Matching Items (2)
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Description
This dissertation explores the claims, put forth by William Bradford in his journal Of Plimoth Plantation, that persecution was the primary motivation for removal from England to Holland by the Scrooby Puritans in 1608, and challenges the historiographical acceptance of those claims. The dissertation examines monarchical, ecclesiastical and historical records

This dissertation explores the claims, put forth by William Bradford in his journal Of Plimoth Plantation, that persecution was the primary motivation for removal from England to Holland by the Scrooby Puritans in 1608, and challenges the historiographical acceptance of those claims. The dissertation examines monarchical, ecclesiastical and historical records from 1590-1620 to determine if there was any evidence to support Bradford’s claims of persecution. Finding scant evidence of physical persecution at the hands of royal, civil, or ecclesiastical authorities, the dissertation turns to the socioeconomic factors which may have contributed to the Scrooby Puritans decision to leave England and take up residence in Holland for twelve years. Finding no significant socioeconomic push factors, attention is then turned to the theological underpinnings of the group to determine if theology may have driven their persecution narrative. It concludes that the Scrooby Puritans may not have been fleeing from authorities trying to confine them for their religious beliefs, but from the corruption of their very souls, had they remained in England and under the theological influences of the Church of England.
ContributorsGoodall, Sandra (Author) / O'Donnell, Catherine (Thesis advisor) / Warnicke, Retha (Committee member) / Gratton, Brian (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
This dissertation explores the relationship between motherhood and power in seventeenth-century England. While historians have traditionally researched the role of mothers within the family unit, this study explores the more public and discursive roles of motherhood. It argues that the various threads of discourse surrounding maternity betray a common desire

This dissertation explores the relationship between motherhood and power in seventeenth-century England. While historians have traditionally researched the role of mothers within the family unit, this study explores the more public and discursive roles of motherhood. It argues that the various threads of discourse surrounding maternity betray a common desire to circumscribe and condemn maternal authority, as this authority was threatening to masculinity and patriarchal rule. It finds that maternity was frequently cited as harmful and dangerous; household conduct books condemned the passionate and irrational nature of maternal love and its deleterious effects upon both mother and child. Furthermore, various images of ‘unnatural motherhood’ reveal larger concerns over social disorder. Sensationalistic infanticide and monstrous birth stories in cheap print display contemporary fears of lascivious, scolding, and unregulated women who were subversive to patriarchal authority and thus threatened the social status quo. The female reproductive body similarly threatened masculinity; an analysis of midwifery manuals show that contemporary authors had to reconcile women’s reproductive power with what they believed to be an inferior corporeal body. This study ends with a discussion of the representation of mothers in published funeral sermons as these mothers were textually crafted to serve as examples of ‘good mothering,’ offering a striking comparison to the ‘unnatural mothers’ presented in other sources. Motherhood in seventeenth-century England, then, involved a great deal more than the relationship between mother and child. It was a cultural site in which power was contested, and a site in which authors expressed anxiety over the irrational female mind and the unregulated, sexual female body.
ContributorsWiedenbeck, Ashley Erin (Author) / Warnicke, Retha M. (Thesis advisor) / O'Donnell, Catherine (Committee member) / Wright, Johnson (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015