Puritan Folkways
Mr. Blockmon AP/IB History
This handout is taken from a really fascinating book by David Hackett Fischer entitled Albion's Seed: Four
British Folkways in America.
Philosophically, the work is in harmony with some of my own views in that it regards ideas--the folkways--as
shaping history in conjunction with more material forces.
This book is cultural history and will encompass elements of political, social, intellectual, economic, and
aesthetic history.
"Folkway" as used by Fischer "is defined here as the normative structure of values, customs, and meanings that
exist in any culture. This complex is not many things but one thing, with many interlocking parts." (7)
Fischer will examine 24 "Ways" such as Speech, Family, Marriage, Gender, Sex, Age, Death, Work, Time,
Wealth, Rank, Power and Freedom ways. The classifications have been taken from anthropology. I will
summarize some of the Ways that I found most interesting, or which are not replicated elsewhere in my material.
One things stands out sharply from Fischer's analysis: the primacy of the religious motivation for the Puritans.
That seems obvious; it was in fact obvious for a long time. It is obvious no longer.
(Blockmon discusses what he sees as the limitations of the book) Boyer is a brilliant historian, and an expert
on the Puritans. His work on Salem is striking--as you will see. He is outstanding in describing processes in
New England, in social and economic backgrounds.
But, in my opinion, he does not really understand religion. He seems to me to look for material explanations
which are then converted into the language of religion. Ultimately, such an approach means that faith is a
smokescreen for one's real motivations.
It is a strikingly modern view, the product of a profoundly secular society. It may work quite well for some
societies, but does not work even for all societies today (think of Iraq, to choose only the most obvious
example). It certainly does not work for the 17th century or any century where people really believed their
theology.
Boyer is a very fine historian, and this text has much, much to offer, but he can be guilty of anachronism too.
Before one can judge a previous society by the standards of today, one must first understand it in its own terms.
Do not expect 17th century men and women to think or react like late 20th century men and women.
The moral of the story for you as students is "First understand, then you may judge."
The Puritan Exodus (Fischer 13The Great Migration 1629-1640
Note that this is just 11 years in length
80,000 Puritans migrated during this time
An estimated 20,000 emigrated to New England
The time period encompassed both political and religious strife between Charles I and
Parliament and Archbishop Laud and the Puritans, but also epidemic disease, and
economic depression.
Significantly, the flow of migrants ends with the English Civil War.
These 20,000 Puritans multiplied rapidly, doubling every 25 years for 2 centuries. They
migrated to other regions.
Clearly, Puritans exerted an influence on the United States that is far out of proportion to
their numbers.
Purpose
"Above all, [the Great Migration developed] as a religious movement of English Christians
who meant to build a new Zion in America. When most of these emigrants explained
their motives for coming to the New World, religion was mentioned not merely as their
leading purpose. It was their only purpose." (18) [italics added]
Despite unusually stringent rules for church membership (even among Calvinists) the evidence is
that most adults were able to meet the requirements of:
"adherence to Calvinist doctrine"
"achievement of a godly life"
"demonstrable experience of spiritual conversion" (21)
Studies show that in most towns, a majority of adult males were members, and an even higher
percentage of adult women.
Fischer notes that the average Puritan statistically was a woman.
"[T]he religious purposes of the colony were not confined to a small 'Puritan oligarchy,' as some
historians still believe, and that the builders of the Bay Colony did not come over to
'catch fish,' as materialists continue to insist. The spiritual purposes of the colony were
fully shared by most men and women in Massachusetts." (22) [italics added]
Ideas
Fischer isolates five ideas that are arranged somewhat differently, but are worth repeating
Depravity: Evil is palpable, the world is in a cosmic struggle of good vs. evil, and Man
is capable of any depravity.
Covenant: All relationships were webs of contracts
Election: Only a few are chosen
Grace: Involves emotion as well as intellect, and was inexorable, unconditional, and
irresistible.
Love: "Their theology made no sense without divine love." (24) That love extends to
Godly love--the Latin caritas--for each other.
Social Origins
Emigrants to New England were screened in a way that other regions were not. Furthermore, no
one could live in the Puritan colonies without permission. The result is remarkable
homogeneity.
