.” Anabaptism, and the other was Calvinist and The second one streamed from Elizabethan Puritan. The freedom of religious practice Calvinistic Puritanism. This movement aimed at that was granted during the English Republic “purifying” the church of its Catholic elements was followed by a period of persecution and initially tried to reform the Anglican Church under the Restoration when the term from within. Some individual Puritans moved “Dissenter” emerged to stigmatize clergymen towards separation in the 1570s, founding and their followers who resisted the Act congregations first in England and then in of Uniformity and left the established the Netherlands (Hahn-Bruckart 2017). This Anglican Church. was the case of Robert Browne (ca. 1550–1633) and Robert Harrison (ca. 1545–1585), and “” or “Separatists” became the earliest Heritage and Rupture with Tradition terms to signify groups outside of the established Anglican Church. But the majority of those English Dissenters were Protestant Christians in the Puritan movement can be described as who chose to worship outside of the established “nonconformists” as they declined to conform to Church of England in early modern period. They certain practices that had been set out in the have been known by different names, including Prayer Book of 1559 which they considered to “Anabaptists,”“Brownists,”“Separatists,” be “Roman,” while still remaining in communion “Sectaries,”“Dissenters,”“Nonconformists,” with the Church of England.

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 M. Sgarbi (ed.), Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1132-1 2 Dissenters from the Anglican Church

Innovative and Original Aspects Cross-References

The situation changed greatly with the civil war ▶ Baxter, Richard and English Republic (1641–1662). The freedom ▶ Everard, John of religious practice granted in England during this ▶ Will, Free period allowed many people to join Puritan circles, and some also joined the Quakers, founded by George Fox (1624–1691) (Villani 1996). References Following the Restoration (1630–1685) however, dissenters were subjected to persecution Secondary Literature under various acts of the parliament; non- Heal, B., and A. Kremers, eds. 2017. Radicalism and conformists were excluded from all municipal dissent in the world of Protestant reform. Gottingen: offices and the Act of Uniformity of 1662 Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. demanded that all clergymen, teachers, and pro- Hessayon, A., and D. Finnegan, eds. 2011. Varieties of seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century English fessors adhere to the Book of Common Prayer radicalism in context. Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate. in its entirety. The term “Dissenter” for referring McFarlane, K.B. 1966. The origins of religious to clergymen and their followers who resisted dissent in England. New York: Collier Books [first the Act of Uniformity and left the established edition: 1962, John Wycliffe and the origins of English Nonconformity]. Anglican Church emerged at this time (Hahn- Villani, S. 1996. Tremolanti e papisti. Missioni quacchere Bruckart 2017). nell’Italia del Seicento. Roma: Edizioni di storia e letteratura. Watts, M.R. 1978. The dissenters, vol. 1: From the refor- mation to the French revolution. Oxford: Clarendon. Impact and Legacy Watts, M.R. 1995. The dissenters, vol. 2: The expansion of evangelical nonconformity. Oxford: Clarendon. Watts, M.R. 2015. The dissenters, vol. 3: The crisis After the Toleration Act of 1689, a wave of and conscience of nonconformity. Oxford: Oxford “New Dissent” emerged, influenced by German University Press. Pietism and connected to the Evangelical Revival. By the mid-nineteenth century, the Online Resources “ ” term Nonconformists gradually replaced that Hahn-Bruckart, T. 2017, Dissenters and Nonconformists. of “Dissenters” to refer to people who attended Phenomena of Religious Deviance Between the British religious services outside of the established Isles and the European Continent, in European History church (Watts 1995, 2015; Hahn-Bruckart 2017). Online (EGO), published by the Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG), Mainz 2017-04-19. URL: http://www.ieg-ego.eu/hahnbruckartt-2016-en. URN: urn:nbn:de:0159-2017041003