DOCSLIB.ORG

Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500–1800

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500–1800 Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500–1800 General Editors: Crawford Gribben, Queen’s University Belfast, UK Scott Spurlock, University of Glasgow, UK Editorial Board: John Coffey, Leicester University Jeff Jue, Westminster Theological Seminary Susan Hardman Moore, University of Edinburgh John Morrill, University of Cambridge David Mullan, Cape Breton University Richard Muller, Calvin Theological Seminary Jane Ohlmeyer, Trinity College Dublin Margo Todd, University of Pennsylvania Arthur Williamson, University of California, Sacramento Building upon the recent recovery of interest in religion in the early modern trans-Atlantic world, this series offers fresh, lively and interdisciplinary perspec- tives on the broad view of its subject. Books in the series will work strategically and systematically to address major but under-studied or overly simplified themes in the religious and cultural history of the early modern trans-Atlantic. Titles include: Benjamin Bankhurst ULSTER PRESBYTERIANS AND THE SCOTS IRISH DIASPORA, 1750–1764 Francis J. Bremer LAY EMPOWERMENT AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF PURITANISM Forthcoming titles include: Crawford Gribben and Scott Spurlock (editors) PURITANISM IN THE TRANS-ATLANTIC WORLD 1600–1800 Mark Sweetnam MISSION AND EMPIRE IN THE EARLY MODERN PUBLIC SPHERE Christianities in the Trans-Atlantic World, 1500-1800 Series Standing Order ISBN 978-0-037-31152-8 hardcover (outside North America only) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standing order. Please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address, the title of the series and one of the ISBNs quoted above. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS, England Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism Francis J. Bremer Professor Emeritus, Millersville University, USA © Francis J. Bremer 2015 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2015 978-1-137-35288-0 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No portion of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, Saffron House, 6–10 Kirby Street, London EC1N 8TS. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. The author has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published 2015 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN Palgrave Macmillan in the UK is an imprint of Macmillan Publishers Limited, registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS. Palgrave Macmillan in the US is a division of St Martin’s Press LLC, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Palgrave Macmillan is the global academic imprint of the above companies and has companies and representatives throughout the world. Palgrave® and Macmillan® are registered trademarks in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries. ISBN 978-1-349-67497-8 ISBN 978-1-137-35289-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-137-35289-7 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bremer, Francis J. Lay empowerment and the development of Puritanism / Francis J. Bremer, Professor Emeritus, Millersville University, USA. pages cm. — (Christianities in the trans-atlantic world, 1500–1800) Includes bibliographical references. 1. Puritans. 2. Laity. I. Title. BX9323.B26 2015 285.909032—dc23 2015001200 For all my family and the memories of Francis and Marie Bremer and Alice Woodlock This page intentionally left blank Contents Acknowledgments viii Introduction 1 1 The Experience and Meaning of God’s Caress 5 2 Thinking of the Laity in the English Reformation 10 3 Lay Puritans in Stuart England 27 4 Gatherings of the Saints in England and the Netherlands 49 5 Shaping the New England Way 69 6 The Free Grace Controversy and Redefining the Role of Lay Believers 87 7 The Role of the Laity in England’s Puritan Revolution 105 8 Varieties of Lay Enthusiasm in New England and England 127 9 Responding to the Challenges of Diversity, 1640–60 144 10 Clergy and Laity in the Later Seventeenth Century 157 Epilogue: Looking Backwards, and Ahead 177 Notes 182 Bibliography 216 Index 233 vii Acknowledgments I first began to reflect on the topic of this book while a Long Room Fel- low at Trinity College, Dublin in the spring of 2012. I wish to thank Crawford Gribben for encouraging me to apply for that fellowship, and the Long Room staff for making my stay comfortable and produc- tive. I would also like to thank Crawford and his students for valuable conversations during my tenure. During the course of research and writing I have benefited, as always, from the community of puritan scholars in England and America who are friends as well as scholars and who have shaped my understand- ing of the field over the years. But in particular I would like to single out L. Baird Tipson, Jr. and Joel Halcomb, both of whom read the entire manuscript and provided numerous helpful suggestions. After the book was essentially finished I benefitted from the suggestions of Margo Todd and the students in her graduate seminar at the Univer- sity of Pennsylvania who were kind enough to read the manuscript and discuss it with me. This is the first study I have undertaken since my retirement from Millersville University. I thank the university for having granted me emeritus status and the ability to draw upon the library resources in get- ting access to numerous works cited here. And I would like to thank my family, which has always been the rock on which my