Family Groups--The Puritans traveled as nuclear families to an extraordinary degree. This led
to an atypical age and sex distribution for immigrants to America. The age norm has
been persons in their teens and twenties. The Puritans showed a virtual age-normal
distribution except for persons over 60. Over 40% were mature men and women over 25.
The sex distribution was also unusual, with about 150 males to 100 females (compare to
4:1 for Virginia, 10:1 for New Spain, and 100:1 for Brazil).
Using church membership as a definition, by 1635 most Puritans were women. (26-7)
Middling Rank--The emigrants came from the middle reaches of English society. The poor
were discouraged as well as the aristocracy. "The great majority were yeomen,
husbandmen, artisans, craftsmen, merchants, and traders. . . . They were not poor." (27)
75% paid their own way--about £50 to £80 for a family as against an annual income of
£40-60 for a yeoman. (28)
Literacy was high, with 2/3s able to sign their own name (twice the rate for England)
They were mainly urban, from towns, and hamlets.
"In summary, by comparison with other emigrant groups in American history, the great
migration to Massachusetts was a remarkably homogeneous movement of English
Puritans who came from the middle ranks of their society, and traveled in family groups.
The heads of these families tended to be exceptionally literate, highly skilled, and heavily
urban in their English origins. They were a people of substance, character, and deep
personal piety." (31)
Regional Origins
60% of the Puritans came from 9 counties in England described together as East Anglia. These
people brought their folkways from East Anglia to the New World, adapting them to new
conditions and purposes. For example, the origins of the New England Yankee twang lie
in East Anglia .
The cultural elite of New England, the clergy and magistrates, are even more heavily
concentrated in East Anglia: 78% are tied to East Anglia.
This elite inter-married quite heavily, and continued to do so long after the Puritan
Commonwealth had disappeared. To illustrate the density of these relationships:
"John Cotton was simultaneously Cotton Mather's natural grandfather on the
mother's side, and his step-grandfather on his father's side. At the same time,
Richard Mather was Cotton Mather's paternal grandfather, and his maternal stepgrandfather. To compound the confusion, Cotton Mather married Ann Lake
Cotton Mather, who was both his cousin and his nephew's widow." (41)
New England was ruled by a cousinage.
The New England Environment
The 17th Century was still in what is now called the Little Ice Age. The climate of New
England was colder. Ocean temperatures off the coast were 3N C. cooler. (52) The
growing season shorter, only 5 months. The weather was wetter, stormy, and more
variable than today.
This climate, while rigorous, was unusually healthy. Mortality anywhere in the 17th
century is awful; but in New England, the mortality rate was lower than most
other areas. Typhoid, dysentery, enteritis, malaria, yellow fever were all less
dangerous.
Pulmonary infections proved especially dangerous to blacks, however. The mortality rate
for blacks in New England was twice that of white. (52)
1. Family Ways
"The people of Massachusetts thought of the family not as an end in itself, but as an instrument of
their highest religious purposes." (68)
Families were thought of as a web of covenants, which placed mutual and inter-locking
responsibilities on everybody.
"By comparison with other colonies, households throughout Massachusetts and Connecticut included
large numbers of children, small numbers of servants, and high proportions of intact marital
unions." (71)
"Another [special feature] was a strong sense of collective responsibility for maintaining its individual
integrity." (72)
Constables were required to inspect each family at least once each 3 months. "In nuclear
families that were persistently 'disorderly' . . . the selectmen were required to remove the
children and servants and place them in other homes." (72)
"So important was the idea of a covenanted family in Massachusetts that every one was compelled
by law to live in family groups." 73)
"These laws were enforced." (73)
(Note the insistence on order, and the pervasive use of state and community power. Privacy is not a
high value here; one might note from medieval and 17th century living arrangements that
privacy is a rather new concept anyway. It is clear that the oligarchy did not just impose this on
an unwilling population, but that the community supported these laws.
Hierarchy and order are so important that the law provided the death penalty for stubborn or rebellious
sons over 16 who were disobedient to their parents. (No one was actually executed under this
law; however, children were whipped or fined.)
