Christian Humanism and the Puritan Social OrderTraditional views of puritan social thought have done a great injustice to the intellectual history of the sixteenth century. They have presented puritans as creators of a disciplined, progressive, ultimately revolutionary theory of social order. The origins of modern society and politics are laid at the feet of zealous English protestants whose only intellectual debts are owed to Calvinist theology and the Bible. Professor Todd demonstrates that this view is fundamentally ahistorical. She places puritanism back in its own historical milieu, showing puritans as the heirs of a complex intellectual legacy, derived no less from the Renaissance than from the Reformation. The focus is on puritan social thought as part of a sixteenth-century intellectual consensus. This study traces the continuity of Christian humanism in the social thought of English protestants. |
Contents
Introduction The demythologizing of puritanism | 1 |
Christian humanism as social ideology | 22 |
The transmission of Christian humanist ideas | 53 |
The spiritualized household | 96 |
Work wealth and welfare | 118 |
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Adages ancient Anglican argued Aristotelian Aristotle Arminianism authority Batty beggars behavior biblical bishops Bodl Bucer Cambridge Catholic charity Christ Christian humanism Christian humanists Christopher Hill church Cicero classical clerical College common weal Commonplace book commonwealth conformist conscience Counter-Reformation criticism curriculum discipline doctrine early modern early Stuart Elizabethan England English Erasmian Erasmus godly Greek Harl hierarchy historians household humanist social idleness individual Institutio instruction intellectual J. H. Hexter Jesuits John Laud Laudian logic London McConica medieval moral More's notebooks notes obedience Oxford passim Perkins Plutarch political poor relief poverty preachers prince protestant protestantism puritan Quintilian quoted Ramus reform reformist Religion religious Renaissance Richard Samuel Ward scholastic scholasticism Scriptures Seneca sermons seventeenth seventeenth-century sixteenth century social order social theory social thought society spiritual St John's Starkey texts theological Thomas tradition Treatise Trent Tridentine University Utopia Vives wealth William William Perkins