Post Roman Migration into England

 A summary article for a Nature article in The Past from 2022.

1960s English Pop Art

Having read the autobiography of Pattie Boyd, wife of George Harrison & Eric Clapton, I ran into this website that showcases the famous Birds of Britain project.

Tudor Fertility and Expenses

 (Part of the Great Tab Cleanup)

• How Blood problems affected Henry VIII's plans
• Privy Purse accounts of Elizabeth of York, which show Elizabeth Denton on p.99 as recipient of money (arguably the woman who taught the bedroom arts to Henry VIII). [Formally, Nicholas H. Nicholas (eds) (1830), Privy Purse Expenses of Elizabeth of York: Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV, London (William Pickering)]

The suggestion comes from Philippa Jones (2016), The Other Tudors, p.28; p.52 (Kindle Edition), citing , p.99 in Nicholas' 1830 edition.

The Rise of Arthurian Legends and the Plantagenet Empire

This is almost a guest-post, since it contains so much information provided by my frequent collaborator, Beparo.

When reading up on Wace's Roman de Rou, or A History of the Norman People, as some translate it, I was struck by the role that Wace had played in bringing the Round Table of King Arthur into existence, so to speak, by inserting it into his adaptive translation Roman de Brut, completed in 1155, of Geoffrey of Monmouth's Kings of Britain (Burgess & Van Houts, 2004, p.xxvi).

So in the middle of this negotiation of how to bridge these two land groups together (an attempt that does extend back to Saxon migrations and the Viking raiding of the 9th century, make no mistake), we have this influx of mythology. Perhaps the claims to the Roman mantle of power are again at disposition? The papacy is definitely involved in this shuffle, as the troubles that Wace go into for backing Becket against Henry II remind us (Burgess & Van Houts, 2004, p.xxxvii).

The Round Table may have Welsh roots, perhaps. The Winchester Round Table is perhaps the most interesting aspect in that question. As Beparo put it,

It was almost certainly Edward I who commissioned it, ca. 1260?;  so, maybe a century after Wace had been making the rounds.  But Henry VIII had it renovated, and the current paint job (with the Tudor Rose conspicuously in the middle of the table) dates to his era.  I seem to recall somewhere coming across speculation this was done in advance of Charles V's state visit in May of 1522;  the monarchs visited Winchester, where Charles would have seen it.  Given the Habsburg claim to Roman imperial succession, the implicit message probably wasn't lost. 

Those speculators however may have gotten

... Charles V confused with Francis I.  The state visit of 1522 was preceded by another in 1520, which was part of the run-up to the Field of the Cloth of Gold---yet another of these complicated trans-channel exercises where everybody was trying to trump everyone else's claim to be the sole inheritor of the Roman imperial purple.

As Beparo reminds us, the notion of inheriting the Roman imperial purple, and the imperial control implied, had found its traces in the Welsh sources in the figure of the late-Roman general Magnus Maximus, whose traces as Macsen Wledig are found in the Mabinogion. (Not all traces in Mabinogion are this historically grounded; the backdrop of The Dream of Rhonabwy for example is more complicated to discern.)

This is interesting because the compilation process of the Mabinogion belongs into the 12th and 13th century, when the French tradition of romance (the literary genre, not the vernacular translation of Wace's) was in full swing and flowing back onto the English Isles. For example, Wace's Roman de Brut was translated into English between 1200-1220 by Layamon, a Parish priest from Worchester (Burgess & Van Houts, 2004, p.xxvi). 

Of course, these back-and-forth connections between England and the modern day French shoreline reach back before the Conquest even. Wace himself is in some way linked to Duke Robert of Normandy, the father of William the Conqueror, who had attempted his own invasion of England and ended up with his fleet on Jersey instead, which connected Wace biologically to Turstin, the duke's chamberlain (Burgess & Van Houts, 2004, p.xxxv). 

William brought Breton soldiers with him to Hastings (Ralph de Gael from Rennes; Apdx 40 and Saint Saveur le Victome, Apdx 89 in: Burgess & Van Houts, 2004, pp.xlvii-lxii)), who settled in the Welsh border marches, controlling Monmouth castle after 1080. This aristocracy has been suggested by Frank Stanton and others as the nobility from which men like Geoffrey of Monmouth hailed (discussed in: Brynley F Roberts, Geoffrey of Monmouth, Cardiff, 1991). Perhaps even the name Arthur was more Breton than Welsh, after all.

A Knife as a Seal

From the collection of Durham Cathedral.

3366    n.d.
Lowick, Chapel of
Printed R.N.D. App. 135. See no. 2151 above, where Robert of St Martin uses a like sign in place of a seal. See also letter from the Rev. Dr Greenwell printed in Proc. Soc. Ant. of Newcastle , 2nd ser. vol. II, p. 95.
Size: -
Seal design: A knife with broken blade, the handle is inscribed on one side.
Inscription: signum de capella de lowic
and on the other side: de capella de lowic et de decimis de lowic totius curie et totius ville

Tally keeping at the English Exchequer

A sample was presented at the Society of Antiquaries that is part of an exchequer account.

Other forms of tallying were chirographs (a wavy cut through the word chirograph separated copies of the text) and indentures (wavy cuts on the top of the manuscript pages of the copies).

Of course, not just the king kept accounts; the Bursae of Durham, for example, is equally be worthy of study.

Medieval Source Materials on the Web

Via the Common Law materials, I found the general Medieval Sources on the web information, and from when Durham Cathedral's digitization project, which in turn brought me to an annotated book of Ruth.

Do you need to visit Italy to write "The Merchant of Venice"?

One of the more famous twentieth-century theories of non-Stratfordian authorship of the works of Shakespeare holds that Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford and one-time protege of Queen Elizabeth the First, wrote the works instead.

One part of that controversy that may be well suited for the discussion of contradictions is the claim that the frequent setting of Shakespeare's plays in Italy is an indication of a travelled man that had visited that region. Founder of the Oxfordian theory, J. Thomas Looney, wrote:

[The author of the Merchant of Venice, RCK] knew Italy first hand and was touched with the life and the spirit of the country. 

(Wikipedia notes that this claim had also been used to support the authorship candidacy of the Earl of Rutland and the Earl of Darby, who had also travelled the European continent.)

Oxfordian William Farina refers to Shakespeare's apparent knowledge of the Jewish ghetto, Venetian architecture and laws in The Merchant of Venice, especially the city's 'notorious Alien Statute'. 

There is evidence that De Vere lived in and traveled in Italy for over a year. He was there when writing to Lord Burghley Sept 24, 1575, though he disparages Italy and "care not ever to see it anymore" in that letter. De Vere departed Venice in March of 1576. The Venetian Inquisition received testimony of De Vere's fluency in Italian. Oxfordian Anderson argues that Oxford

... visited Venice, Padua, Milan, Genoa, Palermo, Florence, Siena and Naples, and probably passed through Messina, Mantua and Verona, all cities used as settings in Shakespeare.

In contra-indication, Shakespearian scholars have pointed out:

• As far as The Merchant of Venice is concerned, "the play itself knows nothing about the Venetian ghetto; we get no sense of a legally separate region of Venice where Shylock must dwell" (Kenneth Gross)
• Similarly, the setting is described as "a nonrealistic Venice" and the laws invoked by Portia as part of the "imaginary world of the play" inconsistent with then-existing legal practice (Scott McCrea)
• The Alien Statute bears little resemblance to any Italian Law (Charles Ross). 
• Lewes Lewknor's 1599 English translation of Gasparo Contarini's The Commonwealth and Government of Venice provides details on Venice's laws and customs that Shakespeare could have used in Othello, for example.
• The Italian scholar John Florio, who lived in England and was consulted by Ben Johnson for Italian details for Volpone, published two books, First Fruits (1578) and Second Fruits (1591), the latter a bilingual introduction to Italian Language and and culture, which have been suggested as the origin of Italian idioms and dialogue (e.g. in The Taming of the Shrew) by Kier Elam and Jason Lawrence. 

The farmer's guide in hiring and stocking farms...

Arthur Young, premiere English agronomist, correspondent of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson on farming matters, wrote this book

The farmer's guide in hiring and stocking farms...

both for the gentleman farmer and for the husband man.

A most fascinating read.

Richardson's Memoirs of Alexander Campbell (Part I)

Robert Richardson proposes (p.4f) to reconstruct Campbell's relationship with the Secession movement and other denominations not as a pre-description of the context, but at the moment of the contact with Campbell. For the Secession movement, Richardson made use of the biographies of Robert and James Alexander Haldane, as well as the Church history by John McKerrow's History of the Secession Church (Vol I, 1839; ...).

Alexander was born in Ireland (p.19),  his father Thomas of West-Scottish extraction (p.21), his mother of French Huguenot (p.21). Though Episcopalian in upbringing, Thomas felt the Scottish church lacking in vitality, and prefered the Secession Church as well as the Covenanters (p.22). Thomas was very worried about his salvation, asking his friends for comfort, until he had a conversion experience while walking alone in the fields which left him with a feeling of consecration to the divine plan (p.23). Thomas' father Archibald preferred the Church of England, wanting to "serve God according to act of Parliament" (p.24) and did not support his son entering the Secession Church (p.24); but through the patronage of his friend Mr John Kinley (p.25), Thomas was permitted to study at Edinburgh, where he studied divinity and medicine. Richardson comments,

… it being regarded proper for ministers to have, in additional to a knowledge of their particular profession, such an acquaintance with medicine as would enable them to render necessary aid to their poorer parishioners who might not have the services of a regular medical attendant. (p.25)

(For the lecture plan of divinity at the time, including examinations in Greek and Latin proficiency, plus a short biography of Dr Bruce, the divinity school headmaster, see (p.26).) After meeting his future wife, Thomas took a position at Rich-Hill, near Lough Neagh (p.30), and this is where Alexander spent his early childhood (p.31).

The waters of the lough [i.e. Lough Neagh, RCK] are celebrated for their power of petrifying wood and other organic substances placed in its waters or buried near its shores. (p.30 Fn *)

Boarding with a Mr Gillis to attend the elementary school in Market Hill, and staying with his uncles in Newry, where they were running an academy, Alexander was nevertheless mostly interested in sports and averse to confinement (p.31), making it difficult for his father to teach him. Attempts to add French to his schedule at age nine, for example, failed (p.31); and so he ended up working with the farm hands instead, which he enjoyed very much (p.32). It was only when fully grown, that Alexander developed his taste for reading and began studying with the determination to become one of the best scholars in the kingdom. Richardson praised Thomas' parenting wisdom for taking this route (p.33).  Alexander was a fast memorizer--60 lines of blank verse in 52 minutes--and became proficient in the poets and philosophy, esp. John Locke (p.33). Richardson stressed that this did not eliminate the love for the outdoors and physical activity, which expressed itself especially in fishing and hunting (p.34); cf. Footnote * for the anecdote on attempting to produce his own gun powder.

Following the instructions of the synod (p.35), Thomas read and sung and prayed twice a day with his family, and taught them catechism once a week, encouraged twice daily secret prayer, and an observance of the sabbath. The children would learn age appropriate amounts of Bible verses by heart and recite them at evening prayer (p.35). After attending church, the children were not only expected to remember the text, but also the discourse, down to the leading points of argument (p.36). Alexander himself noted that his mother was an especially outstanding specimen of the female sex (p.37) [apparently even surpassing Alexander's own wife, RCK], and that he owed it to his parents that he knew Ecclesiastes & Proverbs, as well as the Psalms (which he attributed to Solomon and David, respectively), by heart already as a child (p.37).

Alexander also observed his father's reverence for the Bible, noting as a child already that only the Bible and the concordance would be on his father's writing desk; all other books would remain on the shelves (p.39). Thomas Campbell was also a good example as a preacher (p.40). In the political turmoils of Ireland, between Orangemen and United Irishmen, Thomas Campbell steered clear of all of them (p.41), especially condemning secret associations (p.42), a stance that Alexander inherited (p.45). Thomas' handling of the situation brought him the offer of tutoring children of the nobility, but Thomas preferred the relative poverty of his ministerial position (p.43).

With the increasing family, Thomas Campbell was hard pressed to feed the mouths with his income as a minister (p.46) [see Footnote * for details on reimbursement funds for ministries in Ireland, RCK]. Thus Thomas opened an academy, with Alexander, then 17, as the assistant, to teach his own children and those of the parish, at the town of Rich-Hill, requisitioning a two-story house on the main square (p.47). The academy quickly attracted students (p.47). netting £200 per annum (p.48) while being regarded as a key contribution to the neighborhood. The father had already previously noted (p.47) "evidences of increasing seriousness" (p.47), which now that Alexander was teaching (p.48) found expression in being “much more thoughtful upon religious subjects” and in having “a deeper religious feeling” (p.48).

As his convictions deepened, he underwent much conflict of mind, and experienced great concerns in regard to his own salvation, so that he lost for a time his usual vivacity, and sought, in lonely walk in fields and by prayer in secluded spots, to obtain such evidences of Divine acceptance as his pious acquaintances were accustomed to consider requisite; …. (p.48)

Richardson then cites a longer statement by Alexander, admitting that it hailed from a later point in time ("he himself gave, many years afterward, the following account" (p.49).

“From the time that I could read the Scriptures, I became convinced that Jesus was the Son of God. I was also fully persuaded that I was a sinner, and must obtain pardon through the merits of Christ or be lost for ever. This caused me great distress of soul, and I had much exercise of mind under the awakenings of a guilty conscience. Finally, after many struggling, I was enabled to put my trust in the Saviour, and to feel my reliance on him as the only Saviour of sinners. From the moment I was able to feel this reliance on the Lord Jesus Christ, I obtained and enjoyed peace of mind. It never entered into my head to investigate the subject of baptism or the doctrines of the creed.” (p.49)

In preparation for the ministry, a choice that was at this point mainly his father's and not yet Alexander's own, Alexander studied ecclesiastical history and marveled at the divisions inside the faith (p.49).

While thus engaged [i.e. his studies of ecclesiastical history, RCK], he was filled with wonder at the strange fortunes of Christianity, and at the numerous divisions or parties in religious society. (p.49)

Richardson then enumerates the stances that Alexander developed with respect to the different religious parties available at the time in Northern Ireland.

He found the Catholics, numerous in his own country, for the most part an ignorant, priest-ridden, superstitious people, crushed, as it were, to the earth, as well by their own voluntary submission to an unrestricted spiritual despotism, as by the pressure of the social and political burdens resting on them, … (p.49) 

The young student, in contemplating the whole system of Romanism and its superstitions, its ceremonies, its spirit and its practical effects, conceived for it the utmost abhorrence—a feeling which remainder with him through life. (p.50) 

On the other hand, the lordly and aristocratic Episcopalians, who looked down upon the dissenters, and seemed, with some exceptions, to have but little piety, and to be fond of enjoying the pleasures, fashions and follies of the world, were, notwithstanding their Protestantism, scarcely less disliked as a religious party. (p.50) 

It was, however, when he came to consider the history of the Presbyterian Church, with its numerous divisions, in one of which he was himself a member, that he was enabled to form a clearer conception of the power and prevalence of that party spirit which it became afterward the labor of his life to oppose and overthrow. (p.50)

Richardson then reviews the Scottish history of the Reformation to put some of the stances into context (p.50f). With the "Claim of Right" of 1690, the Scottish Presbyterians managed to secure their stance and abolish all Prelacy, but with devastating moral effect.

