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J. C. Davis - Fear, Myth and History, The Ranters and the Historians
[Cambridge University Press 2002]
Flourishing briefly in the aftermath of the English Revolution (1649-1650), the Ranters have been seen as the ultimate counter-cultural group or movement of seventeenth-century England. Their apparent rejection of sin, hell and all moral constraints, authorities and limitations imposed from above has drawn considerable attention to them as illustrative of an irreligious popular culture and the determination of the people to have a revolution of their own making. Acting out a plebian permissiveness in denial of the Protestant ethic at the moment of its achievement of dominance, they have drawn the attention, in particular, of those seeking to record the history of a popular tradition rejecting the hegemony of bourgeois values.
This book calls in question that framework. The author argues that there was no Ranter group or movement; that the Ranters did not exist. Rather, a myth of the Ranters was projected in a press sensation and was sustained by heresiographers and sectarian leaders. The projection of this myth in the early 1650s is explained in terms of fears aroused by a revolutionary crisis and the dilemma of authority within sectarianism. In this sense the work forms a case study in the projection of deviance consequent upon a 'moral panic'. The elements out of which the mythic identity of the Ranter was composed are examined in detail, as is the projection of the myth.
A myth of repressive effect in the 1650s has been revived by left-wing historians in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the framework of their historiography of the English Revolution. Professor Davis examines this process and concludes by offering some commentary upon it. There is an appendix of documents, including the one core 'Ranter' text that has not hitherto been reprinted, and some of the sensational material of the early 1650s on the Ranters.
Contents
Preface
Note
List of abbreviations
1. The Historians and the Ranters
The Revival: Birth of a Movement
Before the Revival
The Rise of the Ranters: the World Turned Upside Down
The Consolidation of the Ranters
A Voice of Caution
Conclusion
2. Who were the Ranters?
The Problem
Approaching the Core
Eliminating the fringe
The new Messiahs
The new Prophets
New victims
Tightening the Core
George Foster
Joseph Salmon
Richard Coppin
Conclusion
3. Examining the Ranter Core
Introducing the Core
Jacob Bauthumley
Abiezer Coppe
A Justification of the Mad Crew
Laurence Clarkson
A Single Eye All Light
The Lost Sheep Found
Conclusion
4. The Ranter Sensation
Introduction
The Sensation
More Serious Accounts
Sectarian Exploitation and Semantic Deteriorisation
Conclusion
5. Explaining the Ranter Myth
Introduction
The Theory: Understanding the Myth
Moral Panics and Folk Devils
An anxious society: general anxieties
Revolutions and fear
Crucial anxieties: the problem of post-revolutionary order or godly reformation
The spectrum of fears embodied in the Ranter myth
The Practice: Manufacturing the Myth
The Press sensation and the limited basis of its production
The needs of sectarian consolidation
Projection: the manufacture of images and the mythic necessities of a conservative revolution
The materials of the myth
Conclusion
6. Explaining the Historians
Epilogue
Documents
1. A Justification of the Mad Crew (1650)
A JUSTFICATION OF THE MAD CREW IN THEIR WAYES AND PRINCIPLES Or The Madness And Weakness Of GOD IN MAN Proved Wisdom and Strength
2. The Ranters Religion (11 October 1650)
The Ranters Religion OR, A faithfull and infallible Narrative of their damnable and diabolical opinions, with their detestable lives and actions
3. The Routing of the Ranters (19 November 1650)
The Ranters Ranting: or A True Relation of a sort of People called Ranters, with some of their abominable and wicked carriages, and behaviour at their private meetings
4. Gilbert Roulston, The Ranters Bible (9 December 1650)
The Ranters Bible Or, Seven several Religions by them held and maintained
5. M. Stubs, The Ranters Declaration (16 December 1650)
6. The Ranters Recantation (20 December 1650)
THE RANTERS RECANTATION: And their SERMON Delivered At a Meeting on Tuesday last, in White-Chappel, being 17 of this instant DECEMBER
7. Strange Newes From Newgate (21 January 1651)
STRANGE NEWES FROM NEWGATE and the OLD-BAILEY: OR The Proofs, Examinations, Declarations, Indictments, Conviction, and confessions of I. Collins and T. Reeve, two of the Ranters taken in More-lane, at the General Sessions of Goal-Delivery; holden in the Old-Bailey the twentieth day, of this instant January, the Penalties that are inflicted upon them. The Proceedings against one Parson Williams for having four wives, and John Jackson a Scots Minister, condemned to be drawn, hanged, and quartered, for proclaiming Charles Stuart King of England, with the strange and wonderful judgement of God shewed upon one T. Kendall, a Ranter in Drury-lane who fell down dead as he was affirming that there is no God, or Hell to punish.
8. The Ranters Monster (30 March 1652)
RANTERS MONSTER: Being a True Relation of one Mary Adams, living at Tillingham in Essex, who named her self the Virgin Mary, blasphemously affirming, That she was with conceived with child by the Holy Ghost; that from her should spring forth the Saviour of the world; and that all those that did not believe in him were damn'd : With the manner how she was deliver'd of the ugliest ill-shapen Monster that ever eyes beheld, and afterwards rotted away in prison.
9. A Blow at the Root (4 March 1650)
A Blow at the Root. Or some OBSERVATIONS towards A Discovery of the Subtilties and Devices of Satan, practised against the Church and Truth of CHRIST, As in all Ages, so in these times especially
10. Title page of The Jovial Crew by S[amuel] S[heppard] (6 January 1651)
THE JOVIAL CREW OR, The Devill turn'd RANTER: Being a Character of The roaring Ranters of these Times
11. Title page of Bloudy Newse from the North by Samuel Tilbury (20 January 1651)
12. Title page of The Declaration of John Robins by G. H. (2 June 1651)
Index
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Mon, 29th Jan 2007 9:59:04 +0100
Fear, Myth and History, The Ranters and the Historians by J. C. Davies has the apparent aim of debunking the mythic identity of the group called the Ranters, 'a myth of repressive effect in the 1650s [that] has been revived by left-wing historians in the 1970s and 1980s as part of the framework of their historiography of the English Revolution.' These historians are Norman Cohn, Christopher Hill, A. L. Morton, and Nigel Smith. The book attempts to show 'that there was no Ranter group or movement; that the Ranters did not exist.'
So, the book appears to be flawed right from the very beginning: It is really no matter whatsoever whether there was a group of people calling themselves Ranters or whether this was just a derogatory label given to certain individuals or groups of individuals by the press of the day, or whether left-wing historians have used this term wrongly. For most of us, it gives a general idea of the topic of a piece of writing, and the author of the currently discussed work uses it in the same way. For the authorities and 'media' of the time, and in much the same way, the left-wing historians of the 1970s and 1980s, it allowed them to sectarianise these individuals. Making it far easier to condemn or praise such groups of individuals, each to their own ends. What is important is that through their published works they survive, and the thread is not broken, the thread that links us as individuals, as people, to those people that went before us, and their opposition to the state machine.
Despite that, it sheds more light on the individuals in question, be they Ranters or not, and also includes some original source material. A Justification of the Mad Crew (1650) is a welcome addition to those other works contained in A Collection of Ranter Writings from the 17th Century. The reproduced sensationalist texts from the contemporary yellow press also provide valuable insights, ultimately making it a good read, flaws notwithstanding.
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