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Religion, Social Change, and Psychological Healing in England, 1600–1800

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Michael MacDonald*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Extract

Robert Burton was being as trite as Polonius when he advised his readers that the general causes of melancholy ‘are either supernatural or natural’. Apart from a small and notorious band of sceptics, all of Burton’s contemporaries agreed that mental diseases might be caused by natural accidents or supernatural forces. They attributed misery and madness to a myriad of particular misfortunes and afflictions. Sudden frights and insupportable griefs drove men mad; physical illnesses polluted their bodies and crazed their minds; horrible sins fed festering guilt and exposed them to God’s wrathful judgements; evil spirits and witches tormented them with awful temptations, suicidal desperation, stark insanity, and demonic possession. The defences against the material and immaterial enemies of human happiness were as varied as the sources of misery themselves. Mentally disturbed people were treated with drugs and therapeutic regimens to restore the balance of their humours, with religious counsel and prayer to ease their spiritual afflictions, and with amulets, charms, and exorcisms to protect them against the malignancy of demons and witches.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1982

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References

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11 Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 569-88, esp nn 56-9, 67, 73.

12 There are several modern accounts of the Darrell affair. Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 576-80 and Kocher, Paul H., Science and Religion in Elizabethan England (San Marino, Calif. 1953) pp 12745 Google Scholar are the most useful; Walker, Unclean Spirits pp 52-73 is the most recent. Walker correctly emphasises the sincerity of Darrell and his associates. The healing miracles of the French Prophets lie outside the scope of the puritan tradition discussed here: see Schwartz, Hillel, The French Prophets (Berkeley 1980) pp 52, 69, 96, 99-100,108,116, 124, 133,142, 205, 219, 241-2.Google Scholar

13 Thomas, Religion and Magic esp pp 15-n6,89,148,219,245,539-40,585-6,638-40, 797-800.

14 Haller, Rise of Puritanism p 33; Trosse, Life p 111. For the origins and persistence of allegorical psychology in sermons and popular drama see Owst, G.R., Literature and the Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge 1933) ch IIGoogle Scholar; Spivack, Bernard, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil (New York 1958) chs III-VIIGoogle Scholar. For some examples of traditional imagery in the writings of early seventeenth-century divines (not discussed by Haller) see Hall, Joseph, Works 12 vols (Oxford 1839) VIII: 88 Google Scholar; Perkins, William, A Golden chaine [and other treatises] (Cambridge 1600) pp 65763, 667Google Scholar; Capel, Richard, Tentations (4th edn London 1650) pp 1924 Google Scholar; Wilson, Thomas, Saints by Calling (London 1620) pp 30, 42-3, 166-7, 195-205Google Scholar; idem, A Sermon of the Spirituall Combat in his Jacob’s Ladder (London 1611); Hildersham, Arthur, quoted in Stannard, David, ‘Death and Dying in Puritan New EnglandAHR 78 (1973) p 1311 Google Scholar; Clarke, Samuel, Lives of sundry Eminent Persons (London 1683)Google Scholar; Lawrence, Henry, Of our commvnion And warre with angels (London 1646).Google Scholar

15 Watkins, O.C., The Puritan Experience (London 1972)Google Scholar is an excellent analysis of the language and conventions of puritan (including quaker) autobiographies, see esp pp 9-10, 13, 168. Bunyan, John, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners and Pilgrim‘s Progress ed Sharrock, Roger(London 1966);Google Scholar Cowper, William, Memoir of the Early Life of William Cowper, Esq. written by himself (London 1816).Google Scholar

16 MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam p 199, Appendix E, Table E.3.

17 ibid, chs 3,5.

18 For some contemporary lists of the mundane causes of mental disorders see Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy I: 357-9; Yarrow, Robert, Sovereign Comforts for a troubled conscience (London 1634) pp 2930 Google Scholar; Sym, John, Lifes Preservative against self-killing (London 1637) pp 21117 Google Scholar; Drage, William, A Physical Nosonomy (London 1665) p 67 Google Scholar; Blagrave, Joseph, Blagrave’s Astrological Practice of Physick (London 1671) p 184 Google Scholar. For a discussion of the sources of anxiety and depression in the lives of autobiographers of very humble social backgrounds see Capp, B.S., The Fifth-Monarchy Men (London 1972) pp 947.Google Scholar

