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Puritanism and Revolution: Studies in Interpretation of the English Revolution of the 17th Century

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Only tenuous connections to the English Revolution unify the subject matter of the essays collected in Puritanism and Revolution, yet the book coherently argues a single thesis: that the English Revolution must be studied in its diversity. Hill proves his thesis by writing essays on a wide variety of subjects: the effects of the dissolution of the monasteries, the use of the idea of the "Norman yoke," English ties to internationalism, agrarian legislation, Lord Clarendon, poor relief, political sermons, Hobbes's political theory, Harrington's utopia, an insane vegetarian hatter, a preacher of the end times, a metaphysical poet, and a novel. The wide variety of subject matter itself proves his point. The essays themselves explain only small parts of the English Revolution but convey the larger message.

Hill groups his essays into two categories. The first, "Movements and Men," looks at general trends over lengthy periods of time. This category largely, though by no means exclusively, deals with economic factors, and its essays are more clearly connected to the English Revolution. The second, "Men and Movements," looks at the specific contributions of individuals to the Revolution. It is longer and also more diverse. Though its essays are less clearly connected to the Revolution, its diversity contributes more to Hill's thesis.

These essays also are grouped more specifically. The first essay surveys several different scholarly interpretations of the English revolution, criticizing many in their entirety and some in part. Hill then discusses economics, identifying the effects on society of the seizing of the monasteries and nunneries under Henry VIII. In another essay, he classifies the types of agrarian legislation proposed in Parliament, explaining their causes, and defining their effects. Society is discussed in essays about socio-political interpretations of the Norman invasion and rule and about English involvement in the "brotherhood of man." Essays about the William Perkins's theories concerning the relief of the poor and about John Preston's political sermons before the king share the theme of the effects of Puritan religion on politics. Political theory is the theme of essays about Thomas Hobbes and John Harrington. Analyses of Andrew Marvell and Samuel Richardson's Clarissa Harlowe deal with the effects of the Revolution on literature. Even the insane gets its share of attention in essays about John Mason's apocalyptic predictions and Roger Crab, "The Mad Hatter."

Hill's use of the medium of essays to prove his thesis rather than arguing it directly is effective. If not exactly subtle, proving the case inductively rather than deductively still more gradually persuades the reader. The method allows Hill to cover diverse and interesting material and still unify it. By focusing on small areas of the English Revolution at one time, Hill gives the reader his erudition in manageable chunks. For example, only in a book like this could an author justify spending a chapter on Roger Crab, who was interesting but not influential because his interesting diet and habits killed all of his disciples who adopted them.

Hill does, however, strain his method. Because the essays in the first section deal with general trends over lengthy periods of time, they by necessity have clear connections to Puritanism and the English Revolution. The essay about "The Norman Yoke" begins well before and finishes well after any direct connection to Puritanism, but it is the exception. The essays in the second section, because they are about individuals, do not necessarily have so close a connection. The essays on Lord Clarendon, William Perkins, John Preston, Thomas Hobbes, James Harrington, and John Mason are all tied to some aspect of the English Revolution or to Puritanism more specifically. However, Roger Crab is so bizarre that he really has no connection to much of anything, and he is not shown to be an example of a prevalent trend. The two essays about the literary figures Andrew Marvell and the fictitious Clarissa Harlowe both describe products of the Revolution, but why they are products of the Revolution is not made clear. Perhaps uncertainty is to be expected as the outcome of the difficult task of unifying what is intended to be diverse.

Hill's work, as might be expected from a Marxist, very often touches on economics. Besides the two essays which are primarily about economics, other essays in the collection are substantially about economics. Trade is discussed in the essay about the brotherhood of man; poor relief is an economic subject; Hill relates the political theories of Hobbes and Harrington to economics. The rest of the essays, even if not about economics, are influenced by Marxist social and literary theories. This overemphasis of economics is regrettable, for in his essay surveying the scholarship of the Revolution, Hill shows more insight into religion than some of his colleagues. He mentions that some historians dismiss Puritan religious beliefs as covers for economic motives but insists that religious beliefs should be studied as genuine. Despite the diversity of his essays, he significantly mentions religion in only a couple of essays and in those the focus is more on politics or society than on religion. The essays primarily about economics are, however, Hill's best in the book.

The few problems in Hill's book could possibly be solved by including additional essays. But perhaps a reader's wish for additional essays is additional evidence that Hill has succeeded in proving his thesis, for the reader wishes for more essays because Hill has convinced him that many more such essays could be written about the diversity of the English Revolution.

