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University of Warwick institutional repository: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of Warwick http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wrap/2794 This thesis is made available online and is protected by original copyright. Please scroll down to view the document itself. Please refer to the repository record for this item for information to help you to cite it. Our policy information is available from the repository home page. The Worlds of Arthur Hildersham (1563-1632) by Lesley Ann Rowe A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History University of Warwick, Department of History June 2009 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments .........................................................................................i Declaration ...................................................................................................ii Abstract .......................................................................................................iii Abbreviations ...............................................................................................iv Chapter 1: Introduction .................................................................................1 Chapter 2: The World of Ministry I: Parish Life in Ashby ....................... 31 Chapter 3: The World of Ministry II: Hildersham’s Message ....................94 Chapter 4: The World of Godly Sociability .............................................148 Chapter 5: The World of the Established Church .....................................200 Chapter 6: The World of Radical Puritanism ............................................243 Chapter 7: Another World: The Legacy of Hildersham ...........................281 Chapter 8: Conclusion ............................................................................. 323 Appendix: Epitaph on Mr Hildersam 1632 ..............................................333 Bibliography .............................................................................................334 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful for the financial assistance provided by the Arts and Humanities Research Council for this project. My main debt of gratitude is to my supervisors, Professor Bernard Capp and Professor Peter Marshall. Only their good counsel, unfailing patience, and personal encouragement over so many years has enabled me to get this far. Other members of the department at Warwick, especially Professor Steve Hindle, Dr Beat Kümin, and Dr Penny Roberts, have also given generous help and support. Colleagues who have kindly sent me references, and the many record office staff who have dealt with my enquiries, are due much appreciation. To Heather Falvey, my friend and mentor, for walking the path before me and demonstrating it is possible to arrive at the destination, many thanks. My family has been extremely long-suffering and supportive throughout this project, and I will always be indebted to them. i DECLARATION I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work and that it has not been submitted for a degree at another university. None of the material in this thesis has been published prior to the date of submission. Some of the material included in Chapter 6 was used in a Master’s essay submitted in 2003: it has now been reviewed and updated in the light of subsequent research, and is identified in the text. ii ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to explore the various worlds of early modern spirituality through the lens of one important and influential figure, Arthur Hildersham. Using diocesan, parish, and national records, and a close study of Hildersham’s printed works, it traces the story of one strand of England’s parallel Reformations. Hildersham’s long association with the parish of Ashby-de-la-Zouch provides the opportunity to examine the progress of the puritan Reformation in a particular locality over an extended period. His role as a godly pastor, and the message he delivered to his people, are considered. The thesis attempts to show that the effect of puritanism within a parish community was not necessarily divisive or unpopular, particularly when it was promulgated for many years and supported by a godly patron. Hildersham’s participation in networks of godly sociability and movements for further reformation illustrate how powerful and wide-reaching such associations could be. As an archetype of ‘Jacobethan’ nonseparating nonconformity, Hildersham’s career supplies a focus for looking at shifting configurations of conformity and orthodoxy. His ambivalent relationship with the ecclesiastical establishment, it is argued, demonstrates that even the most principled nonconformists had more agency than is sometimes allowed. How Hildersham was able to maintain a position of influence despite his frequent suspensions is examined. Recent studies of puritan culture have challenged a familiar radical/moderate paradigm, and this thesis supports the argument that the boundaries between mainstream puritans like Hildersham and those on the radical fringes were, in practice, blurred. However, it rejects the conclusion that all puritanism was intrinsically radical and that its adherents were incipient heretics. Hildersham’s legacy allows us to explore how a later age fashioned and used the memory of the past. It is hoped that this study will contribute to our understanding of the multi-layered experience of post-Reformation English religion. iii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abridgement An Abridgement of that Booke which the Ministers of Lincolne Diocesse delivered to his Majestie upon the First of December 1605 (reprinted 1617) BL British Library Clarke, ‘Life of Hildersam’ Samuel Clarke, ‘The Life of Master Arthur Hildersam’, in idem, The Lives of Two and Twenty English Divines (London, 1660) DNB L. Stephens and S. Lee (eds.), The Dictionary of National Biography, 63 Vols. (London, 1856-97) DWL Dr Williams’s Library, London ERO Essex Record Office Hildersham, Lords Supper Arthur Hildersham, The Doctrine of Communicating Worthily in the Lords Supper (London, 1609) Hildersham, Lectures upon John Arthur Hildersham, CVIII Lectures upon the Fourth of John (2nd edn., London, 1632) Hildersham, Fasting and Praier Arthur Hildersham, The Doctrine of Fasting and Praier, and Humiliation for Sinne (London, 1633) Hildersham, Lectures upon Psalme LI Arthur Hildersham, CLII Lectures upon Psalme LI (London, 1635) Johnson, Treatise Francis Johnson, A Treatise of the Ministery of the Church of England (Low Countries?, 1595) JEH Journal of Ecclesiastical History iv JRUL John Rylands University Library, Manchester LAO Lincolnshire Archives Office LRO Leicestershire Record Office NAO Nottinghamshire Archives Office ODNB Brian Harrison (ed.), The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004-2008, consulted online) PRO Public Record Office SAO Shropshire Archives Office Venn John Venn and J. A. Venn, Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of all Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, Part I: From the Earliest Times to 1751, 4 Vols. (Cambridge, 1922- 1927) VCH Cambs A. P. M. Wright (ed.), The Victoria County History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, Vol. VI (Oxford, 1978) VCH Essex W. R. Powell (ed.), The Victoria County History of the County of Essex, Vols. II and IV (London, 1956) VCH Leics W. G. Hoskins (ed.), The Victoria County History of the County of Leicester, Vol. II (Oxford, 1969) Wing Donald Wing, A Short-Title Catalogue of Books printed in England, Scotland and Ireland, 1641-1700, 3 Vols. (New York, 1972 edn.) v CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION One of the books in Arthur Hildersham’s well-stocked library was Petrus de Alliaco’s Imago Mundi.1 An interest in cosmology reflected the liberal humanist tradition in education that pervaded so many Western universities in the late- fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and demonstrated that Hildersham was a product of such a cultural milieu. And yet the volume’s title – A Picture of the World – provides a metaphor for the central paradox at the heart of any study of Hildersham’s life and thought. In what way, or ways, was the world he inhabited to be perceived? On the one hand, his world was that of the learned divine, exploring the widening horizons of scholarly and scientific discovery. But on the other hand, he was equally at home in that rather shadowy world, where religious radicals 1 Hildersham’s copy of this volume, by the French cardinal, philosopher and cosmographer Petrus de Alliaco (or Pierre d’Ailly, 1350-1420) is now held in Cambridge University Library, see J. C. T. Oates, A Catalogue of the Fifteenth-Century Printed Books in the University Library, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1954), no. 3737. Bearing the inscription, ‘Nosce teipsum Arthur Hildersam’, the library received the book as part of the bequest of Richard Holdsworth (d. 1649), Master of Emmanuel College. Presumably Holdsworth obtained it either directly or indirectly from Samuel Hildersham, Arthur’s son, himself an alumnus of Emmanuel, who was the main beneficiary of Hildersham’s will. This volume is not mentioned specifically, but Samuel was bequeathed the residue of his father’s estate, with the exception of named gifts. In Hildersham’s inventory, his library was valued at £66 and his ‘Pictures and Mappes’ at 10s, see LRO PR/I/34 f. 29. The Imago Mundi was one of the earliest scientific books, printed in the Netherlands, containing the only map printed there in the fifteenth century. This edition had a profound influence: