Puritanism and Social Control

During the seventeenth century, England saw the rise of Puritanism as a large minority within the governmental system. Both before and after the Civil War, Puritans were trying to implement social control, regulating the behaviors of individuals or the community as a whole. Through use of legislation and societal pressures, puritan leaders led a movement that strived for rooting out the ungodly natures and individuals of England. Aided by economic struggles, Puritan ideas of social control spread throughout England during the seventeenth century.

Sixteenth and seventeenth century England suffered from a number of economic struggles; the population of the country had doubled (Wrightson, 122). Wrightson speculated that “a decline in the incidence and virulence of the bubonic plague in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries may have triggered off the population rise of the sixteenth century” (123). This overpopulation caused agricultural prices to go up and wages to go down. For elites, “their control of land presented splendid opportunities for those of the possessed of sufficient initiative to profit from both the land hunger and the rising prices of the time” (130). This coupled with the rise of the middle class because of the supplying of food and supplies to ever-growing cities, caused a social polarization to occur in England (126). Those who depended on wages were soon impoverished, migrating to urban areas out of necessity (128). Archer explains that “the policing of the capital was becoming more intense in the later 1580s and 1590s when social problems escalated and poverty assumed more threatening forms” which can be seen by the numerous food riots that occurred (229). With the rise of poverty came the rise of alehouses and fornication, possibly to heal the pain of the poor’s economic state. Therefore, the elite began to fear the potential of the poor to bring degradation upon the masses. Although these economic conditions probably hastened the need for a moral revision in society, it seems as though Puritanism really provided the push for English society to eradicate itself of sin.

Puritans believed that the godliest communities enforced a strict sense of discipline in all aspects of the community. Discipline was incredibly important to the puritan lifestyle. Not only did puritans expect a godly morality from the individuals, but they wanted discipline in the community to avoid the wrath of God. They believed that when a community sinned, God would punish them by means such as a plague or drought. Puritans also believed it was their calling to enforce this movement of morality, considering themselves ‘the elect’, a term meaning that God chose them since the beginning of time to join him in Heaven, otherwise known as predestination. As Underdown explains, “Puritans enforced discipline with a special conviction because they believed that as God’s elect they had the singular duty of advancing His kingdom during these ‘last days’ before the millennium, when Satan’s agents were so conspicuously aggressive” (108). They believed “it was their mission, as members of God’s appointed elect, to transform the disorderly, ill governed town…into a reformed, disciplined more truly godly community” (90). This can be seen in Underdown’s study of Dorchester, a leading puritan town that was deeply submerged in this godly movement (108). The local preacher John White spoke that “[t]hey vowed to reform themselves through ‘the true and pure worship of God’ by ‘catechiz[ing] and examin[ing] their families’” (91). Self-reflection was common in puritan society, urging people to see the sin in their lives and eradicate it. White also believed that “[i]f sin and poverty were to be overcome, the first requirement was to impose discipline of the undisciplined, to force the sinful to live orderly, virtuous lives” (85). By looking at Dorchester, one can speculate the changes going on around the country.

Puritans implemented their beliefs on different tiers of society. While the smallest tier would be self-reflection, this was reinforced by household discipline. Ian Archer comments that, “[t]he household stood in the front line of maintenance of order throughout early modern English society” (215). The Protestant family was very patriarchal and enforced by legal means, usually allowing parents to discipline their children publicly (Underdown, 101). For example, “[c]hildren found guilty of minor offences were often ordered to be chastised by their parents, either at home or publically in the Town Hall” (101). Along with the immediate family, masters and servants held the same status as a parent and child. Masters were relied upon to discipline their servants (Archer, 216). This paternal responsibility is shown by the requirement of masters “to pay the costs of maintaining the illegitimate offspring of their servants on the grounds that such a breach of the patriarchal order was the result of their neglect” (216). This implements the idea of discipline in the household was the local, intimate way of controlling society.

Puritan ideas of discipline were also enforced on a wider scale. Locally, Dorchester “employed a variety of officers to keep the peace and bring offender to justice” (Underdown, 95). On a broader scale, the puritan movement had great power in the national government. They did such things as “called for days of public thanksgiving in order that the nation could publically display its gratitude of God” and regulating what people could do on the Sabbath day, believing that it “should be given over exclusively to a round of private and public religious exercises” (Durtson 213). In September 1641, puritan MPs actually declared that dancing and sports should be restrained on the Sabbath (214). This was followed by a “1642 ordinance which closed the London theatres,” which puritans believed led to shenanigans and sin (217). In 1645, a new legislation was passed called the Directory for Public Worship that declared that “Festival days, vulgarly called holy days, having no warrant in the Word of God, are not to be continued” (211). The Rump Parliament even went so far as to pass an Adultery Act in 1650, imposing the death penalty on anyone found guilty of adultery (217). Puritans were willing to use every powerful weapon in the arsenal, curving the legislation of the times to fit their goal of a City on a Hill.

Puritans also resorted to more societal pressures. As Underdown states, “[m]oral standards were up held by the formal actions of authorities, but also by the informal pressures of gossip and rumor” (100). He gives the example of Joyce Yeomans, who claimed she saw Margaret Richardson, a maid, and John Edwards, a gardener, go into a chalk alcove. She told her friend Joan Maudit, implying some scandalous sexual activity between the two individuals. She continued to repeat this story at the rectory center and “[w]ord was soon passed on to the magistrates, who promptly investigated the incident” (101). This shows how a simple rumor could lead to an investigation and how neighbors were always watching for signs of sin, in this case fornication. This atmosphere would have a large effect on the pressures form the community to remain sinless and also deplete the amount on privacy one had to commit these sins.

The Puritans had many ways of publically punishing someone for sin. In every town, and certainly several in every city, stocks were erected to publically embarrass someone for their sin. Usually this was used for drunkenness (Underdown, 98). There was also a prison system. In Dorchester, there was the Blindhouse, which was more of a lock-up for drunks (98). Then, there was the House of Correction, also known as Bridewell, which was a “cross between a workhouse and a prison” where “idle or immoral people were sent to be disciplined and reformed” (98). Finally there was the County Gaol, where religion was enforced on the prisoners and “[i]t gave business to local traders” such as Joseph Purchase who held the baker’s contract in 1632 (99). While these institutions of puritan reform were a benefit for some, others tried to get out of their duties to the community.

In many towns, the constables and officers of the town would rotate between householders. In Dorchester, “constables were drawn from the upper and middling ranks of the town hierarchy,” however, “[i]n practice, the wealthy usually paid for substitutes” (Underdown, 96). There was much corruption among the officers in the town. Underdown describes several examples, speaking of an incident where “some watchmen were totally demoralized by a group of countrymen from the Sherborne area…[who] hospitably offered them a jug of beer” (96). They took the offer up and soon their colleagues came to join them, even though all of these watchmen were supposed to be suppressing drunken behavior (96). It is incidents like this that make one question whether the puritan push for moral reform really succeeded in England.

Overall, it looks as though most results point to a failure on the account of the puritan reformers. With a lack of support from local officials, such as the watchmen discussed earlier, coupled with the people’s attachment to the traditional ways, social control by the puritans seemed to have been defeated (Durston, 222). Neglect from local officers completely undermined any of the actions that the central government was taking in order to preserve the godly society they envisioned. Durston explains that “[m]any puritans were well aware that the role of these local officers was crucial and as the 1650s progressed they became increasingly frustrated by the failure of the great majority of them to embrace the reform work wholeheartedly (221). He further discusses the low level of indictment in such towns as Warwickshire (220). Even if the crime was reported, sometimes the local clergy rebelled against the puritans which can be seen in the example in November 1656 when “John Witcombe of Barton St David in Somerset was placed in his village stocks for persistent swearing. His local ministers, who might have been expected to have approved of the punishment… publically declared that the punishment was illegal” (221). Another example of this is in Middlesex, twenty-five out of twenty-seven individuals were charged with adultery, but “[t]he fact that the Middlesex JPs imprisoned some of those they had acquitted… may suggest that they believed that they had in fact committed the offence, but did not wish to invoke the act’s draconian penalty” (220). The resistance of these public officials showed insight into the resistance by the people against the strict Puritan legislation.

The greatest amount of resistance shown by the English people revolved around the banning or toning down of traditional feast days, especially Christmas. Durston explains that “[d]espite the succession of orders to the contrary, the vast majority of shops and businesses remained closed on 25 December and most of the population continued to indulge in their traditional feasting and celebrating” (223). He gives examples of Christmas being observed in full taverns and taphouses (223). Sometimes the resistance turned violent. In 1647, “in London, a mob attacked the mayor and his marshals as they attempted to remove Christmas decorations from the city conduit in Cornhill” (224). There was an event in Canterbury where Christmas Day rioters took control of the city for more than a week (224). Naturally, “Ezekial Woodward, the puritan minister of Bray in Berkshire, complained in exasperation that Christmas was still widely observed and that ‘the people go on holding fast to their heathenish customs’” (224). Fast days and Sabbaths were also widely religiously neglected, but greeted with a beer in hand.

Drinking was a major problem with the puritans as they saw it as a gateway to other sins such as fornication, swearing, and adultery. This can be seen as the “puritan Edward Curl was angered by the excessive drinking in Queen Camel in Somerset in the early 1650s, and one Wiltshire churchwarden complained in 1652 that his parishioners were addicted to drinking” (Durston, 230). In puritan Dorchester, major purges of alehouses took place in February and October of 1631 and May of 1632, “yet none of this activity permanently reduced the number of unlicensed alehouses” (Underdown, 104). It seems as though the puritans were no where near eliminating drinking from English society.

However, not all was a failure in the protestant movement. Underdown comments that “[o]ne of the reformers’ most striking successes was the enforcement of regular church attendance” (106). This can be proven through the supply records of one of the churches in Dorchester which showed that the quantity of wine consumed each year would be enough for six hundred recipients at each communion (106). The puritans also succeeded in the realm of sexual habits. In Trinity parish in Dorchester there are “reasonably complete records of births, marriages, and deaths” that have survived, with which “we can chart changes in the frequency of illegitimate births” and pregnant brides, a sure sign of fornication (106- 107). Soon after 1600 there was decline of both illegitimacy and pre-marital intercourse (107). Underdown explains that “[i]n both respects Dorchester followed the national trend, but in a greatly exaggerated fashion” (107). England had seen a peak of bastardy in Elizabeth’s reign, yet began a steady decline at the end of the sixteenth century (107). Underdown also comments that the change in Dorchester occurred soon after John White’s arrival in the parish (107). This alludes to the idea that Puritanism was the reason for this shift in morality. However, Durston points out that Wrightson “argued convincingly that this was not caused by a reduction in fornication but by deficiencies in the registration system” (Durston, 231). Nevertheless, these minor successes are incredibly overshadowed by the impression of corruption, apathy, and resistance among the English people.

Puritanism offered many ways for society to regulate itself into a better state of morality, however it ultimately failed. Although the movement saw a number of legislative means to attempt to curve the moral laxity of the masses, the people were too attached to traditional practices for them to take a major effect. This was aided by the lack of support of local officials who usually met this legislation with apathy or even outright resistance. It seems as though Puritanism pushed the people too far, causing them to revert to the middle ground between the old and the new.