Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century

by Christopher Hill

This illuminating collection of essays assesses the 17th century, interpreting what used to be called "The Puritan Revolution," the ideas which helped to produce it and resulted from it, and the relations between these ideas and the political events of the day.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, British Literature, Religion, 17th Century, Politics

378 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

John Edward Christopher Hill was the pre-eminent historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English history, and one of the most distinguished historians of recent times. Fellow historian E.P. Thompson once referred to him as the dean and paragon of English historians.

He was educated at Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II, he served in the Russian department of the British Foreign Office, returning to teach at Oxford after the war.

From 1958-1965 he was University Lecturer in 16th- and 17th-century history, and from 1965-1978 he was Master of Balliol College. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the British Academy. He received numerous honorary degrees over the course of his career, including the Hon. Dr. Sorbonne Nouvelle in 1979.

Hill was an active Marxist and a member of the Communist Party from approximately 1934-1957, falling out with the Party after the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprisings of 1956.

In their obituary, The Guardian wrote of Hill:

"Christopher Hill…was the commanding interpreter of 17th-century England, and of much else besides.…it was as the defining Marxist historian of the century of revolution, the title of one of the most widely studied of his many books, that he became known to generations of students around the world. For all these, too, he will always be the master." [http://www.theguardian.com/news/2003/...]

Reviews

[Adolfo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una Revolución y todo lo que se deriva de ella tanto a corto como largo plazo no aparece de la noche a la mañana. Existe una casuística, material en última instancia, que se va formando durante un período generalmente largo hasta que sucede el estallido. No obstante, de forma paralela a estas condiciones, surge un armazón ideológico que acaba sustentando, nutriendo e impulsando a los líderes revolucionarios y a las masas que les siguen.

En la Revolución que dio origen a nuestra era, la francesa, este papel lo llevaron a cabo los ideales de la Ilustración. Mientras que en la inglesa, una de sus predecesoras más importantes, esto recayó fundamentalmente en el puritanismo; una rama más radical de la fe protestante inspirada por el calvinismo.

Este libro expone y analiza de forma detallada y magistral esta cosmovisión, cuáles eran sus fundamentos, la interpretación que daban a su momento y a su fe. No se limita a esto, si no que se presenta, una vez que la revolución triunfó, las medidas que se tomaron, la consecución de sus objetivos, sus frustraciones y limitaciones. También algunos de los cambios que supuso y las nuevas ideas y políticas que surgieron a través de esta experiencia revolucionaria. No fueron pocas, ya que tanto el Antiguo Régimen como el Derecho Divino de los Reyes empezaron a caer aquí

Cristopher Hill hace todo esto con una narración densa. Aunque clara y accesible y con algo de humor a ratos. Consigue que queden claros tanto los hechos como los pensamientos que los produjeron. En resumen, ha cumplido con creces como historiador

[Jesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. The essays are of a very mixed quality. I was generally disappointed by how little he discusses Puritanism and the shallowness of his discussion when it did come up. When Puritanism appears, it's either a cover for bourgeois economic interest/"City on a Hill" paternalism, or radical sectarians prefiguring universal brotherhood/socialism. Where's the continuity between these? Why doesn't he ever discuss the religious beliefs of Cromwell or the Levellers?

"Recent Interpretations of the Civil War" - useful overview of the historiographical intervention Hill wants to make against the "Puritan Revolution" of Gardiner and the "declining gentry" of Trevor-Roper.

"Social and Economic Consequences of the Henrician Reformation" - English Protestantism as a land-grab of Church estates that initially benefitted the monarchy but eventually the bourgeois.

