Women in the Seventeenth-Century Quaker Community

A Literary Study of Political Identities, 1650–1700

Catie Gill

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351871969
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Crítica literaria para la literatura comparada

Focussing on Quaker pamphlet literature of the commonwealth and restoration period, Catie Gill seeks to explore and explain women's presence as activists, writers, and subjects within the early Quaker movement. Women in the Seventeenth-Century Quaker Community draws on contemporary resources such as prophetic writing, prison narratives, petitions, and deathbed testimonies to produce an account of women's involvement in the shaping of this religious movement. The book reveals that, far from being of marginal importance, women were able to exploit the terms in which Quaker identity was constructed to create roles for themselves, in public and in print, that emphasised their engagement with Friends' religious and political agenda. Gill's evidence suggests that women were able to mobilise contemporary notions of femininity when pursuing active roles as prophets, martyrs, mothers, and political activists. The book's focus on collective, Quaker identities, which arises from its analysis of multiple-authored texts, is key to its claims that gender issues have to be considered when analysing the sect's emergent system of values, and Gill assesses the representation of women in male-authored texts in addition to female writers' attitudes to agency. A bibliography that, for the first time, lists men and women's involvement as contributors as well as authors to Quaker pamphlets provides a valuable resource for scholars of seventeenth-century radicalism.

Chapter 1

Quakerism in the 1650s

A dual authored tract of 1655, by two female Quakers, enthusiastically defines the religious community’s sense of unity:

For he [God] hath fulfilled this Scripture in many thousands this day whom he hath gathered out of Anti-Christs Opinions to worship one God in one way; if you speak with ten thousand of them, they all agree, having one King, one Law giver.¹

Their understanding was overly optimistic. Quakerism in the 1650s – the main period dealt with in this book – was in the process of creating its identity, its organizational structures, and its internal leadership, even as it was rapidly altering to changing circumstances. Early Quakerism (1650–1660) presents a shifting sense of what it meant to be a Quaker, rather than the consent that is indicated above. Although this notion that Friends could ‘all agree’ is aspirational, rather than factual, the pamphlet writing of the period evidences considerable efforts to knit the Quakers together as one body. Indeed, Quaker ‘fellowship’ in the faith is a recurring theme of some women’s writings discussed below. This chapter will present a broad survey of the major developments occurring over the course of the first decade, focussing on positioning women within the movement. This overview attests to the movement’s diversity – regionally, socially, and, also, ideologically (in the sense that Quakers came to the movement from a broad range of religious sects and churches). Detailed attention is also given to the movement’s first major crisis (James Nayler’s ‘sign’ to Bristol), because this serves as an example of Quakerism’s troubled beginnings, and its history in relation to women.

The Quaker movement was in some respects typical of its era, in that the position of women within it did not amount to anything like practical equality with men. The clearest expression of a male/female divide is evidenced in the movement’s structure, with only one woman (Margaret Fell) taking an indisputedly leading role. In terms of the norms of the day, the positioning of women as followers rather than leaders is expected, and it may be more surprising that leadership was open to women in any sense. In fact, the roles adopted by many women, even though outside the Quaker inner circle of leading activists, provide evidence that women contributed significantly to the movement. The fact that a substantial number of Quaker women took on roles as preachers, prophets, and writers suggests that this religion should not be judged solely by the relative absence of women in leadership positions. The prophets Priscilla Cotton and Mary Cole, whose sense of Quaker unity opened this chapter, for instance, showed the inclusive, and potentially spiritually egalitarian, orientation of their belief as they spoke of the group’s apparent sense of collective purpose. Within this ordered society, it was relatively unusual to find a movement giving range to the controversial roles Quaker women could adopt, or professing so publicly values that would now be seen as egalitarian. Quakerism has long been represented as the religion in which women achieved their spiritual ‘apogee’.² A survey of their contributory roles – as Quaker ministers, for instance – confirms their active presence within this movement. These women’s very audacity shows that within Quakerism, something of the spiritual authority of women was being realised.

