Thomas_More
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The spur to colonial enterprise during the “Common-wealth” also saw the regular kidnapping of children in England for sale in the colonies as slaves, and commenced the transportation and sale in large numbers of convicts to the West Indies.
A word on those Puritans who established the Massachusetts colony, some of whom were friends of the young Cromwell: toleration was not in their Puritan lexicon.
Arrival of Puritan Calvinist "Christians" (Pilgrims) @ Plymouth Rock
byu/Snoo_40410 inHistoryMemesThere were two main groups of Puritans in England. They were originally united in their common disgust with the episcopal structure retained by the Church of England.
The Presbyterians were conservative parliamentarians in the Civil War, and were reluctant at first to do without the King, but definitely did not want his bishops, nor any bishops, and wanted the episcopal church gone. They were also afraid of the Independents, also Puritans, but attracting a less bourgeois and more revolutionary and republican element.
The Presbyterians controlled Parliament after the first civil war, and controlled the king who had fled to Scotland.
The Levellers, whom the war had encouraged in demanding greater liberties, controlled the English army, compelling Oliver Cromwell to oust the Presbyterians and clear Parliament. Cromwell then went to war with the Presbyterian government in Edinburgh, and these panicked, handing over the king to him. But soon after the king’s defeat Cromwell turned on the Levellers, even though he was an Independent, and established martial law.
Independency in puritanism had encouraged a blossoming of communistic and other thinkers and groups by its very nature of having shown established authority was neither divine nor invulnerable. Hence arose the Diggers, Ranters etc. But Cromwell would crush them and also terrorise the army into submission via colonial ventures. Again “OUR revolution, not YOURS!”In Scotland the Presbyterians established the cruellest, severest and most misogynistic government of all.
Anabaptism was given an impetus in Europe in the 16th century but, unlike protestantism, it stressed mutual aid, good deeds and compassion. It was a movement of the poor, unlike protestantism, and its ideals entered England and influenced the “Ranter” sects – also suppressed by Cromwell.
I think it is simplistic to say Puritanism inspired proto-communism. Firstly, we should recognise there were two puritanisms, one extremely vicious and conservative, and bourgeois; the other, Independency, including as many theologies as there were individuals.
I think it is also important to recall that the English “Puritan” revolution was a minority phenomenon. The vast majority of the common people hated Cromwell’s rule and could not accept the killing of the king, in spite of all Milton & Co’s propaganda.
While Lutheranism also believes faith alone matters, and not deeds, Calvinism takes that further. It was even more suited therefore to the rapacity of the upstart class in England, where it had free rein.
Calvinism blames poverty on the poor. Bankruptcy used to get you excommunicated from the Presbyterian kirk in Scotland. The persecution of the propertyless after the Henrician enclosures, the Vagrancy Acts of Edward VI and Elizabeth I, are all justified in Calvinist theology, as was the terrorising of the working class via the “Protestant Work Ethic.”
It is the original root of even today’s guilt-tripping of the unemployed and benefit claimants.
Calvinism is the ultimate capitalist theology.
Even though capitalism developed in the Catholic world, Catholic monarchies prevented Calvinist protestantism from taking the helm – although Jansenism tried to “calvinise” Catholicism. The traditional “Christ friend of the poor” myth was just too strong in Catholicism, despite its own ferocity in other ways. The running of charity hospitals was also a strong medieval tradition bound up with monasticism – the first institution to be scrapped in England and Scotland. Elizabeth instead authorised workhouses, in which the poor could be worked to death.Cranmer was influenced more by Lutheranism than Cromwell. Cromwell kept his theological views to himself as chief hatchet-man for Henry, who burned both Catholics and Protestants.
Cranmer became more of an evangelical (Calvinist).
The two basic facts are, that protestantism, mostly of the Calvinist variety, was welcomed after Henry’s death and would only then influence the Church of England. But the expropriation of church lands, secession from Rome, and dissolution of the monasteries, with the mass eviction of the English peasantry, all took place in England BEFORE England became Protestant, under Henry VIII and his Church, which was NOT protestant until after his death.
Lutheranism prevailed in Scandinavia, but I don’t know any details on that.
English protestantism was Calvinist. Within this grew a plethora, beginning with Puritans within the Church of England wanting to “purify” the Church of its Catholic rituals. Unhappy with bishops, the Nonconformists left the Church and themselves divided into Presbyterians and Independents, both strict Calvinists. Never was Lutheranism on the English scene.
The proto-communists you associate with the Puritans, like the Diggers and Ranters, owe more to the Anabaptists than the Puritans. Anabaptists, and Quakers are not protestants and were persecuted by the established churches and by the Puritans. They may have been splinters from the Reformation but their kind are pre-protestant too, and owe more to the Waldensians and such groups.
I was tracing the Nazis back to both Luther’s anti-semitism and to the fossilization of the German princedoms caused by Luther’s revolt – a fossilization which put a 20th century Germany in conflict with the colonial powers of Britain and France.
I never said all or most of the German proletariat were anti-semitic, but a majority were, and responded as expected to the scapegoating of the Jews.
The evolution of the nation-state spans over the religious sects. Where Catholicism retained control did not mean feudalism did. Mercantile capitalism thrived in both Catholic and Protestant countries, and both amassed colonial territories and wealth.
There were protestant feudal rulers, in Germany and central Europe. The powerful Nadasdy-Bathorys in Hungary for instance.
England was relatively late on the colonial scene and dependent on piracy on Spanish and Portuguese shipping. These Catholic kingdoms were the superpowers, already with vast empires – not possible for feudal states.
Spain was the first nation-state and became the first superpower. Its bishops and its inquisition were autonomous of the Popes, and their first loyalty was to the monarch.
The Catholic Counter Reformation was actually the Catholic Reformation. It did away with the medieval Church and created a new organisation, streamlined and useful as a colonial force. You cannot equate Catholicism everywhere with the feudal system, like medieval Catholicism.
In France the Church also enjoyed autonomy and under Richelieu it led state centralisation demolishing regional defences and increasing the power of the throne.The first nation-state, Spain, was Catholic. Later, the Counter Reformation made the Catholic Church in Catholic countries a revolutionary force, streamlined, and a colonial force, competing with protestant states and also aligning with them (i.e. France in the Thirty Years War).
Google: ” England never officially adopted Lutheranism as its state religion, although Lutheran ideas and theology had a significant, albeit limited, influence on the early English Reformation. While the Church of England broke with Rome under Henry VIII, the resulting Anglicanism was a distinct, often political, structure that did not fully embrace the theological principles of Martin Luther.
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Key Reasons Lutheranism Was Not Adopted
Political vs. Theological Reformation: The English Reformation was initiated by Henry VIII for political reasons (securing a divorce) rather than theological convictions like those driving the German Lutheran movements.
Henry VIII’s Conservatism: Henry VIII considered himself a traditional Catholic and personally attacked Martin Luther in his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum, earning the title “Defender of the Faith” from the Pope.
Deviation from Lutheran Doctrine: The Church of England never officially accepted the core Lutheran confessional documents, such as the Augsburg Confession, and retained more elements of medieval Catholic structure (like bishops).
Shift to Reformed/Calvinist Ideas: Following Henry VIII, the English church moved toward Reformed (Calvinist) theology, particularly during the reign of Edward VI, which differed significantly from Luther’s views on the Eucharist.”
