The Evolution of Puritan Mentality in an Essex Cloth Town: Dedham and the Stour Valley, 1560-1640 A.R. Pennie Submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Research conducted in the Department of History. Submitted: November, 1989. bs. 1 The Evolution of Puritan Mentality in an Essex Cloth Town: Dedham and the Stour Valley, 1560-1640 A.R. Pennie Summary of thesis The subject of this thesis is the impact of religious reformation on the inhabitants of a small urban centre, with some reference to the experience of nearby settle- ments. Dedham has a place in national history as a centre of the Elizabethan Puritan Movement but the records of the Dedham Conference (the local manifestation of that movement), also illustrate the development of Reformed religion in Dedham and associated parishes. The contents of the thesis may be divided into four sections. The first of these concerns the material life of the inhabitants of Dedham and the way in which this generated both the potential for social cohesion and the possibility of social conflict. The second section examines the attempt at parish reformation sponsored by the ministers associated with the Dedham Conference and the militant and exclusive doctrine of the Christian life elaborated by the succeeding generation of preachers. The third element of the thesis focuses on the way in which the inhabitants articulated the expression of a Reformed or Puritan piety and, on occasion, the rejection of features of that piety. The ways in which the townspeople promoted the education of their children, the relief of the poor and the acknowledgement of ties of kinship and friendship, have been examined in terms of their relationship to a collective mentality characterized by a strong commitment to 'godly' religion. The fourth and final section seeks to examine how a group, characterized by the particular mindset discussed earlier, responded to the political crisis and increasing polarization of opinion which culminated in the outbreak of the English Civil War. The Conclusion attempts to integrate the topics examined in these sections and to show how, despite the rigour and exclusiveness which characterized the rhetoric of the preachers, Puritanism in Dedham tended to foster social cohesion rather than social division. iii Acknowledgements My primary debt of gratitude is owed to my supervisors, Patrick Collinson and Mark Greengrass, for their advice and encouragement. Brett Usher was kind enough to put his encyclopaedic knowledge of the sixteenth century records of the Consistory Court of London at my disposal. Mark Byford and Diarmaid MacCulloch drew my attention to documents I would not otherwise have examined. I am grateful to those librarians and custodians of archives who allowed me access to documents held at the depositories listed in the Bibliography. In particular I would like to thank the archivists and staff of the Essex Record Office for their unfailing helpfulness and those of the West Suffolk Record Office for allowing me to read a document listed as fragile. Among the authors of published works I have consulted, I am particularly indebted to Margaret Spuf ford, Keith Wrightson and David Levine, who pioneered means of setting lay piety in the context of material life. iv Abbreviations A.H.R. American History Review. A.P.C. Acts of the Privy Council. Bod. Bodleian Library, Oxford. D.N.B. Dictionary of National Biography. Ec.H.R. Economic History Review. E.R.O. Essex Record Office, Chelmsford and Colchester. E.S.R.O. East Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich. Foxe S.R. Cattley ed., John Foxe, Acts and Monuments (eight vols, 1837-41). G.L. Guildhall Library, London. G.L.R.O. Greater London Record Office, London. J.B.S. Journal of British Studies. J.E.H. Journal of Ecclesiastical History. J.R.L. John Rylands Library, Manchester. N.R.O. Norfolk Record Office, Norwich. P & P Past and Present. P.R.O. Public Record Office, London. P.S.I.A. Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology. OSR W.C. Hardy, C. Baker, M.M. Emmison eds., Calendar of Documents in the custody of the Clerk of the Peace for Essex (Essex Record Office typescript). S.R. Statutes of the Realm. v Strype, Annals John Strype, Annals of the Reformation in the Church of England during Queen Elizabeth's Happy Reign (four vols, Oxford, 1824). T.E.A.S. Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society. Usher R.G. Usher ed., The Presbyterian Movement in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth as illustrated by the Minute Book of the Dedham Classis (sic), 1582-1589, Royal Historical Society, third series, 8 (1905). V.C.H., Essex Victoria History of the County of Essex. V.C.H., Suffolk • Victoria History of the County of Suffolk. Venn John and J.A. Venn, Alumini Canterbrigienses: A Biographical List of all known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office in the University of Cambridge, from the earliest time to 1900, pt 1 (four vols, Cambridge 1922-7). Wrightson and Keith Wrightson and David Levine, Poverty and Levine Piety in an English village: Terling, 1525-1700 (1979). W.S.R.O. West Suffolk Record Office, Bury Saint Edmunds. vi Dates and Quotations All dates have been given in the Old Style except that the year is treated as beginning on 1 January. Quotations from primary sources have been given in the original spelling but contractions have been restored and punctuation has been modernized where this is necessary for clarity. viii Contents Summary of dissertation ii Acknowledgements iv Abbreviations v List of Tables xi List of Maps xiii Preamble: Recent writing on the local impact of English Puritanism xvi Introduction 1 1. Land and Landholding in Dedham, 1560-1650. 7 2. Clothiers and outworkers: The cloth industry of Dedham and the Stour Valley in prosperity and decay, 1560-1640. 25 3. Godly reformation in a parish republic: _ Dedham and the Puritan Movement, 1560-1600. 41 4. 'God's counsell and the narrow way.' Spiritual Warfare divinity in Dedham and Essex, 1600-40. 69 5. Protestant piety in Dedham: 1550-1650. 98 6. Philanthropy and criminality in Dedham: 1560-1640. 118 7. Education and literacy in Dedham and the Stour Valley: 1560-1640. 138 8. Kinship and neighbourhood in Dedham: 1560-1650. 154 ix 9. 'Preservation or ruine of Religion and Liberties'. Dedham and Essex under the government of Charles I, 1626-40. 173 Conclusion 191 Notes 196 APPENDIX 1. Landholding in Dedham, 1570-1650 278 APPENDIX 2. The members of the Dedham Conference 290 BIBLIOGRAPHY 305 List of Tables 1.1 Land transactions in the manorial courts of Dedham (exluding inheritance), 1560-1600. 14 3.1 Dedham and Manningtree: Presentments of inhabitants to the Colchester archdeaconry courts, 1570-1609. 58 5.1 Dedham and East Bergholt: Testators declaring their assurance of salvation, 1560-1650. 103 5.2 Dedham and East Bergholt: Testators giving legacies to ministers, 1560-1640. 108 6.1 Dedham and East Bergholt: Sums bequeathed by testators to the use of the poor, 1560-1650 124 .. 7.1 Dedham and East Bergholt: Changes in illiteracy among the inhabitants, 1560-1650. 150 8.1 Dedham testators: Numbers of testators making bequests to kin Categories, 1560-1650. 158 8.2 East Bergholt testators: Numbers of testators making bequests to kin Categories, 1560-1650. 159 8.3 Dedham testators: Per capita acknowledgements of members of kin Categories. 160 8.4 East Bergholt testators: Per capita acknowledgements of members of kin Categories, 1560-1650. 161 8.5 Executors and supervisors appointed by testators of Dedham, 1560-1650. 164 8.6 Executors and supervisors appointed by testators of East Bergholt, 1560-1650. 165 9.1 Assessments of inhabitants of Dedham for Subsidies of 1624 and 1628. 177 xi 9.2 Inhabitants of Dedham: Refusal of the Forced Loan and membership of the parish elite among those assessed for the Subsidies of 1624 and 1628 178 xii List of Maps 1. Map of the parish of Dedham. 6 2. Centres of coloured cloth production in Essex and Suffolk, 1560-1640. 24 3. Location of schoolmasters in the deanaries of Lexden and Hedingham, 1560-1640. 137a "One reformation will never serve the church; she needs continually to be wound up and set a-going afresh". Wilbur M. Smith ed., The Best of C.H. Spurgeon (Eastbourne, 1983), p.29. xiv To all who buckled on the Armour of the Lord. Preamble: Recent writing on the local impact of English Puritanism. What justification is there for dealing with a national phenomenon, such as English Puritanism, from the perspective of a single locality? This question may be answered by pointing out that before the invention of means of impersonal communication men and women could only have formed new opinions and adopted new modes of behaviour on the basis of face to face contact. Nor was the situation entirely transformed by the invention of printing since readers tended to assimilate what they read in books to habits of thought derived from their immediate cultural milieu.' With regard to this argument locality may be defined as any area within which such face to face contact took place on a regular basis. The parish, with its ecclesiastical centre and more or less nucleated pattern of settlement, or the town, with its market place and corporate identity, would be the smallest and most concentrated area of this kind. The less well defined countrysides or pays, such as the Wealden vales of Kent or the Suffolk and Essex Sandlings, with their distinct landscape and economy, and the tendency for their inhabitants not to cross its boundaries in their migrations, consitute a broader area for a study of 2 locality.