“She-Preachers” and Female teachers in puritan new england
Good wife or witch? The choices for 17th century women were few, as those writing history saw it. Witches dancing in a circle with demons, in a 1720 woodcut. Credit: Wellcome
Dr. Bremer originally presented this paper at a seminar entitled “Women and Sermons in the Early Modern Anglo-Atlantic World,” held by the Congregational Library & Archive on March 22, 2023. Other presenters included Jeanne Shami and Anne James, who explored the treasures of the Early Modern Manuscript Sermons (GEMMS) archive, and Tricia Peone of the Congregational Library, who discussed how the library’s New England’s Hidden History collection sheds light on women in early New England. It’s a superb presentation, full of original insight and remarkable documents - watch it here!
Too often 17th century women have been depicted either as the "good wives" discussed by Laurel Ulrich, or as dissidents or deviants like Mary Dyer and the Salem witches.[1] It is a perspective that ignores the role that many women played in shaping and perpetuating religious culture, and particularly puritanism.
The reasons for this neglect are both the fact that women were commonly omitted in the historical records kept in the early modern era, but also the way in which early historians presented the past. As was the case with the role of the laity in general, the earliest histories of the movement were written by clergy such as Cotton Mather and Daniel Neal, who were both architects and beneficiaries of a shift of authority within the churches to male clerical leadership, a shift that was clear by the late seventeenth century.[2] Such clerical historians presented women as disrupters rather than contributors to the faith. Historians writing in later centuries found the views of Mather, Neal and others persuasive.
Rebels or contributors?
In our own time appreciation of women's role in the puritan movement has been further hindered by the fact that many modern scholars discount or dismiss the spiritual dimensions of the past and choose to examine assertive women as using religion to express social, economic, or personal desires, thus almost inevitably depicting them as "rebels" against rather than contributors to their society.[3] The result of all this is, as David Como has expressed it, that "Despite recent advances, we remain in many ways ignorant of the precise manner in which women fit into the community of the godly."[4]
Pick up most books that touch on the subject and you will find the author pointing to St. Paul's charge to the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 14) that "Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says." Because the religious leaders of the Reformation stressed the authority of the scriptures, most historians accept Paul's position as definitive for the period, making women who defied this lesson deviants. But some reformers pointed out at the time, and modern biblical scholarship has underlined, that this ignores the fact that Paul's views were not consistent and that other biblical authorities offered different views.[5] Those supporting the right of women to teach often cited, for example, Joel 2. 28: "I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy."
“the starting point is the puritan insistence that all christians - women and men - should read the bible.”
The starting point for properly understanding women's role is the puritan insistence that all Christians - women as well as men - should seek God's truth by reading the Bible. They believed that the Holy Spirit would guide those who were elect to open the true meaning of the scriptures.[6] Because this guidance might come to women as well as men there were puritans who argued that women could play important roles in shaping the faith of others. It was, for instance, the duty of mothers to supervise the religious upbringing both of their children and of servants within their household.[7] As one scholar has pointed out, this "encouraged mothers to assume such traditionally ministerial roles as the explanation of religious doctrine, the explication of scriptural passages, and the interpretation of complex devotional treatises.”[8] Godly mothers also commented on the sermons they listened to in the parish church, correcting for her children those points made by a preacher whose views she disagreed with.[9]
Image: Ann Pollard, age 100 at the time this portrait was painted, claimed to have arrived in Massachusetts with the Winthrop Fleet in 1630. Like other Puritan women, she would have been literate and able to read her Bible. Credit: Collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society
Women noted for their skill in understanding the scripture often provided their insight to a group of fellow believers, becoming, as Michael Ditmore has put it, "'prophetical spirits' capable of enlightening their neighbors."[10] They might meet in a private home in what puritans referred to as a "conference," and the authorities labelled a "conventicle." In England, Bridgit Cooke held such gatherings in her home in the town of Kersey, near John Winthrop's Groton, and it is likely that Anne Hutchinson did so in the English town of Alford before her emigration.[11] The justification of the practice, in or out of church, was that the Holy Spirit led the individual to understand a relevant passage of Scripture and the believer was called to share this. Those who encouraged women to do this pointed to scriptural examples, such as the four daughters of Philip the evangelist, "virgins which did prophesy."[12] On occasion, notably in England during the mid-17th century, such conferences could lead to women playing a key role in the formation of an independent congregation, as was the case with the organization of the Broadmead church in Yarmouth.[13]
