"Books sealed by the prophets": Non-conformist Women and Political Theology c.1620-c.40

This project will assess the role of women in nonconformist activism between 1620 and 1640, examining their theological, political, and ecclesial dissent. This will be interdisciplinary dissertation with supervision from the History and Theology Faculties. The primary focus is the use of scripture by female writers in their vision of the visible church. Historiography on female visionaries has concentrated on the Civil War. The immediate period before the conflict, however, is notable for the contributions of a small but significant number of women to the debate about the visible and invisible church. My study will build on the work of Peter Lake to acknowledge important examples of radical puritanism before the Civil War. Analysis of this period promises to reframe our perception of 'radicalism' and help us to rethink the periodisation of the Caroline Church. Since Keith Thomas's 1958 study of Civil War sectarian women, radical women have been analysed largely in isolation. Phyllis Mack, for instance, in her seminal Visionary Women, focused primarily on Quaker women and their understanding of their prophetic agency. This approach, though revealing of how women authorised their visions, arguably undervalued the significance of their political theology. The project will begin with analysis of texts written by several central visionary women, including but not limited to: Lady Eleanor Davies, Anne Fenwick, Katherine Chidley and Grace Cary. This is a socially mixed sample so will provide a cohesive account of the methods available to different social groups to communicate their political theology. The analysis of their writing will centre around how they used scripture in their arguments about the visible church. Geographically, the women are from disparate parts of the country which aligns with my aim to move away from London-centric accounts of non-conformity which limit the current historiography. In a few cases, these women have attracted interest for their roles and writings in the Civil War period, but research on their activism before this period is limited. So far, no genuinely comparative effort has been made to understand the political and theological implications of pre-civil war women's writing. I will also incorporate contemporary responses to the women to add context for my analysis. Relevant papers can be found in the State Papers, National Archives, local archives, the British Library and are partially digitised as part of the Perdita project. The second strand will be a prosopographical reconstruction of the non-conformist networks in which these women were situated. Visionary women are often viewed as exceptional individuals but, in this dissertation, they will be anchored in their social realities. The reconstruction promises to bring to light hitherto hidden non-conformist women and produce the most expansive account of early female religious activists, illuminating their social circles and the spaces which facilitated their activism. The women aforementioned provide a starting point for the study because they all, at some point in their lives, interacted antagonistically with institutional authority. Davies petitioned the king in 1633, and Katherine Chidley refused to be churched in 1622. Prosecutions leave records, and often these women did not act alone: Chidley refused alongside six other women, none of whom have been researched in any depth. Therefore, the legal records found in parish registers or as part of the National Archives will be used to reconstruct female networks. These will be used in conjunction with baptismal and marriage records to gain a deeper insight into these women's identities and their access to power negotiation. The two strands of this dissertation will provide a comparison between gestures which were prosecuted to dispute against the visible church, and the polemical arguments the women made in text, as well as providing a new framework for interpretation.