19 Macfarlane, Alan, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (New York 1971) pp 1802 Google Scholar, Table 19; MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam pp 198-200, 205, 209-10, Appendix E, Table E.3. For elite complaints about the comprehensiveness of popular credulity see Cotta, John, A Short Discouerie of the vnobseured dangers of seuerall sorts of vnconsiderate Practisers of Physicke in England (London 1612) p 59 Google Scholar; Bernard, Richard, A Guide to Grand lury Men … in Cases of Witchcraft, with a Christian Direction to such as are too much given upon every crosse to Think Themselves betwiched (London 1627) pp 1118 Google Scholar; Jorden, Edward, A BriefDiscourse of a Disease Called the Suffocation of the Mother (London 1603) sig A2Google Scholar; Gaule, John, Select Cases of Conscience Touching Witches and Witchcrafts (London 1646) pp 5, 99-100Google Scholar; Hutchinson, Francis, An historical essay concerning witchcraft (London 1720) pp 3324.Google Scholar

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21 Bodleian Library, Ashmole MSS, 223, f 124v (Persivall), 235, f 117 (Olive), 196, f 151 (Peach). For other examples see MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam pp 135, 144-5, 201-2.

22 Baxter, Richard, The certainly of the Worlds of Spirits (London 1691) p 38 Google Scholar. Thomas discussion of the personification of evil thoughts and actions is typically insightful and well-documented, Religion and Magic pp 560-9. For some additional material see HMC, Report 5 Pine Coffin (1876) p 380; Bovet, Richard, Pandaemonium ed Montague Summers (Aldington, Kent 1951) p 116 Google Scholar (both on suicide); MacDonald, Mystical Bedlam pp 133-4, 201-6 (a wide range of evil impulses blamed on spirits and witches by Napier’s clients and others).

23 Gaule, Select Cases pp 121-2. Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 567-8; The impossibility of witchcraft (London 1712) p 21 ; Hutchinson, Historical essay pp 332-4. A stimulating discussion of binary symbolism in the writings of Renaissance demonologists is Clark, S., ‘Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft’, Past & Present no. 87 (1980) pp 38293.Google Scholar

24 Baxter, Richard, Reliquiae Baxteriana ed Sylvester, Matthew (London 1696) Preface, section VI.Google Scholar

25 Baxter, Richard, Gildas Salvianus: The First Part, i.e., The Reformed Pastor (London 1656) pp 77, 94.Google Scholar See also idem, ‘The Cure of Melancholy and Overmuch Sorrow, By Faith and Physic’ in his Practical Works ed William Orme, 23 vols (London 1830) XVII: 236-85; idem, The Signs and Causes of Melancholy ed Samuel Clifford (London 1716); Doddridge, Philip, The Works ed Job Orton, 6 vols (London 1804) IV: 299335, esp 322Google Scholar; idem, Some Remarkable Passages in the life Of the Honourable Col. James Gardiner (London 1747) pp 163-6.

26 Baxter, Reliquiae Baxteriana Pt 1:83-4, 89-90, Pt III: 85-6; idem, Certainty of Spirits pp 171-2; idem, Signs and Causes pp x-xi; Heywood, Oliver, His Autobiography, Diaries, Anecdote and Event Books ed Turner, J. H., 4 vols (Brighouse and Bingley 1881-85) I: 229, 251, 255, 279, 282, 285, 287, 292, 358; II: 61, 78, 82, 103, 211, 262, 280, 297, 299, 301; III: 95, 101, 105, 115, 125, 163, 189, 191, 193, 201; IV: 31, 38, 109, 121, 161, 170, 268, 273Google Scholar; Newcome, Henry, The Diary ed Thomas Heywood (Chetham Society 28, 1849) pp 558, 74-7, 92, 132, 133, 140, 186, 193, 216Google Scholar; Jolly, Thomas, The Note Book of the Reu. Thomas Jolly ed Henry Fishwick (Chetham Society NS 33 1895) pp 201.Google Scholar

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28 Wesley, John, The Works 14 vols (London 1842) VI: 358 Google Scholar; VII: 315. For Baxter’s views on Satan’s part in causing and worsening mental disorders see Practical Works XVII: 242, 245-9, 272, 276, 284-5; XXII: 342-9; Reliquiae Baxteriana Pt II: 86; Certainty of Spirits pp 40, 59-60, 121, 171-4.

