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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.”

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

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References

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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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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.”

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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

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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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