When Presbyterianism had thus attained the supremacy it so long had sought, it began, in a short time, to furnish a fresh illustration of the fact that all established national religions, whether Greek or Mohammedan, Papal or Protestant, have in them the essence of Popery—the principle of absolutism. (p.51)

Richardsons then runs through the various schisms of the Scottish Presbyterians (pp.51-56), before concluding,

Schooled amidst such schisms in his own denomination, and harassed by the triviality of the differences by which they were maintained, it is natural to suppose that one of so catholic a spirit as Thomas Campbell conceived the greatest antipathy to party spirit in all its workings and manifestations, and that his son Alexander fully sympathized with him in these feelings. (p.56)

Richardson now turns to the American context, comparing the Puritans and the Methodists to buds in the animal kingdom, who remain connected to their parents long after they have begun separating---the parents here being the Church of England (p.59). Following the principle of "occasional hearing", Thomas Campbell sometimes on Sunday evening visited the local Independents (p.60). Richardson discusses how these various splinters related to each other and attempted to influence each other.

Roger Williams, for instance, the founder of the Baptists in America, held that it was wrong for professors of religion to hold worship with the unconverted, or to sit at the communion table with those who did not perfectly agree with them in religious sentiments. (p.61)

Though the Independents had been run out of England by religious persecution, they turned the tables and became repressive once they arrived in America.

It is a singular fact that these exiles [i.e. Plymouth Brethren, RCK] had no sooner obtained possession of power than they began to exercise the very same system of persecution of which they themselves had been victims. || They whipped, branded, banished or executed Quakers and others who refused to conform to their views, thus affording another proof that a state or national religion is necessarily Popish in its spirit, for at that time, in these Puritan colonies, the Church was essentially the State. (pp.62-63)

Thus, those with other opinions such as Roger Williams, had to go elsewhere; Williams established Rhode Island as his colony, founding the first Baptist church there. As Richardson notes:

In 1162 he [i.e. Roger Williams, RCK] obtained a second charter from Charles the Second, in which it was declared that “religion should be wholly and for ever free from all jurisdiction of the civil power”; so that to Roger Williams belongs the high honor of having founded the first political State in Christendom that embraced, in its constitutional provisions, the principle of universal toleration—a noble grant, the germ of civil liberty in the United States. (p.63 Fn *)

Thus, as Richardson points out (p.63 Fn *), when Locke published his celebrated Letters on Toleration in 1693, such toleration was already established law in Rhode Island.

Richardson then observes that the three categories of Christian denominations---the Episcopal (which includes Roman Catholicism, or the Romish, as Richardson calls them), the Presbyterian and the Congregational (which includes the Baptists)---differ in their view of authority of interpreting the scriptures (p.64). Only the Congregational allow the individual members to interpret the scriptures for themselves (p.65).

With the Independents, however, the right of every member to judge for himself as to the meaning of Scripture is the great distinguishing feature, and the basis not only of their congregational form of government, and their entire repudiation of the authority claimed by Presbyteries, Synods, Assemblies, Conventions or other church-courts, but also the reason of that tolerant spirit they so strikingly manifested when attained to political power in England. (p.65)

Already under the Protectorate of Cromwell, the Independents via their role in the Army were able to put their toleration into effect.

Opposed as well to Presbytery as to Prelacy and Popery, and regarding each congregation as independent and supreme in its jurisdiction, their [i.e. the Independents] views naturally made them republican in civil affairs, while their principle that every one should enjoy the right of private judgement in religion, released them from that spiritual despotism which all the other systems labored to establish. (p.66)

For, to take the Presbyterian system as an example, their idea of a complete church is not by any means that of a single congregation, but of a number of congregations, with Sessions, Presbyteries and Synods sufficient to constitute a General Assembly. (p.66)

And Richardson illustrates the submission of the individual member under that hierarchy by remind the reader of the way in which Andrew Melville addressed King James I, namely not as a king or a lord, but rather as a member subjugated under these ecclesiastical jurisdictions of "Christ's kingdom", as the Presbyterians referred to the kirk (p.67 Fn *). When faced with a raging chancellor and king, the same individual kept his cool.

Mr Andrew, never a whit dashed, said in plain terms that they were too bold, in a constitute Christian kirk, to pass by the pastors, prophets and doctors, and to take upon them to judge the doctrine and to control the ambassadors and messengers of a greater than was here. (p.68 Fn *, continued)

Richardson then relates that Alexander Campbell observed the power and conservative stance of the Presbyterians at first hand, by the way they rejected his father's proposal to celebrate the Lord's supper more often than twice a year (p.69).  While the discussions between the Independents and various other groups continued in Campbell's hometown, concerning issues such as whether to celebrate the washing of feet or the frequency of the celebration of the Last Supper (p.71), that collaborator of Wesley, Whitefield, preached the Gospel of Christ without getting into any distracting disputes, e.g. about church governance (p.72). When Mr Whitefield was granted access to the pulpits of several ministers of the Church of Scotland, a veritable revival broke out (p.72).

Great excitement and extraordinary manifestations of swoonings [sic!], convulsions and cataleptic seizures attended Mr. || Whitefield’s labors, especially at Cambuslang, near Glasgow, where at one time the assemblage was estimated to consist of at least thirty thousand persons. (pp.72-73) 

These singular cases had previously occurred under Mr Weasley’s preaching; and have several times since been noted, as in the revivals under the preachings of Jonathan Edwards in New England, and of James McGready, B.W. Stone and some other Presbyterian preachers in Kentucky, in 1801. (p.73)

By the turn of the century, though, the English north had become equally "Burnt Over" as New York State would 20 years afterwards.