2. Marriage Ways
Puritans married at a late age for the 17th century: 26 for men and 23 for women. (75)
Nearly everyone married: 94% of the women and 98% of the men. (77)
Puritans, unlike Anglicans, or most other Christian groups in Europe, for that matter, did not regard
marriage as a sacrament but as a civil contract. This has very important consequences.
In England, since marriage was a sacrament, there was virtually no possibility of a divorce,
regardless of the circumstances (unless you were the king or one of a small handful of
aristocrats)
For Puritans, if the contract were broken, a divorce could be granted.
"[T]he Puritans cherished true love, and insisted that it was a prerequisite of a happy marriage. The
Puritans used the expression 'falling in love.' They believed that love should normally precede
marriage." (79)
Ordinarily, Puritan parents did not arrange marriages. Suitors tried to obtain parental consent
(which was required by law). A son or daughter could block a marriage desired by the
parents. Parents were forbidden to withhold permission to marry arbitrarily, and were
sometimes successfully sued. (78)
Puritans assumed that healthy young men and women, if left unsupervised, would engage in sexual
intercourse. (91) Consequently, young people were carefully supervised. On the other hand,
young people had to be given the opportunity to fall in love. This is a contradiction.
Bundling arose as a solution to this problem. "A courting couple were securely 'bundled'
together in a bed with a wooden board between them. Sometimes the young woman's
legs were securely fastened together in a bundling stocking, or wrapped in a bundling
apron which left the upper body exposed. An old New England ballad tells us:
But she is modest, also chaste
While only bare from neck to waist,
And he of boasted freedom sings,
Of all above her apron strings." (80)
The Puritans practiced the charivari, involving banging and bell-ringing outside the marriage chamber
after the bride had been put to bed. (If you have ever seen the film Oklahoma, you might
remember the charivari after the wedding.
"Divorce customs also differed from other English-speaking cultures. The Puritans recognized many
grounds for divorce that were consistent with their conception of marriage. The statutes of
Connecticut allowed divorce for adultery, fraudulent contract, wilful desertion and total neglect
for three years, and 'providential absence' for seven years. Massachusetts granted divorces in
the seventeenth century for adultery, desertion, cruelty, and 'failure to provide.' Physical
violence was also recognized as a ground for divorce. Husbands and wives were forbidden to
strike one another in Massachusetts; there was no such thing as 'moderate correction' in the
laws of this colony. [a dramatic difference with England or other colonies] The courts often
intervened in cases of wife-beating and sometimes of husband-beating too." (82) [emphasis
added]
In summary, marriage was to be 'a close and companionate relationship, a union of love and
harmony, an act of sexual fulfillment, and an institution with a firm economic base." (82)
3. Gender Ways
The Puritans, in common with all Europeans, assumed gender inequality.
Gender inequality is modified by Puritan religious faith. The Christian ideal of spiritual equality was
upheld. Women were admitted to the church more often than men.
The family was patriarchal, with the husband thought of as the head of the wife.
"Massachusetts law gave women many protections. Every woman without exception was equally
entitled to the physical protection of the law. Her husband could not beat her, or even
verbally abuse her--a rule that was sternly enforced. There was also an elastic clause
that forbade husbands to command their wives to do anything contrary to the law of God.
Further, the common law of New England recognized that women both single and
married could own property and execute contracts." (84) [emphasis added]
Disciplinary proceedings were even-handed. For instance, studies have shown that men and women
convicted of adultery received similar punishments (studies in Maryland show that men were
dealt with much more leniently than women in this respect.)
Puritans expected family decisions to be taken together.
4. Sex Ways
As you would expect, Puritan sex ways are directly linked to their religion.
Puritans did not believe in asceticism.
Puritans believed that sexual intimacy was "an important and even a necessary part of marriage."
(88)
Sexual intercourse outside of marriage was condemned.
Adultery (coitus with a married woman) was a capital crime, punishable by death. (It was hard
to get a conviction for a capital crime in Massachusetts, since 2 witnesses were required.
Three people were actually hanged for adultery, however.)
Fischer cites a specific case of an adulterous couple for whom the evidence was insufficient for a
conviction on adultery. They were brought to court by 35 outraged neighbors, and
convicted of lesser offenses. He significantly concludes "In this case as in so many
others, the moral code of Puritan Massachusetts was not imposed by a small elite upon an
unwilling people; it rose from customs and beliefs that were broadly shared throughout
the Puritan colonies." (89)
Fornication (coitus with an unmarried woman)was punished by jailing, whipping, fining,
disfranchisement, and forced marriage.
