This book is an intensive exploration of the hidden and mysterious world of the Family of Love in sixteenth and seventeenth century England. The Familists, devoted followers of the Messianic Dutch mystic, Hendrick Niclaes, were passionately denounced by many literate contemporaries, and an association with extremism, subversion and hypocrisy has endured.

The author tracks the English Familists into their houses, fields and places of work. The imaginative and highly detailed methodology makes possible an especially fruitful interaction with the past, and ensures that no single social context dominates the emerging picture. For instance, although the full extent of Familism at the court of Elizabeth I is revealed for the first time, the members there are discussed side by side with their 'loving friends' in the fields and fens of eastern England.

This study is, however, most significant for what it reveals about the nature of wider society. The processes by which the Family of Love came to be represented to posterity are examined carefully and placed alongside less accessible evidence. This approach brings into play a compelling and hitherto unsuspected dialogue between the forces of hostility and the lesser-known forces of tolerance: one surprising conclusion is that most English men and women seem to have possessed an impressive capacity to tolerate known 'heretics' in their midst.

Contents

List of illustrations

List of tables

Acknowledgements

List of abbreviations

1. Introduction

Hostility and historiography

Problems of access

A microscopic method

Emerging themes

2. Familist belief: the quest for perfection

The voice of H. N.

Precedents and influences

Voices raised in hostility

Extracted 'confessions'

Voices raised in self-defence

Wills

Knowing them by their fruits

3. Seedbeds and first shoots (1550-1565)

Marian Protestants

Conservatives

Anabaptist 'sectaries'

Enthusiastic conformists

A background in astrology

Mysticism: a common thread?

4. Development and consolidation (1565-1579)

Books and ballads

Internal organisation

'Parlour meetings' and Familist sociability

Behaviour before 'the World'

'Progress'

5. Crisis (1576/1582)

Chronicle: the Familist crisis

Animus

The need for a scapegoat

Courtiers

Country people

The puritan crisis

John Knewstub versus Robert Seale

Outcomes

6. Resolution: the pursuit of internal cohesion (1582-1603)

The wills of Creake and Raven (part I)

Familist households

Economic networks and material prosperity

Mutual support

The lie of the land

Friends in high places: the courtier Familists

Office-holding in the country

7. Resolution: the pursuit of external integration (1582-1603)

The wills of Creake and Raven (part II)

Faith and social relations

Outward charity and social responsibility

Religious tolerance in country and court

The Familist paradox

8. Crisis renewed (1603-1610)

Basilikon Doron (James VI/I)

A supplication of the Family of Love (Robert Seale?)

The Family of Love (Thomas Middleton)

Ely repercussions: William Safford's books

Balsham repercussions: the burial of Thomas Lawrence

Resolution

9. After the first generation (1610-1700)

10. Conclusion

The house that Robert Dorrington built

Appendix: the membership of the Family of Love

Bibliography

Index