The intense religious interest awakened in Great Britain and Ireland by Wesley, Whitefield and their coadjutors, had, toward the close of the century, given place to a great degree of indifference and worldly conformity. The diffusion of infidel principles from France, political commotions [i.e. French Revolution, RCK] and a variety of circumstances connected with the American and French wars, seem to have been chiefly instrumental in inducing a change which was deeply lamented by the pious and earnest men in the different religious communities. (p.73)

In collaboration with the Haldanes of Scotland, an Evangelical Society was organized, a “considerable missionary society” (p.73), with members of the Episcopal Church in England, and Thomas Campbell sympathized with them, joined and assisted the society. 

In this species of mission there was something very pleasing, and certainly the position of such laborers was highly favorable to a fair and effective presentation of the general truths of the gospel. (p.74) 

Thus Richardson raises the important point that the plurality of issues was just as unsettling as the call to repentance itself.  

It was, however, impossible to them, consistently with the nature of their mission and their views of religion, to recommend any very definite or particular course to anxious inquirers. (p.74) 

The nature of faith; how Christ could be put on by faith; how the sinner could obtain an assurance of justification, — these were questions of the highest practical importance, to which different parties gave conflicting answers, and which, with matters of ecclesiastical organization, constituted the burden of polemical discussions and the ground of party differences. (p.74) 

Richardson insists that the Evangelical Society was successful in their effort

... to break down the prejudices of religious society and to depreciate the value of those speculative theological dogmas and go || those sectarian distinctions by which pious believers were separated and alienated from each other. (pp.74-75) 

Having thus outlined the upbringing of Alexander Campbell, Richardson concludes:

The effect of the whole [of observing the described fights between the groups and denominations, RCK] was to increase his reverence for the Scriptures as the only infallible guide in religion, to weaken the force of educational prejudices, and to deepen his conviction that the existence of sects and parties was one of the greatest hindrances to the success of the gospel. (p.75)

Alexander Campbell during this time of his youth worked basically non-stop, going to bed late at night and rising at 4am to study his books. There was almost no hope of attending university (p.76), given the six siblings, and in addition to the teaching position at his father's academy, Alexander began to provide private tutoring to the daughters of the Honorable William Richardson, the lord of the manor, in whose garden Alexander's sisters like to take their evening walks (p.77).

A few years later, the strenuous duties of his office as minister and headmaster had so weakened the health of Thomas Campbell (p.78), that the doctor prescribed an extended sea voyage (p.79). Under Alexander's entreaties, this turned into a scouting trip for moving the family to the New World, as so many of their friends were then emigrating. Thus, in early April of 1807 Thomas Campbell travelled to the New World with "the ship Brutus, Captain Craig, master, bound for Philadelphia" (p.81). Richardson contextualizes this health remedy turned into emigration.

Bibliographic Record

Dr Robert Richardson, Memoirs of Alexander Campbell, 2 volumes, Philadelphia (J.B. Lippincott & Co) (Volume I 1868, Volume II 1870).

James Christianson on Puritanism and Mormonism

Puritan Mission

Christianson begins his description by capturing the self-ascribed mission of the Puritans.

Immersed in both the excesses and successes of what they saw as a faltering Reformation, Puritans were convinced that God would not permit their age to miss its destiny. In their view the elect of God, the saints of the latter days, were entering a new land Canaan "where the world might see a specimen of what shall be over all the earth in the Glorious Times which are Expected." All the perceived shortcomings of the Reformation in the Old World would be remedied in the uncontaminated environment of New England. (p.15)

This inflated sense of destiny so unabashedly proclaimed by seventeenth century Puritans reflects the conviction that it was their divine mission to fine-tune and perfect the Reformation, bringing it to its ultimate conclusion. As a matter of strategy, God reserved New England as the final battleground out of which Zion, the city of God, would emerge. ... For the first time since the advent of the Savior, God was establishing his covenant with a people who would "worship him in all his holy ordinances" (p.15).

Christianson gives a list of direct quotes from leading Puritans to undergird that claim, all taken from Perry Miller, The New England Mind: The Seventeenth Century, Boston (Beacon Press) 1961, pp.469-470.

[Peter Bulkeley wrote:] "We the people of New England ... are as a city set upon a hill, in the open view of all the earth, the eyes of the world are upon us, because we profess ourselves to be a people in Covenant with God. Our function is to || walk so that all nations will say, 'Only this people is a wise, and holy and blessed people.' The Lord has purposefully kept us few, weak and poor, so that we may excel in grace and holiness alone." (pp.15-16)

With this mind frame, divines such as John Cotton could label the Puritan commonwealth as the New Heaven and the New Earth (p.16), and divines such as Thomas Hooker saw the Day of Judgement at hand because New England was the final statement necessary:

[Thomas Hooker wrote:] "Truth had made the last disclosure conceivable within the frame of time [in the erection of the New England way, RCK]. ... Any further discovery would surpass the possibilities of earth and commence the reign of eternity." (p.16) 

Puritan Colonization

Between 1628 and 1640, 42% of the 50K English citizens to come to the New World were Puritans (p.16). They came to evade the persecution under James I, who thought their 39 Calvinistic articles to reform the Church of England were reactionary and the Puritans in general anti-monarchical (p.16). But they came with the plan to return some day and finish the reformation of the Church of England, "bearing the kingdom on their shoulders, welcomed by those who would recognize and wish to accept the work that God had wrought" (p.16), as Christianson put it.