The right to speak
Some puritan clergy believed that women had a right to speak in church, at least to share their own religious experiences for the edification of the congregation. As discussed by the Pilgrim minister John Robinson and others, the gift of prophesying allowed a lay person to speak in a church meeting to ask a question, provide their insight on a passage of scripture or matter of faith, or to share their own religious experience.[14]
A full study of women in puritanism must include women such as Susanna Bell, Anne Fenwick, and the women who shared their faith with members of Thomas Shepard's Cambridge, Massachusetts, congregation.[15] A few puritans went beyond allowing women to speak and gave them the right to participate in the election of ministers, a notable example being the women of the English church in Rotterdam, who were asked in 1633 to vote in the election of Hugh Peter as their minister.[16] And some churches chose women to serve as officers, as female deacons, sometimes labelled "widows."[17] If women were justified in sharing their faith within the household and in their congregations, there were also those who did so more publicly. In her study of Visionary Women Phyllis Mack listed "243 girls and women whose actions or writings came to the attention of the authorities, the reading public, or the leaders of the movement and hence to the notice of the historian."[18]
“Most historical studies suggest that women were condemned when they attempted to teach men. This is misleading.”
The fact is that there were recognized roles in which women could express their views and thus help shape the religious movements which they were part of. An equally important point is that in England and in puritan New England women who addressed religious matters in these fashions found audiences that included men. Most historical studies suggest that women were condemned outright when they attempted to teach men. But this is misleading. Though it is impossible to document every case, it is clear that within puritan congregations women frequently shared their views with an audience that included men.
“God might…reveal the mysteries of religion…to women.”
We don't know how many women actually were allowed to prophesy during congregational meetings, but the fact that John Robinson allowed for the practice makes it likely that women at least occasionally spoke before the entire congregation during the prophesyings that followed regular services in the Leiden church.[19] Robinson had written that women "may make profession of faith, or confession of sin, say amen to the churches prayers, sing psalms vocally, accuse a brother of sin, witness an accusation, or defend themselves being accused." He went further, writing that "in a case extraordinary, namely when no man will, I see not but a woman may reprove the church, rather than suffer it to go on in apparent wickedness."[20] The members of that congregation likely brought that practice to the Plymouth Colony, and the number of women there who owned not only Bibles but other religious works lends support to the idea that they did play such roles.[21]
While we don't know what roles women played in the activities of the Boston church, we do know that John Cotton believed that "God doth sometime reveal the greatest mysteries of religion not always to men of eminent parts and gifts, but sometimes to women."[22] And when a vote was taken in that church regarding the treatment of those who had left the congregation to follow Anne Hutchinson, Cotton asked "I would know how far the wives do consent or dissent from their husbands?"[23]
John and Margaret Winthrop’s letters to each other testify to a deep mutual respect, even as Margaret signed herself “a faythful and obedient wife.” Credit: Francis J. Bremer
Women as well as men made public professions of their faith and spiritual progress. Some congregations may have required such statements from those seeking membership in the church, though I have argued elsewhere that the primary purpose of such professions was to edify.[24] But the fact is that it was common for women as well as men to share their spiritual journey. In Dorchester, Massachusetts' Roger Clap described how members of that church shared "before all the assembly their experiences of the workings of God's Spirit in their hearts" and that "many hearers found very much good by [this], to help them to try their own hearts."[25] The narratives offered in Thomas Shepard's Cambridge Massachusetts congregation include those of 31 women.[26] In England, the Dublin puritan clergyman John Rogers published the narratives of male and female members of his church.[27] Vavassor Powell published a collection of Spiritual Experiences of Sundry Believers (1651/2).[28] Men were present to hear and learn from the women when they shared such experiences.