Table of Contents
Preface
Abbreviations
1 Recent Interpretations of the Civil War 3
2 Social and Economic Consequences of the Henrician Reformation 30
3 The Norman Yoke 46
4 The English Revolution and the Brotherhood of Man 112
5 The Agrarian Legislation of the Revolution 139
6 Lord Clarendon and the Puritan Revolution 181
7 William Perkins and the Poor 195
8 The Political Sermons of John Preston 216
9 Thomas Hobbes and the Revolution in Political Thought 248
10 James Harrington and the People 269
11 The Mad Hatter 282
12 John Mason and the End of the World 290
13 Society and Andrew Marvell 303
14 Clarissa Harlowe and Her Times 332
Index 357

I had to read this book for a grad. course.

C. Hill is a great writer, and the book is very easy to follow. However, while his contributions to English history are certainly there, Hill's Marxist view of history certainly has hurt his work. The argument that Henry VIII's rebellion against the papacy created a rebellious spirit in the english people that ultimately led to the English Civil War, is short sighted. It can be argued, as M. Walzer argues, that the nature of Calvinism created a different approach to politics, or a revolutionary one. The way Calvinists percieved the world and their position in it certainly effected the English political culture during the 17thc. However, while this may have some truth, the idea that everything that happened in tyhe 1640s is purely based off Henry's opposition to the papacy needs to be re-worked. And, it has been re-worked by well post-marxists historians or what we would call post-Hillian approahces to English history.

This book is now a period piece. It is a collection of entertaining and provocative essays about the events of 1640-1660, which the author habitually presented as `The English Revolution'. As an interpretation of seventeenth century English history, it can no longer be taken seriously. As a guide to the way that many intellectuals thought about the English Civil War, it was taken very seriously indeed in 1958.

Christopher Hill (1912 - 2003) was a brilliant scholar. In 1932 he was awarded a first-class honours degree and in 1934 he won an All Souls Fellowship at Oxford. As an undergraduate he joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and in 1935 he undertook a prolonged trip to the Soviet Union. As A.L. Rowse wrote in `Historians I have Known' 1995), he `swallowed the Communist faith hook, line and sinker'. He made his name as a professional historian with `Economic Problems of the Church' (1956). In 1965 he was elected as Master of Balliol College.

I bought `Puritanism and Revolution' in 1964 when I was studying the seventeenth century at `A' level. We also had Hill's `Century of Revolution' (1961) as a text book at school and I was bowled over by both. Christopher Hill seemed to have the explanation for everything - the key to understanding the past and the present; and he wrote in an uncompromising, combative style, as if no-one else had thought of any of this before. He made me feel connected with the hopes of those Puritan revolutionaries for a better future; and that I was engaged in the study of a serious subject. History was not just `one damned thing after another'. There was a pattern, if only one could see it
I learned later that what I was being fed, though in very erudite form, was left-wing propaganda - or to put it in more academic terms, dialectical materialism. Hill had set it all out in `The English Revolution of 1640' as early as 1940 and, although he refined his ideas, he never changed them fundamentally. The thesis of his many books was always that there had been a social, economic and intellectual revolution between 1640 and 1660 and it was this which caused the political revolution and the Civil War. It had been this violent Revolution of 1640 which, despite the Restoration of 1660, made England the first industrial nation and was the worthy predecessor of the French and Russian Revolutions - not, please note, the peaceful Glorious Revolution of 1688. Hill lent respectability to these underlying ideas by force of repetition - he was a truly prolific writer - but also by dint of his enormous learning. He was the master of seventeenth century literature, particularly of a vast quantity of pamphlets published after the lifting of censorship in 1640, which he found in the Bodleian Library. It is arguable that these only ever represented the more extreme views of a tiny minority of cranks; but this did not trouble him; and his writing was much in vogue in the 1960s when, as Rowse pointed out, `his nonsense spoke to our nonsense'.

Hill's views now seem to belong to another world. The idea that there was an English Revolution in the seventeenth century was long ago exploded by the work of B. H. G. Wormald, Peter Laslett, J. H. Hexter, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Brunton and Pennington, Conrad Russell and many others; and the attraction and plausibility of Marxist historians took something of a knock when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the state capitalism took over in China - if not before; but, provided one bears all this in mind, there are still some fascinating stories in `Puritanism and Revolution' . I particularly like `John Mason and the End of the World', first published in History Today in November 1957.

Stephen Cooper