Quakerism was the fastest growing ‘sect’ of the 1650s: because it emerged so quickly, and in such tumultuous conditions, it is difficult to characterise it in a way that represents all its divergent elements. The movement’s name derives from its members’ practice of quaking in the presence of god, and it was foisted on them as a term of abuse (which may explain why quaking, as a response to a religious experience, died out as the movement became more ‘respectable’).³ The collective body is also known as the ‘Society of Friends’, and, though this term did not come into use until much later, group members did refer to themselves and each other as ‘Friends’, even from the earliest days.⁴ Arguably, because it was a movement (a term preferable to the more pejorative ‘sect’),⁵ one should not expect to find each person in full agreement as to what Quakerism represents, since movements are characteristically fairly fluid. Indeed, though it is true that by the end of the 1650s Quakerism had grown from a small band of charismatic prophets into an establishment of, perhaps, 60,000 group members, the movement in some ways remains characterisable only by its diversity.⁶ Barry Reay, for instance, terms Quakerism ‘a loose kind of fellowship with a coherent ideology and a developing code of ethics’.⁷ Although this may not be a definitive pronouncement on group identity, it seems accurate. In a movement so diverse, so quickly assembled, and so publicly prominent, the sense of what it meant to be a Quaker was bound to be rather indeterminate. Disputes amongst the distended body of the Quaker people were inevitable, and the resulting clamour over matters of identity fierce: such was the early history of the Quaker movement.

Although the contention of this book is that women played an important role in early Quakerism, it is nevertheless the case that most of the movement’s leading lights were men. The movement consisted, of course, of the full body of believers, but this mass of people was led by several key figures, including George Fox, James Nayler, Richard Farnsworth, William Dewsbury, Richard Hubberthorne, Edward Burrough, George Bishop and George Fox the Younger.⁸ The one female leader was Margaret Fell, a gentry woman from Lancashire, who attained a central role as an administrator of Quaker finances and charity, in addition to considerable public prominence through her pamphlet writing.⁹ Fell was the most prolific woman writer.¹⁰ Together, these leaders exerted considerable control over the formal definitions of the Quaker movement that this chapter will explore: organization and funding, for instance. My own sense, though, is that the focus on leaders provides only one angle; this book therefore deals more with the ordinary people than the movement’s most directive figures. Initially, however, some sense of the standing of leading Quakers is necessary to an understanding of the kind of movement it was.

The major role-players are the people who can be shown to have actively promoted the Quaker cause over periods of time, and whose ideas and experiences have come to be associated with the movement. George Fox, an artisan from Leicestershire, was fundamental to the foundation of the Quaker movement, combining as he did the skills of a preacher, writer, and, in later Quakerism especially, administrator. This account, whilst acknowledging Fox’s importance, intends to consider him alongside other figures, rather than regarding this ‘first Friend’ as the defining element in the movement. My brief overview will be necessarily selective, since the development was so rapid and happened on a comparatively large scale.

George Fox and a number of northern Quakers were central to the achievement of nation-wide Quakerism. They sought mass conversion. Initially, Quakers were known for taking their message into public places, such as markets, or for their mass rallies in natural amphitheatres such as orchards, fields or hilltops. The person most associated with these efforts of mass evangelisation is certainly Fox. He was responsible for the evangelising in Westmoreland to 1,000 people; he also preached in Malton to an audience of 200 for three or four days, where a great number of people took to his message. Fox certainly put himself forward as a leader by acting as a key spokesman in the early days. Braithwaite’s view is that ‘under the influence of half-a-dozen powerful meetings and of the personal intercourse with Fox enjoyed by his hosts, and their friends, a great company was gathered in’.¹¹

But James Nayler was also important, and the attention paid to him was nearly as constant as that given to Fox. Thus, in 1653, Francis Higginson derisively referred to ‘the seduced followers of George Fox, James Nayler &c’.¹² Nayler probably came to his Quaker beliefs without the aid of Fox, perhaps during his time serving in the army under John Lambert, and Braithwaite observes that Nayler’s account of his conversion shows that he owes nothing to Fox.¹³ Initially, when the movement was in the north, Nayler and Fox’s progress was in parallel. But when the movement spread into the south of England, from May 1654 onwards, Nayler clearly became something of a catalyst for the development of London Quakerism.¹⁴ Nayler, similarly, can be seen to have been more prominent than Fox as a rhetorician. He published more than his colleague up to 1656.¹⁵

Other important figures worked to spread the Quaker message; many formed close alliances, travelling together on ministering campaigns, and becoming identified with particular areas. Vipont sugg...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Quakerism in the 1650s
• 2 Prisoners
• 3 Petitioners
• 4 Prophets
• 5 Domestic Identities in Post-Restoration Quaker Writing
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index