“two female london preachers in the 1640s attracted over 1,000 listeners.”
Outside of formal church meetings there were conferences in which believers discussed matters of faith. Such sessions were an important aspect of puritan practice. Those we know about included men as well as women and some - such as those held by Brigit Cooke in England and Anne Hutchinson in New England - were led by women.[29] In the Plymouth colony while he lived there, the maverick Samuel Gorton presided over such a conference in his home in which the wife of the minister Ralph Smith participated.[30] The men who attended were open to learning from women saints.
Some women went beyond sharing their views with a group of fellow saints. In the 1640s the English Presbyterian Thomas Edwards complained of numerous women who were preaching publicly in London and elsewhere.[31] It was claimed that two female London preachers in the 1640s attracted over 1,000 listeners, pointing to the interest many, and presumably not all women, had in hearing their message.[32] Many of the over 200 women listed by Mack in Visionary Women were preaching to audiences that included men. Such preaching has been described as "one of the most distinctive roles seized by women during the turbulent 1640s and 1650s."[33]
Anne Hutchinson: men in the audience
The story of how New England men reacted to women who offered their religious insight needs to be revisited, starting with the case of Anne Hutchinson. By focusing on her banishment and the scorn levelled on her by John Winthrop and his peers, we miss some important points. For a time after her arrival Hutchinson was conducting conferences in her home (what Winthrop called a "double-weekly lecture") that attracted "fifty, sixty, or eighty at once," where she would offer comment on points made in sermons and in the scriptures.[34] The meetings included men as well as women and yet, prior to Thomas Shepard raising an alarm about the ideas circulating in the Boston church, there were no complaints about the meetings.
“a wise and anciently religious woman.”
In the aftermath of this crisis, other New England women also espoused religious positions that challenged the positions taken by most of the clergy. Lady Deborah Moody, who had become convinced that there was no scriptural basis for infant baptism, emigrated to New England in 1639 and joined Hugh Peters' congregation in Salem in the following year. John Winthrop referred to her as "a wise and anciently religious woman." In 1642 she was accused of holding anabaptist beliefs. Various clergy engaged her in discussions to convince her of her errors, but without success. In 1643 she decided to leave the colony to avoid further trouble, and settled in the Dutch portion of Long Island, where she founded the town of Gravesend.[37]
The gravestone of Elizabeth Phillips, midwife in Charlestown, Massachusetts, provides a rare example of a woman’s profession being noted publicly. Phipps Burial Ground. Credit: Sarah Stewart
Equally important is the fact that in her civil trial Hutchinson was not summarily silenced but given the opportunity to engage with the male magistrates and the clergy present in debating the meaning of scriptural passages found in the biblical books of Titus, Corinthians, Ephesians, Hebrews, Jeremiah, and Daniel.[35] Then, after the edict of banishment, while awaiting her separate trial before the Boston church, she was visited by several clergymen who tried to persuade her of her errors, exchanging with her different interpretations of key scriptural passages. Both before and during that church trial John Davenport in particular was involved in debating with her the meaning of scripture in an effort to persuade her of her errors. In that trial John Cotton initially engaged her in discussion of passages from Ecclesiastes concerning her views on the death of the soul; that discussion, which John Wilson and John Eliot joined and in which Davenport soon took the lead, also involved references to passages in Matthew, Luke, Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians, Romans and other books. The clergy did not simply dismiss her as a woman and instruct the other congregants as to her errors; they engaged her in what was in essence a scholarly discussion.[36] And a substantial number of male as well as female colonists followed her into exile in Rhode Island, where we may assume that she continued to share with them her understanding of the faith.