Theirs was the best organized and best executed effort to colonize the Americas (p.16). They came "as their own masters, paid their own way, and took up land as free men." (p.17) 

[...] their purpose was to "restore the primitive, apostolic church pure and unspotted by human accretions or inventions." Along with Massachusetts Bay, Puritans colonized Connecticut, Rhode Island, and New Haven as centers for the expression of God's will. (p.17)

An avant guard of 200 had arrived in 1629 to prepare for the larger groups that followed (p.17). The first winter of 1630 was still hard, but the Puritans neither looked for gold nor a fight with the Indians, rather trading and coexisting with them in relative peace (p.17).

Puritan Personality

Christianson finds the Puritan reverence for intellectual capacity noteworthy.

The Puritans also stood apart from all other colonists in their respect for learning and their emphasis on the intellectual training of the young. (p.17)

As one of them recorded in 1643, "After God had carried us safe to New England and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the || civil government, one of the things we looked for and looked after was to advance learning and perpetuate it to our posterity." (pp.17-18) [taken from John Higham, The Reconstruction of American History,  New York 1962. RCK]

Not solely a a philosophy of faith, Puritanism included a basic tenet that man was to exercise his natural powers, his logic, and his reasoning, in order to understand the Bible, the physical universe and human relationships. By using his mind, he [i.e. man] was doing the will of God. (p.18)

Puritanism taught that man could not be saved in ignorance, and since only spiritual regeneration could put one on the right path in life, the individual was responsible to forge ahead on a perpetual course of self-cultivation. (p.18)

Christianson cites John Higham (1962) on the important influence that Puritanism had on American culture, who not only pointed out the early onset and the duration---almost 100 years---of their influence, but the persistence of their influence through their traditions and institutions (p.18).

Until far into the nineteenth century American Literature was mostly New England Literature written by Puritans and their descendants; American colleges were mostly New England colleges founded by Puritans or their descendants, ... [including, RCK] Harvard, the oldest and most Puritan of all .... Until quite recently, New England dominated American culture and New England was wholly Puritan in origin. (p.18) [= Highham (1962), pp.26-27]

This reverence for the intellectual found expression in the way the organized the frontier life.

Given the rigors of frontier life which allowed the individual little leisure time, they made a choice, and that choice was education. A formal education system, preceding comparable programs in other colonies by a century, together with the vigorous printing of sermons, poetry and history created the intellectually-charged climate of Puritan society. (p.18)

Analog to the way the Mormons feel misunderstood, Christianson worries that modern interpreters have misunderstood the Puritans as "prying busybodies incapable of enjoying life's simplest pleasures" (p.19).

Though it was generally accepted that the colony should be led by those who stood highest in the sight of God--at least 90 percent of the people where in sympathy with this idea--some characterize the rule of Puritan divines as despotic. (p.19) 

Politically, the Puritans were far right in their support of the connection between church and state (p.20).

They felt the state should protect the || church, and the church must in turn support the state. (pp.20-21)

Puritans were also strong constitutionalists, clinging to the Protestant doctrine that "the conscience of the individual is the ultimate judge of right". Thus, "man must refuse to obey a law, however legitimately promulgated, which violates his own sense of right." (p.21)

Christianson points out that this attitude fired both the Nonconformism of a Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as the Mormons in their acceptance of plural marriage (p.21).

Puritan Covenants

Christianson returns to the "city on the hill" imagery in the Puritan self-interpretation (p.21).

The sense that this was a peculiar society, designated by Deity to erect a community more perfect than any that men of the Old World had known, and that it was America's foreordained mission to be an example to all other nations is the substance of America's Puritan heritage. (p.21)

And Christianson sketches the core belief succinctly.

The heart of the Puritan hope for America as a promised land, a place of destiny, was embodied in their concept of covenant, and in their attempt to cement the individual to God, the church to God, and society or state to God. (p.21)

Christianson sketches the role of the covenant thinking in Puritan thought, even as a response to predestination, and the identifications of the salvation process that entailed (p.22).

Though they would never completely let go of it, Puritan theologians distanced themselves from the doctrine of predestination by developing a series or network of covenants. (p.22)

By 1700 ministers spoke regularly of the Covenant of Grace, which embraced an invisible contract between the individual and God; of the Covenant of Baptism, wherein offspring of the saints were bound to the church since it was assumed that, having been born under the Covenant of Grace, they too were the elect; of the Chruch Covenant; the social Covenant; even a National Covenant. (p.22)

In effect, all that they were or would ever become was laid on the alter with a covenant and promise. In return they had God declaring, "This is the covenant that I will make on my part, I will be thy God .... You shall have all things in me that your heart desires: the covenant again that I require on your part is, that you may be perfect in me, so that though a man be subject to infirmities, yet if he have a single heart, an upright heart, the Lord accept it." As this statement implies, perfection was a matter of direction rather than position. Puritans emphasized not what a man was, but what he was in the process of becoming. (p.22) [quoting Miller, New England Mind, p.377, RCK]

Christianson then paraphrases Miller's exposition [pp.376-377, RCK].

Christ, as exemplified in the Atonement, assumed the Covenant of Works initially given to Adam. Man, made bankrupt by the Fall, is approached by the Lord who guarantees him relief, providing him a way to make good his just debts. Man in turn, demonstrates his recognition of and gratitude for this by developing faith in, believing on, and obeying the Lord. He who does these things binds God by the Covenant of Grace to sanctify and glorify him. (p.22)

Since Abraham had bound himself first under the Covenant of Grace (Genesis 17), the Puritans were children of Abraham, the "Great Pattern Believer" (p.22).

