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Humanists, Puritans and the Spiritualized Household

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Margo Todd
Margo Todd
Affiliation:
Ms. Todd is lecturer in European history, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri.
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Extract

The stress of Elizabethan and early Stuart Puritans on the significance of the family as the fundamental spiritual unit of society has led historians to the apparent but perhaps simplistic conclusion that the origins of this doctrine are to be found in Protestant theology. The concomitants of the doctrine—an exaltation of the marriage relationship, a demand for household religious education and discipline and a slight but noteworthy elevation of the position of women within the household—are therefore attributed to Protestantism and particularly to Protestantism of “the hotter sort.” We are told, for example, that “the Reformation, by reducing the authority of the priest in society, simultaneously elevated the authority of lay heads of households” and that the stress on household religious instruction and discipline “was part of the protestant inheritance.”

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 18 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1980

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References

1. Hill, Christopher, Society and Puritanism (New York, 1964), pp. 445–446.Google Scholar

2. Keith Thomas, “Women and the Civil War Sects,” Past and Present 13 (April 1958), p. 42. Schücking, Levin L. has also asserted that marriage was seen as a “necessary evil” before the Reformation in The Puritan Family, trans. Battershaw, Brian (New York, 1970), p. 21.Google Scholar

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5. Kearney, Hugh, Scholars and Gentlemen (London, 1970), p. 39;Google ScholarSimon, Joan, Education and Society in Tudor England (Cambridge, 1966), chap. 10.Google Scholar Even seventeenth-century tutors required their students to read Erasmus, Juan Luis Vives and Thomas More (for example, Emmanuel College Ms. 1.2.27; Trinity, Cambridge Mss. R.16.7–10, 14, 15, 17, 18; Cambridge University Ms. Additional 6160). University preachers and lecturers cited Christian humanists (for example, Bodleian, Ms. Rawlinson D.273, [Christ Church, Oxford, 1580], p. 266;Google ScholarBodleian, Ms. Sancroft 25 [Emmanuel, 1629], pp; 121–124)Google Scholar. Of 102 extant book inventories of members of Oxford colleges between 1561 and 1659, 70 include at least one work of Erasmus (Oxford University Archives: Inventories in Chancellour's Court Registers). See also Watson, Andrew G., The Library of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (London, 1966), p. 19.Google Scholar

6. Batty, Bartholomew, The Christian mans Closet, trans. Lowth, William (London, 1581);Google Scholar for example, Batty quoted Aristotle's Oeconomica, Plato's Laws and Cicero's De Officiis in arguing that fathers should instruct their children for the good of the common wealth, and Seneca, Plutarch, Pliny, Epictetus, Xenophon and other ancients are quoted throughout the treatise on all aspects of child rearing. Gouge, William, Of Domesticall Duties (London, 1622)Google Scholar cites Erasmus, as does Bullinger, Heinrich, The Christen state of Matrimonye, trans. Coverdale, Miles (London, 1541),Google Scholar fol. 89v. Bullinger also quoted from the ancients. See citations in Vives, Juan Luis, Instruction of a Christian Woman, trans. Hyrde, Richard (1540);Google Scholar in Watson, Foster, Vives and the Renascence Education of Women (New York, 1912), pp. 29–136Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Watson, Vives); or the humanist Lupset, Thomas's Exhortation to Yonge Men (London, 1544)Google Scholar which attributes to Aristotle (Policraticus, VII and VIII) the last word on child rearing (sig. Cii). The use of classical authors by Puritans and humanists is precisely parallel.

7. Noted by Siegel, Paul in “Milton and the Humanist Attitude toward Women,” Journal of the History of Ideas 11 (1950):45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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9. Erasmus, Prayse of matrymony, sigs. Aiiii, Cv. He went on to say, “Thys that in your body eyther dryeth up, or with y great daunger of your helth putryfyeth and corrupteth, whyche in your slepe falleth away, had been a man if ye were a man your selfe.”

10. Vives, Instruction of a Christian Woman in Watson, , Vives, pp. 116–119.Google Scholar Hyrde's translation of this work ran into eight editions by 1592.

11. Batty, Christian mans Closet, fol. 4v.

12. Johnson, James T., “Ends of Marriage,” Church History 38 (12 1969):429–436;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWilliam, and Haller, Malleville, “The Puritan Art of Love” Huntingdon Library Quarterly 5:2 (1942), pp. 265–266, 270.Google Scholar

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17. Batty, Christian mans Closet, fol. 3v; see also Cleaver, , householde government, p. 1; Daniel Rogers, Matrimoniall Honour (London, 1642), p. 7;Google Scholar compare Baxter, Richard, Christian Directory (London, 1637), p. 514.Google Scholar

18. Gouge, Dedicatory Epistle. Gouge, also used Aristotle's beehive analogy for the family (Domesticall Duties, pp. 16–17);Google ScholarPerkins, William, Workes, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1618), 3:669, 698.Google Scholar This position, in obvious contradiction to Walzer's thesis of a Puritan contractual family, is more characteristic of Puritan thought than Walzer would care to admit. Compare Gouge, , Domesticall Duties, p. 5.Google Scholar

19. Compare Hill, (Society and Puritanism, pp. 458–459)Google Scholar and Walzer, (Revolution of the Saints, pp. 183–187),Google Scholar who think that the of the family as the source and principal constituent of the commonwealth derives from Jean Bodin.