29 Baxter, , Practical Works XVII: 276 Google Scholar; Wesley, , Works VI: 358 Google Scholar. Spiritual physicians sometimes criticised doctors’ attempts to cure mental disorders by purely physical means; Fox, Book of Miracles p 121; Wesley, , Works III: 237 Google Scholar, (commenting on the case of a melancholy and distracted woman), ‘Let Physicians do all they will or can: yet it will be found in the end that “this kind goeth our not but by prayer and fasting”’; see also II: 456.

30 Watts, Michael R., The Dissenters: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford 1978) p 344 Google Scholar; Huyberts, Adrian, A Corner-Stone Laid towards the Building of a New college (that is to say, a new Body of Physicians) in London (London 1675) p 19.Google Scholar

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34 George Whitefield, Journals (n pl 1960) pp 52-4, 132.

35 Wesley, , Works I: 218 Google Scholar. Cf Baxter, Certainty of Spirits pp 193-5, 234; Heywood, Oliver, The Whole Works 5 vols (Idle 1827), IV: 5379; V: 192-6, 199,426,482, 511.Google Scholar

36 This analysis of contemporary accounts of healing fasts has been influenced by Victor Turner‘s more sophisticated discussions of curative rituals: The Forest of Symbols (Ithaca 1967) esp ch IX; The Drums of Affliction (Ithaca 1968); The Ritual Process (Ithaca 1977). For a brief discussion of Turner’s work see Douglas, Mary, ’The Healing Rite’, in her Implicit Meanings (London 1975) pp 14252 Google Scholar.

37 I have adopted the broad definition of ‘psychomachia’ employed by Spivack in his excellent discussion of allegorical drama, Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil chs III-VI.

38 Jollie, Surrey Demoniack p 13.

39 Wesley, , Works III: 1404.Google Scholar

40 The symbolism of incident and place, as well as the outright personification, in Terrill‘s narrative recall the works of Dent and Bunyan: Dent, Arthur, The Plain Man’s Path-way to Heaven (London 1617)Google Scholar; Bunyan, Grace Abounding and Pilgrim‘s Progress. See Owst, Literature and the Pulpit ch II for the traditions that influenced Dent and Bunyan.

41 The Records of a Church of Christ in Bristol, 1640-1687 ed Roger Hayden (Bristol Record Society Publications 27 1974) pp 139-41.

42 Thomas notes that the manuscript versions of a dispossession performed by John Foxe in 1574 ‘influenced the language and style of many later cases’. Religion and Magic p 481. The story of Francisco Spira’s apostasy was even more influential, and it even served as the basis for a late morality play, Woodes, Nathaniel, The Conflict of Conscience ed Davis, Herbert and Wilson, F. P. (London 1952)Google Scholar. Thomas, Religion and Magic p 581, nn 79, 80 gives a list of the post-Restoration dispossessions by dissenters. In addition to the narratives discussed in the text, the accounts of healing fasts I found most useful were Clarke, Samuel, The lives of Two and Twenty English Divines (London 1660) pp 914 Google Scholar; Barrow, John, The lords arm stretched out in an Answer of Prayer (London 1664)Google Scholar; Petto, Samuel, A Faithful Narrative of the Wonderful and Extraordinary fits which Mr Thomas Spatchet … was under by Witchcraft (London 1693)Google Scholar; Baxter, Reliquiae Baxteriana Pt I: 81-2; Clark, William, A True Relation of one of Mrs Jane Farrer’s … being Possessed with the devil (London ? 1710)Google Scholar; Aldridge, Thomas, The Prevalency of Prayer (London 1717)Google Scholar; The Lives of the Early Methodist Preachers ed Jackson, Thomas 6 vols (3rd edn London, 1865), V: 271-3; VI: 127-8.Google Scholar

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44 Baxter, Reliquiae Baxteriana Pt I: 85-6.