Infant baptism and women’s dissent
On her way to the Dutch colony in 1643 Lady Moody stopped in New Haven, where she spent time with Anne Eaton, the wife of that colony's governor Theophilus Eaton. The two women may have known each other in London before they emigrated, and, like Moody, Anne Eaton may have been exposed to Baptist views in that city's puritan community. When the two spent time together in New Haven, Anne became convinced that there was no scriptural justification for infant baptism. In a separate matter, reports were then circulating in the town that suggested Anne Eaton had been guilty of domestic violence against members of her household. John Davenport, the pastor of the New Haven church, was forced to bring charges relating to the abuse before his congregation in July 1644. The governor's wife was eventually excommunicated on the charges of domestic abuse, but there is another, less familiar part of her story, that is of interest.
Having discussed the topic of baptism with Anne Eaton, Lady Moody had lent her friend a copy of Andrew Rittor's recently published A Treatise of the Vanity of Childish Baptism (1643). Anne proceeded to "read [the work] secretly, and as secretly engaged her spirit in that way." On a Sabbath morning in late 1643 or early 1644 Anne Eaton rose from her favored position in the front of the meetinghouse as the congregation was preparing for the Lord's Supper and she walked out of the church. That afternoon she absented herself from an infant's baptism. The New Haven church held regular Tuesday evening conferences where members could discuss matters of faith. Some of the attendees asked that Eaton explain her behavior and she set forth her concerns about infant baptism. The result was a dialogue in which a woman was expressing and defending views that were different from orthodox understanding.
Davenport attempted to persuade Anne Eaton of the validity of infant baptism. He addressed her concerns in the parish conference sessions. He borrowed her copy of Rittor's book and preached a series of sermons refuting its points. During one of these sermons Anne was heard to say "it is not so" after a point he made. Anne Eaton was excommunicated for her acts of domestic violence but not charged before the church with her possibly heretical views on baptism. Never banished from the town, she was provided a bench outside the meetinghouse doors where she could still listen to sermons in the hope that she would become reconciled to the congregation. Once again puritan clergy and other males were willing to engage a woman in debates over scripture rather than simply dismissing her.[38]
Image: Notes made by the Rev Thomas Shepard, Congregational minister in Cambridge, Massachusetts, from Jane Holmes’ relation of faith. Credit: Thomas Shepard’s confessions, Mss 553, R. Stanton Avery Special Collections, New England Historic Genealogical Society
There is no evidence that any women entered a pulpit or its equivalent to preach in seventeenth century New England. The story is different in England, where as noted previously the collapse of many norms during the 1640s led to numerous women formally preaching. That this is an opportunity which some New England women may have wished for. This was certainly the case with Sarah Dudley. She was the daughter of Thomas Dudley, the first deputy governor of Massachusetts, who was referred to by his other daughter, the poet Anne Dudley Bradstreet as being "to sectaries, a whip and a maul." All of the Dudleys, including Sarah, may have known the Hutchinson family in England if, as is generally believed, the Hutchinsons journeyed into Boston, Lincolnshire to hear John Cotton preach. The Dudleys certainly had contacts with Hutchinson when they all found themselves in Massachusetts, and it is tempting to wonder if Sarah had ever joined the conference of believers that had met in Anne's home.
“My she cousin is… a great preacher”
In 1639 Sarah married Benjamin Keayne, the son of the Boston merchant Robert Keayne. In 1642 Benjamin travelled to England to represent his father's business interests and Sarah soon followed. In London she embraced the newfound freedoms that were available to women and in 1646 Stephen Winthrop, John's son and a serving officer in Cromwell's army, wrote to his father that "my she cousin Keayne is grown a great preacher." Her marriage had fragmented during this period and her husband noted that she had fallen into errors of judgment as well as practices that included "breach of the conjugal knot." Sarah returned to New England later in 1646, where the influence of her father and father-in-law was likely behind a decision by the colony's General Court to dissolve her marriage rather than grant a divorce that would have prevented either her or her husband from remarrying. However, in October 1647 the First Church of Boston excommunicated her, in part for "irregular prophesying in mixed assemblies."[39] While possibly referring to her actions in England, it could be an indication that she continued to preach in New England.
