Puritans

Puritans

strictly religious and morally disciplined colonists. [Am. Hist.: Payton, 551]

See : Discipline

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Puritans

English Protestants of the second half of the 16th century and first half of the 17th who were followers of Calvinism. They were dissatisfied with the half-hearted reformation carried out in England under Anglicanism.

The Puritans demanded the abolition of the episcopate and its replacement with elected elders (presbyters), the elimination of ornamentation from the churches, replacement of the mass with a sermon, and simplification of certain church rituals and abolition of others (that is, the establishment of an “inexpensive” church answering to the interests of bourgeois circles). The “secular ethic” of the Puritans encouraged thrift, economy, reverence for wealth, contempt for poverty, and diligence. The Puritans were remarkable for their fearlessness and tenacity in the pursuit of their aims, for their religious fanaticism, and for their confidence in their own “predestination.”

In the 1580’s and 1590’s and especially in the early 17th century, the Puritans were persecuted by the government, and many fled to the Continent (mainly to Holland) or to North America. As the crisis of the feudal-absolutist regime in England deepened in the first half of the 17th century, the social composition and religiopolitical convictions of the Puritans became more complex. The ideas of Puritanism found wide support both among the gentry and among the lower strata of society. Puritanism became an expression of political opposition to absolutism and the ideological banner of the English Civil War of the 17th century. The complexity of the socioreligious composition and religious views of the Puritans (among whom two distinct movements emerged as early as the beginning of the 17th century—the Presbyterians and Independents) led to a sharp conflict during the revolution within the “Puritan” camp in Parliament.

The Puritans played an important role in the English colonies in North America, where the Puritan colonies of New England became centers for new bourgeois forms of society.

REFERENCES

Angliiskaia burzhuaznaia revoliutsiia XVII v., vols. 1–2. Moscow, 1954.
Shtokmar, V. V. “Puritanskoe dvizhenie 70–80 gg. XVI v. v Anglii.” Uch. zap. LGU: Seriia ist. nauk, 1956, issue 21, no. 192.
Samoilo, A. S. Angliiskie kolonii v Severnoi Amerike v XVII v., ch. 3. Moscow, 1963.
Eusden, J. D. Puritans, Lawyers and Politics in Early Seventeenth Century England. New Haven, 1958.
Haller, W. Liberty and Reformation in the Puritan Revolution. New York-London [1963].