The origin of the covenant, its historical development, and its culmination were the meanings of history, a thread which bound together the story of mankind. God never does anything for his people unless "he doth it by || virtue of, and according to his covenant." (pp.22-23)

God had effectively tamed Himself by entering into the covenant, and given up of His liberties (p.23).

The essential point of the covenant was that it mad possible a voluntary relationship between God and man even though man's will was "impotent" and God's grace "irresistible". The grace-induced faith of the individual not only regenerated his faculties, but also enabled man's reason and will to assert themselves, thereby giving free, rational consent to the contract. (p.23)

The notion of the covenants was flexible over time, "diverse, according to the ages" (p.23).

Allowed to grow with time, covenants were first dispensed through conscience, then through prophets and ceremonies, and finally through Christ, through the preaching of the word, and through sacraments. (p.23)

Sincere faith and repentance could keep the covenant from breaking even in the face of the impurities that mortal man exhibited (p.23). Indeed, it was counter-productive and one of the Devil's wiles to let the individual be overcome by "poring upon our misdeeds" (p.23). The most important thing was not to cease striving (p.24).

Salvation and damnation were entirely matters of will. Hence men were saved for trying, not for succeeding; where the unregenerate were damned, not because they failed, but because they did not try. (p.24)

Under these terms, Puritans believed that "no man was exempted, no man debarred, no man hindered to take grace" (p.24).

But almost more important was the physical signals of salvation in the individual's life.

On the other hand, those who, upon critical examination of themselves, saw that they were abiding the terms of the covenant both as the fruits were manifest in their lives and as they saw a change wrought in their hearts, would know their election was sure. This change was variously attested to by signs, inner light and dreams, or the bearing of testimony. (p.24)

[[And it is "the fruits ... manifest in their lives" that powers the Protestant spirit of Capitalism, not necessarily the double predestination, as Max Weber had assumed. RCK]]

The problem of imposing governance on such an individualistic set of people was not without its own trickery.

... Puritan leaders viewed as one the social and religious destiny of the latter-day children of Israel they were called to shepherd. (p.24)

[[They had learned from Thomas Hobbes, if no one else, that man was a wolf to his fellow men. RCK]]

Government was necessary; otherwise "there would be no living together for mankind" and the world would become "a den of thieves and robbers." The dilemma they faced was how to impose leadership and laws on people whose natural tendency was to oppose and disregard both As with the individual, so with society or the state, the answer lay in establishing a further covenant. (p.24)

Theologically, the interpretation was that the lordship of Christ over the soul engendered a love for all of mankind as well, which provided the hook for community appreciation (p.25).

Being thus united [in the fullness of God's spirit, RCK], they combined their wills to form a community, a city of Zion, wherein men walked in righteousness and prepared for the day of judgement. (p.25)

Thus was justified the state as an instrument of God's authority and goodness (p.25).

Men consented to covenants both spiritual and political whereby they agreed to behave "with a dutiful subjection to the eternal laws of God as expounded by those upon whom God had bestowed administrative authority." (p.25) 

[Puritan leaders instructed:] Look as in a Common-wealth or Kingdom, none hath the benefit of the Law, but those that subject themselves to the Law: none have the protection of authority, but those that obey it .... If wee will have God to be our God to pardon us, and to blesse us, we must have him a God over us to govern us after his own will. (p.25) [= Miller, New England Mind, p.427 RCK] 

This blessing was conceptualized in economic terms and advantages.

Marke the agreement between us and the Lord: He propounds the law, and saith, that if we will keepe the law, he will bless us abundantly in || all things, house and land .... Then the people they agree and say, 'Content, Lord, whatever thou sayest we will doe.' (pp.25-26)

Puritan Ethic 

James Christianson correctly points out that the economic projects of the blessing, this need to be validated temporally in one's status of election through blessings, became both a guiding principe and a problem.

Out of the need, even the demand, for assurance as to when and if a man was of the elect, an emphasis, which in time grew into a monster, was placed on the temporal rewards of righteous living. (p.26)

It was this doctrine of the Calling [as a farmer or a merchant or a minister, RCK] that led many of the rising merchant and capitalism class of the seventeenth century to embrace Puritanism. They viewed their success as a sign of regeneracy. Salvation could be achieved through actions of a disciplined, industrious, frugal, sober nature. (p.26)

As Higham (1962), p.40, pointed out, the Puritan ethic had some clear expressions.

Business as a calling, the moral significance of profits and thrift, the moral dignity of work, the distrust of aristocratic leisure and dilettantism,  the suspicion that the poor are shiftless and hence ungodly, .... (p.26)

Christianson rightly insists that this attitude was one of the prime legacies of Puritanism to the American experiment.

This ethic, and expression of dynamic individualism nourished by abundant resources in the New World, came into conflict with the Social Covenant which emphasized subjection to God, and as a result, class distinctions and the ethic won out. (p.26) 

As the quality of living increased, two generations later found the communities lax in the eyes of their ministers (p.27).

 Within forty years, easy living, few hardships, and the absence of religious commitment so altered the temper of Puritan communities that hardly a sermon was given that did not sound a note of alarm. (p.27)

With time, there were calls for the celebration of Christmas; fortune-telling became a viable business again; and eventually a brothel opened in Boston (p.27) [= Miller, New England Mind, p.472]. The connection between economic success and religious purity was clear to the clergy.