Clearly there is an argument for reopening the story of women in the puritan world. Females as well as males were expected to read the scriptures. All who were elect, regardless of gender, could receive inspiration from the Holy Spirit that would enable them to have insight into the meanings of biblical passages, and they were allowed to, indeed encouraged, to share those insights in a variety of ways. While there were clear limits on the political, social, and economic roles that women could play, in puritan religious communities they were allowed to express themselves and did so in a variety of ways -- in writings, within private mixed-gender conferences, by offering testimonies of their spiritual progress, by prophesying in church meetings, and occasionally by formal preaching. This was not as exceptional as is commonly assumed, and, equally important, their audiences included men who were receptive to their teachings.
[1] Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England 1650-1750 (Vintage, 1971).
[2] Cotton Mather, Magnalia Christi Americana (1702) and Daniel Neal, The History of the Puritans or Protestant Non-Conformists(1732). This was linked to the professionalization of the clergy, something that Kate Narveson finds began late in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. See Narveson, Bible Readers and Lay Writers in Early Modern England: Gender and Self-Definition in an Emergent Writing Culture (Ashgate, 2012), 5-6.
[3] A prime example is Lyle Koehler's Search for Power: The Weaker Sex in Seventeenth Century New England (University of North Carolina Press, 1980). For comment on failure to appreciate the religious dimension of women see Michael Kaufmann, "Post-Secular Puritans: Recent Retrials of Anne Hutchinson," Early American Literature 45 (2010, )45; Hilary Hinds, God's Englishwoman: Seventeenth-Century Radical Sectarian Writings and Feminist Criticism Manchester, 1996), 2-3; and Sarah Apetrei, Women, Feminism and Religion in Early Enlightenment England Cambridge, ENG: 2010), 42. Apetrei notes, however, that language of a "religious turn" had been recently found in studies of early modern English literature (n. 138).
[4] David R. Como, “Women, Prophecy, and Authority in Early Stuart Puritanism,” Huntington Library Quarterly, 61 (1989), 203.
[5] Diarmaid MacCulloch, A History of Christianity (London, 2009), 117. John Barton, A History of the Bible: A Story of the World's Most Influential Book (New York, 2019), 183, points out that many biblical scholars believe that this text might have been a later addition to Paul's original letter. John L. Thompson, Writing the Wrongs: Women of the Old Testament among Biblical Commentators from Philo though the Reformation (Oxford, 2001) notes that "the Christian tradition displays far less consensus -- and cultivates significantly more interest in the women of the Bible -- than is commonly thought" (p. 3). For Hutchinson see Tamara Harvey, “Gender,” in Kristina Bross and Abram Van Engen, eds., A History of American Puritan Literature (Cambridge, 2020), 200.
[6] For the inspiration of the Spirit in opening the meaning of Scripture see Lisa M. Goirdis, Opening Scripture: Bible Reading and Interpretive Authority in Puritan New England (Chicago, 2003), 2. As John Cotton expressed it, "the Spirit of God will speak Scripture to you;" Cotton quoted in Michael G. Ditmore, "A Prophetess in Her Own Country: An Exegesis of Anne Hutchinson's 'Immediate Revelation', The William and Mary Quarterly, 57 (2000), 353. Ditmore provides a detailed explanation of how some puritans viewed the way in which God's meaning was revealed in the Bible.
[7] A marginal note to Deuteronomy 21:18 in the Geneva Bible insisted that "it is the mother's duty also to instruct her children."
[8] Paula McQuade, Catechisms and Women's Writings in Seventeenth-Century England (Cambridge, ENG: 2017), 2-3.
[9] In the late sixteenth century the Dedham Conference of puritan ministers debated a similar issue as to whether a wife could lead the family prayers in a case where he was present but she had a greater gift than her husband. The ministers reached no conclusion, but none questioned that the wife might have the greater gift.Patrick Collinson, The Religion of Protestants: The Church in English Society, 1559-1625 (Oxford, 1982), 266-67.