"These rules were obeyed. In Massachusetts during the seventeenth century, rates of prenuptial
pregnancy were among the lowest in the Western world." (89)***UP TO
DEBATE!!!
"Puritan attitudes were almost maniacally hostile to what they regarded as unnatural sex." (91)
This included any attempt to avoid conception. "Every demographic test of contraception
within marriage yields negative results in Puritan Massachusetts." (93)
If you recall that the Puritans expected everyone to marry, that most people did in fact marry,
that they expected and encouraged sexual intimacy between spouses and severely
discouraged sex outside of marriage, and that they opposed any form of contraception,
then the large Puritan families would be expected.
"This general pattern of sexual attitudes--strong encouragement of sexual love and sensual bonds within
marriage, strict punishment of fornication and adultery, a maniacal horror of unnatural sex, and
rigid taboos against contraception within marriage--was in its totality unique to New England.
By and large, this culture was not a system of sexual tyranny and repression. The sex ways of
Massachusetts rested upon an intensity of moral and religious purpose which marked so
many aspects of this culture." (93)
5. Religious Ways
When Puritans spoke of "the New England way," they meant their religion. (117)
Religious worship was extremely austere.
The meetinghouse, for instance, was not heated. Winters were colder then. There are references
to ministers rebuking a congregation for the chattering of teeth.
The meetinghouse was essentially a lecture hall.
In accordance with their views on hierarchy and order, men were seated on one side, and women on
the other, and all were carefully seated according to rank and status.
There were normally two sermons each Sunday, each 2 hours in length.
The preaching style was deliberately and "relentlessly" plain. Congregations were attentive.
The entire village would be present each Sunday for communal worship. The worship service
constitutes a very powerful social cement and source of continuity.
6. Magic Ways
Another lesson will deal with Salem and witchcraft in more detail.
For the Puritans, there was no such thing as an accident, or a coincidence.
The literature is filled with an obsessive search for clues to God's will (supernatural signs of God's
will, or natural acts revealing His will).
There is an obsessive hatred of black magic.
Recall that Puritans believed that they were caught up in a cosmic struggle between God and Satan.
Also recall that for the Puritans, the practice of witchcraft was the voluntary worship of Satan.
344 persons were formally accused of witchcraft in New England, and 35 were actually executed.
(127)
Fischer does not note this, but in comparison with some districts of Europe, this does not seem a
large number of accused (perhaps it is, however, if the number is adjusted for
comparative population. The number executed is quite small, and that percentage is
much smaller than in Europe. Witches in New England were hanged [one of my pet
peeves is to read a letter to the editor complaining about burning witches in Salem]; in
Europe they were burned. The study of the witch hysteria in Europe, which lasted into
the early 18th century, is pretty bleak. I have read a number of accounts from secondary
and primary sources like the Malleus Maleficarum, Glanville's Sadducismus Triumphatus,
and King James' [the man who sponsored the Bible] Demonologia. Take it from me, it is
not a subject for idle curiosity, and is approximately as emotionally harrowing as a close
study of the Holocaust. I have also seen contemporary woodcuts and engravings of
burned witches. They are difficult to remove from one's mind.
7. Learning Ways
This is familiar and usually well-taught.
At least 66% of all men and 33% of women in Massachusetts Bay were literate in 1660 (the
signature mark test would undervalue the real rate). The same test in 1760 showed rates of 84%
and 50%.
The first education law was passed in 1642.
[The first Massachusetts School Law of 1642 broke with English tradition by transferring educational supervision
from the clergy to the selectmen of the colony, empowering them to assess the education of children "to read &
understand the principles of religion and the capital laws of this country." It held parents and masters responsible
for their children's and apprentices' ability to read and write, stressing education rather than schooling. However,
its implementation appears to have been somewhat neglected. (Wikipedia)]
The Old Deluder Satan Law was passed in 1647.