life is grounded. viii Introduction Diarmaid MacCulloch has written that religious institutions “create their own silences, by exclusions and by shared assumptions, which ...silences are often at the expense of many of the people who could be thought of as actually constituting the Church.”1 My goal in the pages that follow is to examine one such silence—the substantial omission of the role played by countless named and unnamed men and women in the story of the shaping of puritanism. The earliest histories of puritanism were written by clergymen and highlighted the impor- tance of the clergy. William Hubbard, whose General History of New England was commissioned by the Massachusetts General Court in the 1670s, stated that “In the beginning of times was occasioned much dis- advantage to the government of the church by making it too popular.”2 Clerical authors such as Cotton Mather in New England and Samuel Clarke in England were themselves invested in the importance of the ministry and not unsurprisingly downplayed the role of the laity in the churches and focused on the role of prominent clergy in their accounts. Later writers, many writing from an institutional perspective, fol- lowed their lead, though not all exclusion of the laity was the result of institutional bias. The fact that the vast proportion of surviving puri- tan writings were composed by ministers reinforced this perspective. I myself titled one of my books Shaping New Englands: Puritan Clergy- men in Seventeenth Century England and New England.3 Even those who, like Darrett Rutman, paused to wonder to what extent the message from the pulpit was imbibed by those in the pews took it for granted that the message was shaped by the clergy.4 The laymen and laywomen who entered the story were typically those described by the clergy of their time and by later historians as radicals—the Anne Hutchinsons and Mary Dyers, the Levellers and the Quakers.5 Even Christopher Hill, who 1 2 Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism was more sympathetic than most to the role of ordinary Englishmen and wrote extensively on how some puritans sought to turn the world upside down, devoted his attention to those generally perceived as radical.6 There were, of course, some exceptions. When I was begin- ning my professional career Stephen Foster was kind enough to send me a copy of a paper that Patrick Collinson had delivered at a 1966 con- ference of the Past & Present Society. That paper, “The Godly: Aspects of Popular Protestantism,” focused on the role of the laity in early puritanism—even their role in pushing clergy further towards reform than the ministers were prepared to go.7 There are of course hints of what was not being written about if one pays sufficient attention to those voices. The fact that arguably the most important sermon in seventeenth-century New England history was preached by a layman—John Winthrop’s “Christian Charity”—suggests an important lay role in shaping the thought and practice of that soci- ety. The religious life of the Plymouth colony was directed for many years by William Brewster, a lay elder. One of the most vigorous debates over religion as well as governance in Civil War England was conducted by soldiers at Putney and Whitehall. Many of the stories I tell and points I seek to make may be individually familiar to those who have immersed themselves in the scholarship of the puritan movement, though the overall pattern and significance is not. In revisiting the history of puritanism from its English origins through its development in the Atlantic world of the seventeenth century, I have also been influenced by another essay that I had read long ago.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • POLITICS, SOCIETY and CIVIL WAR in WARWICKSHIRE, 162.0-1660 Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History
    Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History POLITICS, SOCIETY AND CIVIL WAR IN WARWICKSHIRE, 162.0-1660 Cambridge Studies in Early Modern British History Series editors ANTHONY FLETCHER Professor of History, University of Durham JOHN GUY Reader in British History, University of Bristol and JOHN MORRILL Lecturer in History, University of Cambridge, and Fellow and Tutor of Selwyn College This is a new series of monographs and studies covering many aspects of the history of the British Isles between the late fifteenth century and the early eighteenth century. It will include the work of established scholars and pioneering work by a new generation of scholars. It will include both reviews and revisions of major topics and books which open up new historical terrain or which reveal startling new perspectives on familiar subjects. It is envisaged that all the volumes will set detailed research into broader perspectives and the books are intended for the use of students as well as of their teachers. Titles in the series The Common Peace: Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-Century England CYNTHIA B. HERRUP Politics, Society and Civil War in Warwickshire, 1620—1660 ANN HUGHES London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from the Restoration to the Exclusion Crisis TIM HARRIS Criticism and Compliment: The Politics of Literature in the Reign of Charles I KEVIN SHARPE Central Government and the Localities: Hampshire 1649-1689 ANDREW COLEBY POLITICS, SOCIETY AND CIVIL WAR IN WARWICKSHIRE, i620-1660 ANN HUGHES Lecturer in History, University of Manchester The right of the University of Cambridge to print and sell all manner of books was granted by Henry VIII in 1534.