[10] Femke Molekamp, Women and the Bible in Early Modern England: Religious Reading and Writing (Oxford, 2013), 218. Ditmore, "Anne Hutchinson," 367-368.
[11] John Robinson, The People’s Plea for the Exercise of Prophesying (1618); Michael Winship, "Brigit Cooke and the Art of Female Self-Advancement," The Sixteenth Century Journal, 33 (2002), 1045-59.
[12] Margaret Aston, “Lollard Women Priests?,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 31 (1980), 447-448.
[13] See Edward Bean Underhill, ed., Records of a Church of Christ Meeting in Broadmead, Bristol, 1640-1687 (London, 1847), 10-19.
[14] We need to distinguish such ordinary forms of prophesying, which involved drawing on the inspiration of Holy Spirit to understand the meaning of a passage of scripture, with the utterances of an individual who foretold a future event on the basis of a direct revelation, as the prophets of the Old Testament had done. Such predictions were not ordinarily mediated through scripture. Women can be found assuming each of these roles, and sometimes could perform both.Anne Hutchinson defended most of her positions with interpretations of specific scriptural passages that the spirit had led her to understand in the way she did. But she also predicted that a curse would fall upon her judges should they condemn her. This she asserted based on what she claimed was a direct revelation, and it was this that led to her banishment. "Examination of Anne Hutchinson," in David D. Hall, ed., The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638. A Documentary History (Middletown, CT: 1968), 338. See also Michael Winship, Making Heretics: Militant Protestantism and Free Grace in Massachusetts, 1636-1641 (Princeton, 2002), 178, 193. Michael Ditmore, in his essay on Hutchinson cited above, raises the question of whether in her reply to Thomas Dudley towards the end of her civil trial she actually claimed direct revelation from God or whether it was convenient for the authorities to assume this as a justification for convicting her.
[15] See Lori Rogers-Stokes, Records of Trial from Thomas Shepard's Church in Cambridge, 1638-1649 (Macmillan: 2020), passim.
[16] I have discussed this incident in Bremer, Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds (New Haven, 2012), 131-133. The account is Stephen Goffe to William Laud, 26 April 1633, SP 16/286/202. The Separatist John Smyth believed that women should have a say in the selection of their pastor (Richard Greaves, "Foundation Builders: The Role of Women in Early English Nonconformity,": in Richard Greaves, ed., Triumph Over Silence: Women in Protestant History [ Greenwood: 1985], 83-84). John Rogers, the puritan clergyman in Dublin in the 1640s, allowed women to have full voting rights in church affairs, though not without some opposition in the congregation (Patricia Crawford, Women and Religion in England, 1500-1720 [London, 1993], 144).
[17] See Benjamin Warfield, "Presbyterian Deaconesses," The Presbyterian Review, Vol. X (1889), 286. In his 1648 Dialogue William Bradford notes a woman who had served as a deaconess in the Ancient Church of Amsterdam.
[18] Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley: 1992), 170.
[19] Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs, Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners: Leiden and the Foundations of Plymouth Plantation(Plymouth, MA: 2009), 228.
[20] John Robinson, Justification of Separation from the Church of England (1610), as quoted in Martha L. Finch, Dissenting Bodies: Corporalities in Early New England (Columbia U Press: 2010), 120; and Robinson quoted in Keith Thomas, "Women and the Civil War Sects,: Past 7 Present, 13 (1958), 46.
[21] Bremer, One Small Candle, 113. For ownership of books see Jeremy Dupertius Bangs, Plymouth Colony's Private Libraries (Leiden: 2016).
