Providence in Early Modern England

by Alexandra Walsham

This book is the most extensive study to date of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century belief that God actively intervened in human affairs to punish, reward, and chastise. Providentialism has often been seen as a distinctive hallmark of puritan piety. However, Dr. Walsham argues that it was a cluster of assumptions that penetrated every sector of English society, cutting across the boundaries created by status, creed, education, and wealth.

Genres: History

406 pages, Paperback

First published November 18, 1999

Reviews

[Preludes · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Providence' is the idea that God has direct intervention in the care and guidance of the Earth and in human affairs. Most commonly this was conceived as the hand of God reaching down to punish or reward evildoers or the 'Godly' and indeed the notion that Early Modern people passionately believed in such a phenomena has seriously shaped popular culture's impression of them. We all can imagine the rather condescending images of historical people on TV, shrieking about witches at bad harvests, pointing out the hand of God in bad fortune to one's neighbours, and indeed the tradition still lingers in the outcries of a loud and rather rabid few about sin and retribution that follow vast natural disasters even now.

This book shows that there was more than just simple-minded hysteria and scientific ignorance at work in this culture of providence in the Early Modern period. Exploring such apparent signs of God’s wrath as monstrous births, natural disasters, suicides, astronomical anomalies and more, Walsham paints a detailed and clear picture of how the collective mindset of Early Modern Englishmen and women turned to interpreting such strange occurrences, especially when emotions were exacerbated by the Reformation and counter-reformations, which such signs became increasingly politicised. Protestants pitted themselves against Catholics in a mission to win converts, and vice-versa, each interpreting these providential ‘signs’ in differing ways to further their cause, often with impressive intellectual flexibility.

Personally, my favourite part of the book is the analysis of the story of the ‘Black Dog of Bungay’ (see below). In this story a fairly normal (if disasterous) lightning storm in 1577 which struck St Mary’s Church killed two men, seriously injured another, and destroyed the belfry. What could so easily have turned into a normal providence story that exacerbated bickering between religious factions, was almost immediately transformed into a story that intermingled with far older folklore, as the lightning storm was also joined by a ‘most horrible similitude and likenesse’ of the devil in dog-form, which wrung the neck of two victims, and gave a third ‘such a gripe on the back’ that he shrivelled like ‘a peece of leather scorched in a hot fire’. The context behind the story, where parish members previously bickered over the removal of ‘popish’ catholic features of the such and some vandalised the rood screen, the ejection of the guilty ministers from office, and the replacement with an anti-puritan leader, all added to a mutual atmosphere of hostility and distrust which germinated the story of the satanic dog.
The story is a perfect example of the nuance and extensive analysis in the book, bringing the Early Modern mindset to life in a manner that is never patronising and always revealing.

I’d certainly recommend the book for anyone interested in the mindset of people of the past, the weird and wonderful, and the English Reformation.

[Dale · Rating 4 out of 5]

A historical look at Providence. Especially relevant in light of postmodern skepticism that is currently making inroads into Christian epistemology.

This was a great read, especially in light of the current epistemological nihilism that exists in culture today.