"The Norman Yoke" - very useful overview of the way the idea of the Norman Yoke changed as it was utilized by various classes in the English Revolution, continuing all the way till the late 1800s. However, I was frustrated by a number of points. I thought his citation of Lewis Henry Morgan to find an essential truth within the Norman Yoke & other Golden Age mythologies was a bit glib - I get the impulse to defend against Filmerian, “Adam as Monarch” type histories, but he could have at least found more up-to-date citations. I also thought his argument that the Norman Yoke only became a form of Anglo-Saxon chauvinism in the late 1800s, when it became appropriated by the middle class after no longer being valuable to the working class, a bit too schematic. Surely its was, even before the 1800s, tied to anti-French sentiments in England and not simply reducible to anti-absolutism or anti-Catholicism? The short treatment given to Jefferson's Anglo-Saxonism is excusable given his focus on England, but still unfortunate. It's clear that Morgan had inherited some version of Anglo-Saxonism from his American context that merged into late 19th century Aryanism, which plays into his attempts to imitate Iroquois political structures in service of a revival of American Republicanism.

"The English Revolution and the Brotherhood of Man" - He makes an odd claim here that ideas of universal brotherhood can be traced to Francis Bacon's ideas for a global community of scientists, as opposed to the Christian tradition. I guess he has trouble seeing a universalism in Protestant Christianity due to its tendency to view geopolitics through the Protestant/Catholic division, but this seems silly. Also, while attempting to justify the ideal of universal brotherhood against critiques that it comes from cynical economic motives, he makes an unfortunate argument that justifies Christian missionary work among the Native Americans for its sincerity.

"The Agrarian Legislation in the Revolution" - A summary of the Soviet Professor Arkhangelsky's studies on how Parliamentary forces extracted resources to fund the war by seizing Crown lands & Royalist estates, and then further imposing heavy taxes on landowners, forcing many into debt that could only be paid by selling their land, or at least the right to its produce, to Parliament.

"Lord Clarendon and the Puritan Revolution" - He argues that Clarendon had a basically secular analysis of the causes of the Civil War, differing from Hobbes mainly in his sympathies for the Nobility.

"William Perkins and the Poor" - Finally Hill addresses Puritanism/Calvinism directly, arguing that Perkins' social doctrines re. idleness/vagabonds/charity are fundamentally bourgeois and that Covenant Theology is a step towards making religion more Rational. I found some of his argument here re. Puritanism/Bourgeois Values a bit cliched, although I'd have trouble disagreeing on any particular point. He admits to relying heavily on R. H. Tawney's 1926 Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, so I suspect my sense of cliche comes from how influential that book must have been (seems to be a somewhat more materialistic version of Weber, not focusing on the work-ethic alone & not so restricted to English church history). Still, I got a sense that Hill was very uncomfortable talking about theology, and I found myself wanting a slightly longer view and more theologically sensitive analysis.

"The Political Sermons of John Preston" - Puritanism as anti-Spanish & anti-Catholic crusade that also served merchant interests. Some of Preston's sermons begin to covertly threaten independent action by true believers once the King & Laud sideline the Puritan war-mongers.

"Thomas Hobbes and the Revolution in Political Thought" - A much too sympathetic portrayal of Hobbes' doctrines, emphasizing how bourgeois & materialist and (hence?) rational they are.

"James Harrington and the People" - A rather brief overview of Harrington's life and thought. I hadn't realized how aristocratic his family & connections were. Rightly emphasizes how his Republicanism excluded wage-laborers/servants/apprentices from voting, although he doesn't go into other elitist aspects of Harrington's ideas, of which there are many.

"The Mad Hatter" - Roger Crab, the original mad hatter, becomes a vegetarian, wears sack-cloth, shuns the world, and generally dominates The Law of the Old Man (his fleshly body) with the Law of the Mind.

"John Mason and the End of the World" - Mason predicts the end of the world in 1696 and a community of 100-400 believers gather around him, holding property in common. Upon his death in 1694, this community decided that Mason would have a Second Coming, and the sect lasted in some form until the 1740s.

"Society and Andrew Marvell" - Marvell's poetry seems interesting, but I found Hill's analysis of it unreadable.

