England's Culture Wars

by Bernard S. Capp, Bruce Mann (Reading)

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

England's Culture Wars explores how far this agenda could be enforced, especially in urban communities which offered the greatest potential to build a godly civic commonwealth. How far were local magistrates and ministers willing to cooperate, and what coercive powers did the regime possess to silence or remove dissidents? How far did the reformers themselves wish to go, and how did they reconcile godly reformation with the demands of decency and civility? Music and dancing lived on, in genteel contexts, early opera replaced the plays now forbidden, and puritans themselves were often fond of hunting and hawking. Bernard Capp explores the propaganda wars waged in press and pulpit, how energetically reformation was pursued, and how much or little was achieved. Many recent historians have dismissed interregnum reformation as a failure. He demonstrates that while the reforming drive varied enormously from place to place, its impact could be powerful. The book is therefore structured in three parts: setting out the reform agenda and challenges, surveying general issues and patterns, and finally offering a number of representative case-studies. It draws on a wide range of sources, including local and central government records, judicial records, pamphlets, sermons, newspapers, diaries, letters, and memoirs; and demonstrates how court records by themselves give us only a very limited picture of what was happening on the ground.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

MP3 CD

First published June 13, 2012

Reviews

[Josh Friedlander · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a serious history book, for historians! It focuses narrowly on its topic, and assumes familiarity with things like Pride's Purge and bridewells, and wastes zero words explaining its political background: the appointment of Cromwell as protector of the Commonwealth, and later Charles II's Restoration. Luckily the story of this period, and specifically the kulturkampf over "godly Reformation" is fascinating (also luckily, Wikipedia exists). The Puritans and other Nonconformists had suffered persecution for a long time, and with the Commonwealth's founding they began trying to implement a Bible-based theocracy, cancelling Easter and Christmas(!), punishing people who desecrated the Sabbath with things like taking walks for pleasure, and generally being the fun-hating zealots popular culture remembers them as. The general view of things is that their Reformation failed and the people gleefully accepted the return of the Stuarts (and began writing the bawdiest of theatrical comedies). Capp's thesis is: not quite. Bringing a myriad of colourful, delightful details from the period, he portrays a fragile state whose representatives were nonetheless able to achieve quite a lot in repressing their religious rivals (such so-called "white sinners" took precedence for them over the pedestrian fornicating/cursing/ale-drinking "black sinners") and laid the ground for their toleration in England in the coming centuries. Many Presbyterian preachers were able to find common ground with the religious revival of the Puritans, and even some Cavalier aristocrats were won over to Cromwell fandom. (One such erected a statue of Cromwell in his garden; after the Restoration he moved it to his basement.) Although not successful in their aim of establishing a state in concord with the Bible, the Puritans left a strong mark on English culture that lasted well beyond the Reformation. But the bulk of this book is an image of a hard-drinking, bull-baiting, Sabbath-cricket-playing people's resistance to a godly Reformation they had neither asked for nor desired.

[Carl Johnson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernard Capp, a noted social historian of the Commonwealth era, provides here a detailed survey of various local and national programs of social reform, their mixed support, and their consequently mixed success.

[Jason Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This a chronicle of life in Cromwell’s England: the towns that did and didn’t embrace the regime and the eternal tussle between local and national government.

It’s well written and balanced - we see a regime that was harsh and unequal at times but in other ways promoted better poor relief and education and dealt with issues such as child abuse promptly and fairly. Modern church take note! On the other hand fornication laws and the gradually softening Christmas ban made enemies .

We tend to draw a simple distinction between republican puritans and royalist hedonists but it wasn’t that simple. People are more complex in their views.

Theatre was largely discouraged, music was not. There was no alcohol ban but crack downs on ale houses whose denizens could cause massive disorder and violence were often not unwelcome.

Whatever we think, and while elements of it are too harsh for me I have massive respect for Puritan theological achievements and desire for purity of worship, this was an era not without positives .

Via Audible

[Peter Dunn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have always been intrigued by the 17th century civil wars and their aftermath. The politics, religion and society of the times are as interesting as the battles and Bernard Capp is a consistently insightful historian of the religion and society of those times (as well as producing a great study of the Cromwellian navy). This book shows that trying to produce a major reformation of society was a damned sight harder than overthrowing a king, though it wasn’t for want of trying.