    [Show full text]
  • Prophetic Discourse and the Voice of Protest: the Vindication of Anne Wentworth Vera J
    Document généré le 1 oct. 2021 14:28 Man and Nature L'homme et la nature Prophetic Discourse and the Voice of Protest: The Vindication of Anne Wentworth Vera J. Camden Volume 8, 1989 URI : https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1012594ar DOI : https://doi.org/10.7202/1012594ar Aller au sommaire du numéro Éditeur(s) Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle ISSN 0824-3298 (imprimé) 1927-8810 (numérique) Découvrir la revue Citer cet article Camden, V. J. (1989). Prophetic Discourse and the Voice of Protest: The Vindication of Anne Wentworth. Man and Nature / L'homme et la nature, 8, 29–38. https://doi.org/10.7202/1012594ar Copyright © Canadian Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies / Société Ce document est protégé par la loi sur le droit d’auteur. L’utilisation des canadienne d'étude du dix-huitième siècle, 1989 services d’Érudit (y compris la reproduction) est assujettie à sa politique d’utilisation que vous pouvez consulter en ligne. https://apropos.erudit.org/fr/usagers/politique-dutilisation/ Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Érudit est un consortium interuniversitaire sans but lucratif composé de l’Université de Montréal, l’Université Laval et l’Université du Québec à Montréal. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/ 4. Prophetic Discourse and the Voice of Protest: The Vindication of Anne Wentworth C. E. Whiting, in his Studies in English Puritanism from the Restoration to the Revolution (1660-1688), introduces two Baptist women who have left narratives of their persecutions during the 1670's.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Introduction “Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, inreproaches,innecessities,inpersecu- tions, in distresses for Christ’s sake: for whenIamweak,thenamIstrong”- 2 Corinthians 12:10 The above quotation perfectly describes the female visionary writers discussed in this study, namely women who when confronted with cultural restrictions and negative stereotypes, found a voice of their own against all odds. By using their so-called infirmities, such as weakness and illness and the reproaches against them, they were able to turn these into strengths. Rather than stay- ing silent, these women wrote and published, thereby turning their seeming frailties into powerful texts. The focus of the following investigation revolves around two English visionary writers from the Middle Ages Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe as well as several female prophets such as Anna Trapnel, Anne Wentworth and Katherine Chidley from the seventeenth century. That period, particularly the decades between the 1640s and the 1660s, saw many revolutionary changes. In addition to such significant events as the behead- ing of Charles I in 1649 and the introduction of Cromwell’s Protectorate in 1653, “the extensive liberty of the press in England [...] may have [made it] easier for eccentrics to get into print than ever before or since” (Hill, The World Turned Upside Down 17). Indeed, according to Phyllis Mack, over 300 female vi- sionaries were able to use the absence of censorship at that time to voice their concerns and write about their lives and circumstances in prophetic writings (218). In addition to the absence of censorship the mode of prophecy was often used by these female visionaries in order to voice their concerns and ideas.
    [Show full text]
  • Inner Light – Good and Evil – Open and Hidden
    2 n d e d n © T G 2 0 2 1 £ 1 0 v i a 1 b i l d e r b e r g . o extracts companion to The Siege Of Heaven with my thoughts on solutions – ed.on Heaven The solutions – with my thoughts Siege Of toextracts companion under guise of a never-ending pandemic, modelled on their never ending war on terror. terror. endingwar never pandemic, theiron modelled on a guiseofunder never-ending legallyandtaken up,overbeingboughtfreedom as mediaFood is thought for all ismySo career!this secretRothschilds Victor on Fifth ‘Thesee Man’ Please financially. Since the Anglo-Zionist empire has been defeated militarilyinMiddle defeated Russia, been East Anglo-Zionist by empire hasthe Sincethe eyecrushing their journalism in the they’ve own population, to subduing their turned surveillance bringing to the authoritarian state west, – the China Assange Julian ofperson Portland Communications boss George Pascoe-Watson with Lord with and Bethell who funded Pascoe-Watson Portland George Communications boss were leadershipcampaign Tory 2019 Hancock’s Matthealth managed UK secretary the plandemic.steeringCovidthe start of ministerial discussions from Generally short extracts from longer works - published in the midst of November 2020’s published - November 2020’s longer in the midst of extracts works Generally from short Pharma Banking, Bigchum lobbyists Arms, It becomes boguslight’. ‘lockdown clear UK r g 2 n d e d n © T G 2 0 2 1 £ 1 0 v i a 2 b i l All reserved rights d ISBN 0 9528070 8 4 e The SiegeThe Of Reader Heaven Copyright Tony Gosling 2021 Tony Copyright a magazine,a newspaper or broadcast r Printed and bound in the USA by lulu.com andPrinted the bound in USA b Address: 17-25, Jamaica Street, Bristol, BS2 8JP The moral rightsThe author of the been have asserted e post-medieval articles on occult political and spiritual power r First published in published BritainFirst Great in by Gosling publishing 2021 g A catalogue for this record book is available the Library from British A pleased make necessary to the arrangements at earliest the opportunity.