[22] Cotton in a sermon preached 1 June 1640, in Helen M. Alpert, "Robert Keayne Notes of Sermons by John Cotton and Proceedings of the First Church of Boston from 23 November 1639 to 1 June 1640" (PhD: Tufts University, 1974), 352. Similarly, Richard Sibbes claimed that "for the most part women have sweet affections to religion, and therein they oft go beyond men;" Sibbes quoted in Ann Hughes, "Puritanism and Gender," in John Coffey and Paul C. H. Lim, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Puritanism(CUP, 2008), 298.
[23] Cotton quoted in David D. Hall, A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England (New York: 2011), 71-72, where Hall notes that "women could do both is writ large in all kinds of records."
[24] Francis J. Bremer, “‘To Tell What God Hath Done for Thy Soul’: Puritan Spiritual Testimonies as Admission Tests and Means of Edification,” The New England Quarterly, 2014.
[25] Clap quoted in Bremer, Lay Empowerment, 83.
[26] It is perhaps worth noting that David Como has suggested that Shepard's own religious outlook may have been shaped in part by a time he spent in England in home of Mrs. Anne Fenwick, who was herself a central figure in a puritan conventicle; see Como, "Prophecy," 220-221.
[27] John Rogers, Ohel, or Beth-shemesh: A Tabernacle for the Sun, or Irenicum Evangelicum (1653).
[28] Bremer, Lay Empowerment, 124.
[29] Bremer, Lay Empowerment, 29-33.
[30] Bremer, One Small Candle, 154.
[31] Thomas Edwards, Gangraena: A catalogue and discovery of many of the errors, heresies, blasphemies and pernicious practices of the sectaries of this time, vented and acted in England (1645). For a discussion of this work see Ann Hughes, Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (Oxford: 2004).
[32] Anne Laurence, Women in England 1500-1760: A Social History (NY: 1994), 203.
[33] Dorothy P. Ludlow, "Shaking Patriarchy's Foundations: Sectarian Women in England, 1641-1700, in Greaves, Triumph, 95.
[34] "Short Story" in Hall, Antinomian Controversy, 207.
[35] "The Examination of Mrs. Hutchinson," 311. Ditmore, "Anne Hutchinson," 360, points out that in her long statement towards the end of the trial "Hutchinson provides three long direct Bible quotations with specific chapter and verse, five more direct Bible quotations without chapter and verse, two references to Bible chapter and verse without quotation, and seven allusions to more or less specific Bible passages -- a total of seventeen somewhat scattered biblical allusions."
[36] "Report of the Trial of Mrs. Hutchinson," in Hall, Antinomian Controversy, 350-388. Ditmore does not examine the church proceedings as he does the civil trial.
[37] For Moody see Bremer, First Founders: American Puritans and Puritanism in the Atlantic World (Durham, NH: 2012), 91-93.
[38] I have discussed this episode at some length in Bremer, New Jerusalem, 220-225. A related story can be read two ways. In April 1645 John Winthrop recorded in his journal that the governor of Connecticut, Edward Hopkins, had brought his wife Ann to Boston. Ann Yale Hopkins was noted by Winthrop to have been "a godly young woman and of special parts" who had read extensively and "had written many books." But she had slipped into some form of mental disorder, which Winthrop attributed to her having not followed her proper calling and "engaged in things proper to men." See John Winthrop, The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649, edited by Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle (Harvard, 1996), 570. It is interesting that Anne Yale Hopkins's mother was Anne Eaton and her stepfather Theophilus Eaton. Presumably her habits of reading and writing had been encouraged by her mother.
[39] Records of the First Church of Boston, Colonial Society of Massachusetts, vol. 39, 49. I have discussed Sarah Dudley Keayne in First Founders, 106-118.
Francis J. Bremer is a world-renowned scholar of puritanism and an advisor to the Partnership of Historic Bostons. Professor of history emeritus at Millersville University, he has also been editor of the Winthrop Papers for the Massachusetts Historical Society. He is author of the award-winning John Winthrop: America’s Forgotten Founding Father and many other books and articles. His latest book, One Small Candle: The Plymouth Puritans and the Beginning of English New England, is available here.