[The 1647 legislation specifically framed ignorance as a Satanic ill to be circumvented through the education of
the country's young people. It required every town having more than 50 families to hire a teacher, and every town
of more than 100 families to establish a "grammar school". Failure to comply with the mandate would result in a
fine of £5. The grammar school clause was intended to prepare students to attend Harvard College, whose
mission was to prepare young men for the ministry. (Wikipedia)]
Harvard was founded in a raw wilderness and supported by voluntary donation.
8. Sport Ways
The Puritans did not regard sports as idle play, and they approached it was the same seriousness that
they approached everything else.
Games associated with gambling and drinking were banned. That included dice, cards, horse-racing,
and shuffle board(!).
Sport was encouraged, however, as healthy. The Puritans developed folk games based on English
models that provided an interplay between teamwork and individuality:
Football, from which modern American football evolved.
Townball, from which modern baseball evolved. (Abner Doubleday, a New Englander, did not
invent baseball; he codified a particular version of townball).
9. Work Ways
New England, faced with a similar environment to the Dutch in New Amsterdam and the French in
Canada, did not develop a primarily extractive economy, but a mixed economy which reflected
their East Anglian origins. This economy was fully developed by mid-17th century, and then
become more completely the same. (155)
The Work Ethic: "The Puritans did not think that success in one's calling was an instrument of
salvation, but they believed that it was a way of serving God in the world." (156)
They condemned the pursuit of wealth for its own sake, and regarded the following as unethical
business practices:
Selling as high as possible and buying as low as possible
Passing on the cost of losses (ex. a vessel lost at sea) to consumers.
Selling at the price bought even if the market price had fallen.
Taking advantage of someone's ignorance or necessity to obtain greater profit.
Charging interest for payment on time. (157)
"Altogether, the economy of early New England was neither a system of village communism nor
nascent capitalism. It was an old-fashioned system of agricultural production, domestic industry
and commercial exchange which bore the impress of East Anglian customs and Calvinist
beliefs." (158)
10. Time Ways
Puritans were intensely interested in not wasting time, and very time-conscious.
Clocks were rare, but sun-line houses often carved a sundial onto the facade.
The night was dangerous and evil. Persons abroad after dark without permission could be
fined.
11. Wealth Ways
The Puritans are not egalitarians. Rank distinctions are carefully preserved. But gross inequalities
were chopped off.
New villages distributed land so that those who were of higher social rank to begin with received more
than others, but those differences were graded.
In Wallingford, Connecticut, men of high rank received 400 acres, men of middle rank received
300 acres, and men of low rank received 200 acres. (167)
Studies of 25 towns from 1630-1750 showed the top tenth of wealth holders possessing only 20
to 30 % of taxable property. This was more egalitarian than other colonies (and no
comparison with England). (170)
Inheritance laws supported this value.
Primogeniture and entail were specifically attacked and abandoned.
Inheritance was more equal.
In cases of intestacy, property was divided more or less equally, with men tending to
receive land and women tending to receive "moveables." (173)
A typical will (and most Puritans left wills) gave the eldest son a double portion, and the
other children receiving equal amounts. Widows were usually given a life interest
in the estate.
English visitors noted the "leveling principle" with disapproval.
12. Rank Ways
Puritans certainly believed in a hierarchical society. Their East Anglian origins included very wealthy
large land owners and the vagrant poor.
The Puritans deliberately cut off the top and the bottom of the pyramid. "This revolution was a
conscious act which rose from religious ideals and social purposes of the founders." (177)
One incident is very revealing. Several Puritan noblemen wrote about emigrating to
Massachusetts Bay. They demanded the establishment of an aristocracy (ie. a guarantee
of their status) and heredity honor, power, and authority. The General Court agreed to
grant hereditary honor, but politely, firmly, and flatly refused to grant heredity power and
authority. The peers stayed home. (176-7)
"Here was an event of no small importance in American history. The founders of Massachusetts,
unlike the rulers of other European colonies, deliberately excluded an aristocracy from
their ranking system." (178)
"At the same time, the leaders of Massachusetts also made a concerted and highly successful effort to
discourage immigration from the bottom of English society." (178)
There were three ranks:
Lesser gentry (referred to as Mister and Mistress)
Yeomanry (referred to as Goodman and Goodwife or Goody)
Cottagers
The strongest determinant of rank and status was age, followed by estate and reputation (which were
strongly correlated). Material differences were qualified by age and moral standing. (180)
13. Order Ways
"Order was an obsession." (189) This fits in with the article by Michael Walzer.