20. Erasmus, , The Colloquies, trans. Thompson, Craig R. (Chicago, 1965), pp. 95–97, 106;Google Scholar Vives, duties of an husband in Watson, Vives, pp. 202–203; SirElyot, Thomas, The Boke Named the Governour (London, 1531), fols. 15v–16.Google Scholar

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22. Batty, Christian mans Closet, fol. 4v; Andrewes, Bartimeus, A very short and pithie Catechisme (London, 1586), Dedicatory Epistle (to the authorö congregation at Yarmouth);Google ScholarGouge, compare, Domesticall Duties, p. 18.Google ScholarTaylor, Jeremy, Works, ed. Heber, R., 15 vols. (London, 1828), 5:252–253.Google Scholar

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24. Bullinger, Christen state of Matrimonye, fols. 81v–82v; Becon, Thomas, Catechism (Parker Society, 1844), pp. 348, 519;Google ScholarCleaver, , housholde government, pp. 35, 38–40;Google ScholarPerkins, , Workes, pp. 670, 698;Google Scholar compare Leigh, Dorothy, The Mothers Blessing (London, 1621), p. 62;Google ScholarMinutes of the Manchester Presbyterian Classis, ed. Shaw, W. A. (Chetham Society, 1890), pp. 117, n. 1; 400.Google Scholar

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28. Cleaver, , housholde government, Dedicatory Epistle, p. 13;Google ScholarHoby, , Diary, pp. 38, 62–67, 73–76, 80–88, 91–95, 104–111, 120, 125–126, 130–140, 168–170, 173–184, 190–191, 202, 210–211, 238,Google Scholar n. 122; compare Cross, Claire, The Puritan Earl (London, 1966), pp. 24–27,57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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32. Book of Homilies, p. 507; see also the official catechism of Nowell, Alexander, A Catechisme, trans. Norton, Thomas (London, 1570), fols 9v-10, 73;Google Scholar Cosin, Works, 1:184.

33. Erasmus, A playne and godly exposytion or declaratõ of the comune Crede and of the x. comaundementes (1533), fol. 162v; compare Prayse of Matrymony, sig. Diii, and Sermon…in the seconde chapytre of the Gospell of saynt Johan (n.d.), fols. 12–13v; Whitforde, Richard, The werke for housholder (London, 1537),Google Scholar sigs. Biii, Eii.

34. Vives, , duties of an husband in Watson, Vives, pp. 202–203, 209.Google ScholarInstruction of a Christian Woman in Watson, Vives, p. 128;Google Scholar Hyrde in Watson, Vives, p. 50; Elyot, , Defence, p. 233;Google Scholar Tilney, Flower of Friendshippe, sigs. Ciii, Cv, Cviii.

35. McConica, J. K., English Humanists and Reformation Politics (Oxford, 1965),Google Scholar chap. 7; Harpsfield, Nicholas, The life and death of Sir Thomas Moore … written to the tyme of Queene Marie, ed. Hitchcock, E. V. (London, 1932), pp. 19,75,79;Google Scholar compare pp. 83, 92, and More's letter to Margaret in Watson, Vives, p. 185.

36. Erasmus, Studye of scripture (n.p.); A Sermon of the chyldeJesns (n.d.), title page, sig. Bviii; compare Whitforde, werke for housholders, sigs. Biiii–Bv; Elyot, Governour citing Quintilian, Plutarch and Erasmus.

37. Schnucker, R. V., “The English Puritans and Pregnancy, Delivery, and Breast Feeding,” History of Childhood Quarterly 1:4 (1974);Google ScholarPubMed compare Vives, Playne and godly exposytion, fols. 163v–164: Hyrde in Watson Vives. p. 172.

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42. Batty, Christian mans Closet, fols. 15, 57v, 65v; Perkins, , Workes, p. 699.Google Scholar Both cited Augustine: “Quilibet paterfamilias, quia superintendit domui, episcopus dice potest” (fol. 15 in Batty). Lady Brilliana Harley drew a more extreme analogy in her commonplace book (1622): “Peres et meres sont les Images des dieu. Nous sont diue domestique…” (Nottingham University Ms., Box 166).

43. Schücking, , Puritan Family, p. 6;Google Scholar compare St. John's College, Cambridge, Ms. S 34 (1620); Whitforde, werke for housholders, sigs. Eiii-Eiiii.

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48. Gouge, , Domesticall Duties, p. 35.Google Scholar

49. Batty, Christian mans Closet, fol. 3v; Cleaver, , housholde government, p. 157.Google Scholar

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54. Gouge, , Domesticall Duties, p. 18.Google Scholar

55. Erasmus, Studye of scripture, sig. Fii; Hyrde, in Watson, Vives, p. 30; Vives, duties of an husband in Watson, , Vives, pp. 198, 201;Google Scholar compare Cleaver, , housholde government, p. 157.Google Scholar Similar sentiments were expressed by Elyot and More: Watson, , Vives, pp. 228, 179.Google Scholar

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59. Perkins, , Workes, p. 689.Google ScholarHall, Joseph concurred in The Honor of the Married Clergie Mayntayned (London, 1620)Google Scholar, Dedicatory Epistle.

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61. Ibid, pp. 68–70 and passiln.

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