Since it was God's doing that New Englanders were blessed with wealth beyond their needs, since he liberally provided for them in order to encourage orthodoxy, the clergy faced a serious dilemma. History and now their own experience taught that commitment and orthodoxy were near-certain casualties of sustained economic success. (p.27)

Thus, there was as if a vicious pattern existed in the world that played out in New England as well.

A nation reforms with the aid of divine grace; God rewards its efforts with material prosperity; the reformed are then seduced by their security, and in three generations the nation is back where it started. (p.27) [= Miller, New England Mind, pp.474-475, RCK]

Puritan Demise

Puritanism foundered, in Christianson's reconstruction, externally on its economic success, which allowed eliminating God from the justification loop, and internally on the resistance of the Anglican Church to the Puritans' reform efforts (p.28).

God rewarded the New Englanders with riches for their holiness. Their land and livestock were both sufficiently fruitful and the ocean yielded up an abundance of cod, providing an economic boon to the colonial economy. (p.28)

As secular inducements became paramount, God was forgotten, and men consecrated their labors to the pursuit of wealth. (p.28) 

A major reason for the decline of the emotional appear within the movement was the refusal of the mother church in England to come to terms an purify itself. (p.28) 

Puritanism was not up to the task of converting those outside its group to the faith (p.28) and shriveled up.

Puritanism relied on the inbred strength of those covenant generations produced by the 20,000 pioneers who journeyed to New England in the first decade of settlement. (p.29)

Like the Latin language of earlier centuries, once Puritanism no longer served a useful purpose, it was discarded as a living element in a society which formerly fostered it. (p.29)

Puritanism and Mormonism

Christianson now takes a confessional view in assessing the relationship between Puritanism and Mormonism (p.29).

There was far too much that was right in Puritanism for its development to have been mere historical coincidence. (p.29)

Thus, Christianson places Puritanism into the salvation narrative that climaxes in the rise of the LDS movement.

Could they have observed the century that followed the demise of the kingdom they initiated, the Puritan fathers would not have been disappointed with the fruits of their efforts. In addition to much that is American, democratic and constitutional in our heritage, we acknowledge the role they played in conditioning nineteenth-century Americans, especially those with New England roots, in what might be called the Kingdom concept. As the Puritans sought God's Kingdom, so did later generations await its coming. A nation of seekers || emerged from the Puritan quest for the original Church of Christ. (pp.29-30)

From his confessional vantage point, Christianson can treat the Puritans as the water that prepared the soil for the true harvest (p.30).

The Latter-day Saint movement went on to become the kingdom of God on earth, but Puritan ideas, Puritan covenants, Puritan commitment paved the way. Both set out to serve God, and both did. Both are authentic; each fulfilled its purpose. They are as alike and as different as the terms Reformation and Restoration. (p.30)

Bibliographical Record

James Christianson, Puritanism and Mormonism: Parallel Paths, Parting of Ways, in: Donald Q. Cannon (ed), Regional Studies in Latter-day Saint Church History: New England, Provo UT (BYU), 1988, pp.15-32.

What Strauss thinks Reimarus read of the English Deists

In his description of the inspirations of Hermann Samuel Reimarus, David Friedrich Strauss mentions not only the obvious cases, such as Spinoza's Theological Political Tractatus (esp on prophecy), or Pierre Bayle's Historical Dictionary in the 1st edition, esp. on Abraham (cf. the entries on Sara and Abimelech) and King David, but a whole raft of English Deists---Strauss is clear (p.40) that the Deists were more like popular writers and journalists than scientists---to wit:

• Anthony Collins (1676-1729)
• A Discourse of Free Thinking (1713)
• A Discourse on the Grounds and Reasons of Christian Religion (1724)
• Thomas Morgan (????-1743)
• The Moral Philosopher: A Dialogue between Philaletes, a Christian Deist, and Theophanes, a Christian Jew, 3 volumes.
• Volume 1 (ed 1737), (2nd ed 1738) 
• Volume 2 (ed 1739), alternate
• Volume 3 (ed 1740), alternate
• Mathew Tindal (1653?-1733)
• Christianity as old as the Creation (ed 1730) (2nd ed 1732)
• John Toland (1670-1722)
• Christianity not Mysterious (1702) [Strauss p.41 claims the first edition was 1696]
• Tetradymus (1720)
• Thomas Woolston (????-1727)
• The Moderator between an Infidel and an Apostate (3rd ed 1729)
• Supplement: Dissertation on Daniel's Weeks (2nd ed 1729)
• Supplement: Dissertation on Prophecies cited by the Bishop of Litchfield (ed 1731)
• Discourses on the Miracles of our Savior (2nd ed 1727)

The laundry list like enumeration hides some of the dependency in these writings. For example, the 2nd volume of Morgan's Moral Philosopher was a response to John Leland's The Divine Authority of the Old and New Testament Asserted, published in London (2nd ed 1739; 4th enlarged edition of 1739 in 5 vols: volume 1, volume 2, volume 3, volume 4, volume 5), which in turn was a response to Tindal's Christianity as old as the Creation.

This presentation also hides the temporal information, which will require a separate pass to sort out.

Of course Reimarus had read more than that: Charles Blount and Shaftsbury are mentioned as well (p.42f). Blount's supposed commentary on Apollonius of Tyana of 1680 was rapidly suppressed, with the effect that few English copies are now extant. However, the French translation (by Marc Michel Rey & Jean-Louis Castilhon) and re-issue in 1779 in Amsterdam in four volumes (volume 1, volume 2, volume 4) made the notes available more widely.