45 Baxter, Certainly of Spirits pp 183-4.

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53 Tillotson, whose sermons were the model for most eighteenth-century parsons, expounded this view: Works II: 131-2, 457-8. See also, e.g. ‘Academicus’, The principles and practices of the methodists Farther Considered (London 1761) pp 29-31; An earnest and affectionate address To the people called Methodists (8th edn London 1774) pp 24-8; Edmund Gibson, Political tracts, exhortations and admonitions to the public; Whitby, Daniel, A paraphrase and commentary on the New Testament 2 vols (London 1703) I: xxivxxiii Google Scholar. For the controversy surrounding the date of the cessation of miracles and, at length, the reality of miracles themselves see Stephen, Leslie, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century 2 vols (New York 1962) 1: 192233 esp pp 222-4, 226, 227.Google Scholar

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59 Lavington, Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Pt III: 16.

60 Charles Blount, The Miscellaneous Works (n pi 1695) p 53. cfTrenchard, John, The Natural History of Superstition (London 1709) esp 811.Google Scholar

61 Gianvill, Joseph, Saducimus Triumphatus ed Parsons, C. O. (Gainesville, Fla 1966) pp 978, 287.Google Scholar

62 Lavington, Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists Pt II: 37-8.

63 Church, Remarks on Wesley’s journal pp 67-71. See also the works cited in n 50 above.

64 Farmer, Hugh, An essay on the demoniacs of the New Testament (London 1775) pp 3459 Google Scholar. Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 585, 683; Stephen, , History of English Thought I: 192233.Google Scholar

65 Wesley, , Works III: 30818, 383-4; IV: 72.Google Scholar

66 Thomas, Religion and Magic ch 18; Mead, Richard, The Works (Edinburgh 1775) pp 4656, 470-7Google ScholarPubMed. Tourney, Garfield, ‘The Physician and Witchcraft in Restoration EnglandMedical History 16 (1972) pp 14355 CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed rightly stresses that the spread of complete scepticism was gradual even among physicians. Bishop Lavington combined credulity and scepticism with complete disregard for logic and consistency, and many other anglican clergymen must have done the same: Enthusiasm of Methodists and Papists esp Pts II and III.

67 Paulson, Ronald, Hogarth’s Craphic Works, rev ed 2 vols (New Haven 1970) I: 247-9; II, pl 231Google Scholar

68 Wagstaff, J., The Question of Witchcraft Debated (London 1669), pp 667;Google Scholar Impossibility of witchcraft pp 24-5; Battie, William, A Treatise on Madness ed Hunter, R. and Macalpinc, I. (London 1966) esp 34 Google Scholar; Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 787-8. For the theories and treatments of eighteenth century medical psychology see the works cited in n 3 above.

69 Crudcn, A., Mr Cruden Greatly Injured (London 1739) p 24 Google Scholar; idem. The adventures of Alexander the Corrector (London 1754) pp 18, 24; Carkesse, James, Lucida Intervalla (London 1679)Google Scholar. In addition to complaints like these by ex-patients, there were admissions by doctors themselves that medical treatments were sometimes harmful: Battie, Treatise on Madness pp 1-2; P. Frings, , A Treatise on phrensy (London 1746) pp 2961 Google Scholar; Withers, Thomas, Observations on the abuse of medicines (London 1775) pp 647 Google Scholar. Criticism of traditional medical treatments mounted as the century advanced and culminated in the ‘moral therapy’ and lunacy reform movements, for which see below n 72.

70 For the decline of exorcism among Catholics see Aveling, J. C. H., The Handle and the Axe: Catholic Recusants in England from the Reformation to the Emancipation (London 1976) pp 3001 Google Scholar. I have been unable to locate an account of a public fast for a mentally disturbed person held by an Old Dissenting congregation after 1730, although a more thorough search of the manuscript sources might bring some to light. For evidence of the survival of popular beliefs in witches and demons see Thomas, Religion and Magic pp 797-800; Ward, W. R., Religion and Society in England, 1790-1850 (London 1972) pp 47, 78-9Google Scholar; Lives of Early Methodist Preachers III: 167; Obelkevich, James, Religion and Rural Society, South Lindsey, 1825-1875 (Oxford 1976) ch 6Google Scholar; Harrison, J. F. C., The Second Coming: Popular Millenarianism, 1780-1850 (New Brunswick 1979) pp 409 Google Scholar, 52, 104-5, 125, 127, 235 n 58, 253; Naylor, M. J., The Inanity and Mischief of Vulgar Superstitions (Cambridge 1795) pp iiiv.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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