    [Show full text]
  • The Levellers Movement and Had Been Amongst the Leaders of a Mutiny Against Cromwell, Whom They Accused of Betraying the Ideals of the ‘Civil War ’
    Levellers Day book cover_Levellers Day book cover 04/05/2015 08:33 Page 1 Written by PETA STEEL T H E L E THE V Published in May 2 01 5 by SERTUC E Congress House, Great Russell Street L L London WC1B 3LS E R LEVELLERS MOVEMENT 020 7467 1220 [email protected] S M O V AN ACCOUNT OF PERHAPS THE FIRST POLITICAL MOVEMENT E M TO REPRESENT THE ORDINARY PEOPLE E N T Additional sponsorship from Including THE DIGGERS AND RANTERS, ASLEF, Unison South East Region, and Unite OLIVER CROMWELL, THE AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE and MAGNA CARTA South East S E R T U C Printed by Upstream PUBLISHED BY SERTUC 020 7358 1344 [email protected] £2 Levellers Day book cover_Levellers Day book cover 04/05/2015 08:33 Page 2 CONTENTS THE LEVELLERS 1 THE DIGGERS AND THE RANTERS 11 THE CIVIL WARS 15 THE NEW MODEL ARMY 19 AGREEMENT OF THE PEOPLE 23 THE PUTNEY DEBATES 27 THOMAS RAINSBOROUGH 31 PETITIONS 34 THE BISHOPSGATE MUTINY 37 THE BANBURY MUTINY 38 THE MAGNA CARTA 40 OLIVER CROMWELL 43 JOHN LILBURNE 49 GERRARD WINSTANLEY 55 RICHARD OVERTON 58 KATHERINE CHIDLEY 60 KING CHARLES I 63 THE STAR CHAMBER 66 JOHN MILTON 68 Levellers Day book new_Levellers book new to print 04/05/2015 09:07 Page 1 FOREWORD THERE’S little to disagree with the Levellers over: “they wanted a democracy where there was no King, and a reformed House of Commons that represented the people, and not the vested interests of the ruling classes ”.
    [Show full text]
  • Moments of Definition, Redefinition and Transition in the English Parish Church 1500-1700
    Veiled Assent, Hidden Dissension: Moments of Definition, Redefinition and Transition in the English Parish Church 1500-1700 Jude Jones Looking at the moment is an enormously difficult task. Which moment is it exactly? How long does it last? Does it occur as a point in time synchronously or is it the product of a more diachronic synthesis – the distillation of a series of moments of existence? Is it the point at which everyone still remaining in Pompeii was overcome by the fumes from the eruption pouring down from Vesuvius? Or did it last from the point at which the volcano started to erupt until the minute of the last Pompeian’s death? Could that moment include the thick showers of ash which covered the dying, burying them under deep strata? Might it even include the long aeons of time until they were discovered and reconstructed from the remains left in the consolidated ash? How long is a moment? Archaeologists are taught to see time as either synchronic or diachronic: seemingly momentary events like the eruption of Vesuvius or long term slabs of time. We often present time in binary oppositions – the short which equals change and the long which equals continuity. Thus, is the question of how long a moment lasts better left to expert philosophers, or is it possible to quantify the length of a moment then perhaps to qualify it? Or, better still, is it possible to try to characterise and define the idea of the moment by examining its constituents and its impact? To this end, it might be worth contextualising a short series of past moments to see how long they lasted and who and what was engaged in them as they occurred.