"Clarissa Harlowe and her Times" - An analysis of Samuel Richardson's 1741 novel Clarissa Harlowe. Hill argues that there's a sense in which the Bourgeois Revolution succeeded but the Puritan Revolution failed, so that Puritan Morality regarding marriage was not compatible with the pressures that property/inheritance put upon it, so that the novel's heroine can only find justice in the afterlife. He argues that bourgeois norms around pre-marital and marital chastity were more strict than aristocratic norms. I think he wants to blame this increased prudishness (which seems plausible enough) on changes to property/inheritance requirements, but I'm not convinced - primogeniture wasn't a bourgeois development, and he's not being very careful about distinguishing Puritan Morality from broader Lutheran/Anglican beliefs. Still, was an interesting article and Richardson's novel does seem like a great source for understanding the development of the bourgeois family.

[Will E Hazell]

I downloaded this for the chapters on Crab and Hobbes, but ended up sticking around. It’s great.

I especially enjoyed the chapter on Edward Hyde, the Earl of Clarendon. Hyde was a thoroughbred cavalier, and Civil War contemporary, who explained its causes almost without reference to religion. He believed "Religion was made a Cloak to cover the most impious designs" of the Long Parliament. It’s not exactly modern social analysis but he accidentally kicked the door open to a ‘materialist’ framing of politics.

As a Royalist, his aim was to disparage radicals (like the Levellers) as greedy discontents. But this sort of materialist social analysis seems to have really taken stride during the Civil War. Radicals such as Harrington and Winstanley, and Hobbes (famously) also thought in these terms. So how early does its history go? Earlier in the book, the author suggests that some 1600s scholars looked to Tacitus, and his analysis of the Roman Republic’s rise and fall, as part of this shared intellectual tradition. Materialism is a recurrent mode of analysis, perhaps best suited for a crisis —when ideology can no longer account for the power of an outside political class. The modern political usefulness of this type of analysis probably lies in its ability to push aside anachronisms; and imagine all struggle as contemporary struggle. But still, be wary of washing away ideology altogether. It’s worth understanding Puritan theology on its own terms. I kind of dig it.

Just thinking out loud.

“The age of reason had arrived. The age of revolutionary Puritanism, with its heroes, its passions, its eccentricities, was over... When, a century later, the lower classes raised their heads again, it was with the secular ideologies of Jacobinism, Radicalism, Chartism, Socialism…”

[Revanth Ukkalam · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an excellent use of the Marxist method to altogether shake up the historiographical presuppositions - or even well-grounded conclusions and claims of a department? Without even uttering Economic Determinism, or Historical Materialism, or Marx. And honestly without any bigotry Marxism may breed. Hill instead with definitely unparalleled sheen and with a fine sleight of the pen, reimagines the events of the Protestantisation of England by Henry VIII, the Civil War, Cromwell's Irish Policy, and Restoration as the English Revolution - one that made the much-Feudal kingdom into a nation of capitalists (here parliamentarians who backed the interests of the international corporations and traders) an essential (not necessarily a necessary; which is what a bigoted Marxist may have said) phase in pushing the Island into History. In telling this story, he is quite empathetic about literature and culture. He does not merely "use" them but reads them with sincerity: along with Hobbes, but one whom he calls the Mad Hatter (a proto-anarchist?), and Lord Clarendon (the defender of estate privileges) and William Perkins (the hater of the poor). Each is more than a mannequin. Each turns into a man.

[Daniel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A useful collection of essays on Puritanism and the English Revolution, though it lacks the holistic feel of a monograph. The chapters on William Perkins and the politics of John Preston were probably the best in the book. Christopher Hill was an open Marxist, but he was an excellent historian even if his ideology strongly influenced his analysis.

[Nate Jak · Rating 3 out of 5]

An older and more discredited account by a Marxist historian of the revolutionary dimension of the English Civil Wars and their legacy. Maintains relevance as a history of history.

[Gary · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Communist historian, Christopher Hill, is justly recognised as one of the leading authorities on the English Civil War period. His bias is obvious but honestly admitted. Where he is of chief value to Christians is his attention to detail and his honesty with the original sources.

His study of the Norman Yolk is of particular interest in these.

Liked it.

[Megan · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this for my secondary tutorial at Worcester College, Oxford (Culture, Politics, and Society in England: 1558-1660).