"The prevailing idea of order in Puritan Massachusetts . . . [meant] a condition where everything was
put in its proper place and held there by force if necessary. Order . . . meant a condition of
organic unity." (189)
The Puritans abandoned the offices of sheriff (an arm of royal authority) or beadles (parish officers)
and turned to the village constable, an officer of the town, to enforce order.
The constable was required to fulfill many duties, including monitoring behavior. As seen
above, he was required to inspect each household every 3 months.
The constable was not expected to deal with serious trouble. If that occurred, he summoned
all the town's men, who were required by law to support him. "In New England, the
community itself was the ultimate peacekeeper." (191)
Violent crime was rare compared to other colonies. This pattern persisted. A study compared
Middlesex County in Massachusetts from 1760-74 with Charleston South Carolina from
1769-76: Crimes against persons (murder, assault, rape) was 9.5% to 53.6%; crimes
against property 13.2% to 37.8%; crimes against sexual mores was 57.6% to 1.6%; and
crimes against order 18.4% to 1.6%. (192)
Punishments
None of the following punishments used by the Puritans were unique to them.
The most terrible punishment was burning at the stake, which was inflicted for petty treason
such as the killing of masters by servants. Note that this is fundamentally a crime
against order. Two persons were executed in this manner. This penalty was also
imposed in Virginia on the same grounds, and Fischer cites at least one instance when it
was actually inflicted.
Hanging was the penalty for "witchcraft, idolatry, blasphemy, homicide, rape, adultery,
bestiality, sodomy, false witness with intent to take life, and a child of sixteen or older
who was a 'stubborn' or 'rebellious' son, or who 'smote' or 'cursed' a parent. All of these
laws were drawn from the Pentateuch except the punishment for rape." (194)
In common with the 17th century in general, maiming was a punishment: slitting of nostrils,
severing of ears, and branding.
Next in order of severity was whipping, also common to the 17th century. Both men and
women were whipped. Quakers were both branded and whipped with special
severity, as their brand of religion, resembling Anne Hutchinson's antinomian
heresy, threatened the order of the commonwealth.
Next, and most famous, was public humiliation: the stocks and the scarlet letter (A, B, C, D,
F, R, S). Magistrates could be quite creative. It should be noted that punishment by
humiliation is of no effect if the society does not support the values and the
punishment and if the culprit does not acknowledge the weight of that public
opinion. New England is a society of small towns; individuals lived in family units in
neighborhoods, not as individualized. Informal public ostracism must have been a very
powerful determinant of behavior, even more powerful than formal accusation and
conviction.
14. Power Ways
The town meeting is justly the most celebrated element of Puritan government, making it truly a
small democratic society.
One difference with modern usage is that the town meeting did not rule by majority but by consensus.
Discussion and persuasion were used to reach that consensus. Vote totals were rarely recorded.
(199)
15. Freedom Ways
"Liberty" was thought of first as belonging to the community, not the individual. This "liberty"
was therefore consistent with strict controls upon the individual. Those restraints however,
had to be consistent with written laws, and were to be imposed by themselves (New Englanders
in the 17th century taxed themselves quite heavily). Interference by outsiders was opposed
implacably. (200-01)
"Liberty" when applied to individuals was often used in the plural: "liberties." It was thought of as a
series of specific exemptions upon a condition of prior restraint. This is the opposite of our
meaning, which is that restraint is a specific exception from a condition of liberty. (201-2)
Written fundamental laws and liberties are present in Massachusetts Bay from the very start.
"Soul Liberty" was "the freedom to order one's own acts in a godly way--but not in any other." (202)
"There was no freedom for 'error' in Massachusetts." (203) This is, after all, the reason for
founding the colony in the first place.
"Sometimes the people of Massachusetts employed the word 'freedom' to describe a collective
obligation of the 'body politicke' to protect individual members from the tyranny of
circumstance." (203)
Works Cited
Fischer, David Hackett. Albion's Seed: Four British Folkways in America. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1989.