    [Show full text]
  • Settling the London Tithe Debates
    Kent Academic Repository Full text document (pdf) Citation for published version Morrison, Stuart (2018) Print, Debate and the Public Sphere in the London Tithes Cause, c.1600-1650. Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) thesis, University of Kent,. DOI Link to record in KAR http://kar.kent.ac.uk/68978/ Document Version Publisher pdf Copyright & reuse Content in the Kent Academic Repository is made available for research purposes. Unless otherwise stated all content is protected by copyright and in the absence of an open licence (eg Creative Commons), permissions for further reuse of content should be sought from the publisher, author or other copyright holder. Versions of research The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record. Enquiries For any further enquiries regarding the licence status of this document, please contact: [email protected] If you believe this document infringes copyright then please contact the KAR admin team with the take-down information provided at http://kar.kent.ac.uk/contact.html PRINT, DEBATE AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE LONDON TITHES CAUSE, C.1600-1650 For Books are not absolutely dead things, but doe contain a potencie of life in them to be as active as the soule was whose progeny they are John Milton, Areopagitica (London: [s. n.], 1644), p. 4. Presented to the Centre for Medieval and Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent, in fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • Women's Studies Librarian on Women, Gender, And
    WOMEN’S STUDIES LIBRARIAN NEW BOOKS ON WOMEN, GENDER, AND FEMINISM Numbers 58–59 Spring–Fall 2011 University of Wisconsin System NEW BOOKS ON WOMEN, GENDER, & FEMINISM Nos. 58–59, Spring–Fall 2011 CONTENTS Scope Statement .................. 1 Reference/ Bibliography . 58 Anthropology...................... 1 Religion/ Spirituality . 59 Art/ Architecture/ Photography . 2 Science/ Mathematics/ Technology . 63 Biography ........................ 5 Sexuality ........................ 65 Economics/ Business/ Work . 12 Sociology/ Social Issues . 65 Education ....................... 15 Sports & Recreation . 73 Film/ Theater..................... 16 Women’s Movement/ General Women's Studies . 74 Health/ Medicine/ Biology . 18 Periodicals ...................... 76 History.......................... 22 Indexes Humor.......................... 28 Authors, Editors, & Translators . 77 Language/ Linguistics . 28 Subjects....................... 94 Law ............................ 29 Citation Abbreviations . 121 Lesbian Studies .................. 31 Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, & Queer Studies . 31 New Books on Women, Gender, & Feminism is published by Phyllis Holman Weisbard, Women's Studies Librarian for the University of Wisconsin System, 430 Memorial Library, 728 Literature State Street, Madison, WI 53706. Phone: (608) 263-5754. Drama ........................ 34 Email: wiswsl @library.wisc.edu. Editor: Linda Fain. Compilers: Elzbieta Beck, Madelyn R. Homuth, Beth Huang, JoAnne Leh- Fiction ........................ 35 man, Michelle Preston,
    [Show full text]
  • Radical Republicanism in England, America, and the Imperial Atlantic, 1624-1661
    RADICAL REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND, AMERICA, AND THE IMPERIAL ATLANTIC, 1624-1661 by John Donoghue B.A., Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA, 1993 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1999 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH Faculty of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by John Donoghue It was defended on December 2, 2005 and approved by William Fusfield, Associate Professor, Department of Communication Janelle Greenberg, Professor, Department of History Jonathan Scott, Professor, Department of History Dissertation Director: Marcus Rediker, Professor, Department of History ii Copyright by John Donoghue 2006 iii RADICAL REPUBLICANISM IN ENGLAND, AMERICA, AND THE IMPERIAL ATLANTIC, 1624-1661 John Donoghue, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, April 30, 2006 This dissertation links the radical politics of the English Revolution to the history of puritan New England. It argues that antinomians, by rejecting traditional concepts of social authority, created divisive political factions within the godly party while it waged war against King Charles I. At the same time in New England, antinomians organized a political movement that called for a democratic commonwealth to limit the power of ministers and magistrates in religious and civil affairs. When this program collapsed in Massachusetts, hundreds of colonists returned to an Old England engulfed by civil war. Joining English antinomians, they became lay preachers in London, New Model Army soldiers, and influential supporters of the republican Levellers. This dissertation also connects the study of republican political thought to the labor history of the first British Empire.
    [Show full text]
  • Views of Selected Puritans, 1560-1630, on Human Sexuality
    VIEWS OF SELECTED PURITANS, 1560-1630, ON HUMAN SEXUALITY by Jonathan Toussaint A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Humanities in the History Department of the University of Tasmania. November, 1994. TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION A. What Were the Original Puritans Like? 1 B. Sex in the Middle Ages 3 C. The Puritan Rejection of the Medieval Attitude 5 D. The Scope of the Thesis ' 7 CHAPTER 2: PURITAN ATTITUDES TOWARD THE SEXUAL ASPECTS OF MARRIAGE A. The Goodness of Sex in Marriage 17 B. The Nature of Sex 20 C. The Purpose of Marriage and Sex 22 D. Romantic Love as the Context for Sex 24 E. Techniques of Coitus 28 (i) Where 29 (ii) When 30 (iii) Healthfulness of Ejaculation 31 (iv) Sex-Play 33 (v) Coital Positions 35 (vi) Abstentions from Coitus 37 CHAPTER 3: PURITAN ATTITUDES TOWARD SOME ASPECTS OF SEXUAL DEVIATION A. Puritan Awareness· of Sexual Deviation 41 B. Adultery 44 C. Prostitution 48 D. Incest 53 E. Homosexuality 55 F. Masturbation 57 G. Pornography 58 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION 60 1 CHAPTERl INTRODUCTION A. WHAT WERE THE ORIGINAL PURITANS LIKE? A Puritan is someone who is afraid that somewhere, sometime, somebody is enjoying himself.1 A Puritan is a man sitting on a rock sucking a pickle contemplating adultery while reading the Bible. A Puritan is a blue­ nose who is against smoking, gambling, drinking, and sex. The revolution in sexual morality today is partly a reaction against Puritan sexual mores. These statements reflect an attitude toward a movement that has been assigned the posture of being sexually strict and repressive.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 2: Women and Politics
    Chapter 2: Women and Politics “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.” – 1 Timothy 2:11-14 2.1 Julian’s Universal Salvation The first chapter has shown that the female visionaries used the negative stereotypes around their bodies in order to gain authority through their voices and their writings. In this chapter, the focus lies on politics. At the time in which they lived, women were said to be too weak and frail to speak in public, let alone to be involved in politics. Yet, as these women visionaries will show, they and their writings were very political, albeit to different degrees and for different reasons. Commenting on the political nature of these writers, Diane Watt states: Unlike many of their continental counterparts Margery Kempe and almost all other late medieval women prophets and visionaries in England only intervened in matters relating to the communities in which they lived […] Margery Kempe […] was very much a local prophet, concerned only with questions involving her immediate communities. […] English women’s prophecy became more politicized with the Reformation. (55) Despite this claim that medieval English visionaries were less political than visionary writers elsewhere in Europe, and even less political than their sev- enteenth century counterparts, I would nonetheless argue that Margery and Julian were clearly political. Firstly, religion is often not separable from pol- itics, neither in the Middle Ages nor in the seventeenth century. Secondly, 60 Authority and Authorship in Medieval and Seventeenth Century Women’s Visionary Writings writing and public speaking can already be seen as political acts in themselves for these female visionary writers.
    [Show full text]
  • A Very Peculiar Royalist. Hobbes in the Context of His Political Contemporaries Eleanor Curran
    CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Kent Academic Repository Kent Academic Repository – http://kar.kent.ac.uk A very peculiar Royalist. Hobbes in the context of his political contemporaries Eleanor Curran British Journal for the History of Philosophy 10 (2) pp 167 - 208 2002 Not Published Version Abstract: n/a Keywords: n/a Hobbes was a royalist. He supported Charles I during the Civil Wars and advocated absolutism of the most extreme variety. He can be grouped together with other royalist thinkers and writers of his time; people such as Sir Robert Filmer, Bishop Bramhall and Dudley Digges. His royalism is expressed and supported in his political writings. A cursory glance at almost any modern commentary on Hobbes will reveal these sorts of assumptions about his political beliefs and partisanship during the period of the English Civil Wars of the 1640s. They are expressions of an orthodoxy that has grown up about Hobbes’s political allegiances in modern Hobbes scholarship. Martinich, for example, says that ‘Leviathan is suffused with defenses of Charles I’ (Martinich 1995: 16) and that in 1640 Hobbes was about to begin ‘[h]is career as a political theorist committed to the cause of the king’ (Martinich 1999: 121). Johann Sommerville says that one of Hobbes’s intentions was to ‘rebut the principles commonplace among Charles I’s parliamentarian opponents’ and that ‘[s]uch informed contemporary writers as the pseudonymous “Eutactus Philodemius” and Sir Robert Filmer rightly regarded his theory as essentially royalist in character ’. (Sommerville 1992: 3, my emphasis). Richard Tuck, despite revealing the complexity of Hobbes’s position, is also convinced that Hobbes should be read as a royalist.
    [Show full text]