Politics, Religion and Ideology in Seventeenth-Century England

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Professor Markku Peltonen

Researcher, MA Sari Polvinen
Researcher, MA Jouni Toivanen

The main aim of our research project is to examine the popularisation of political culture and the concomitant rise of the public sphere in England in the 1640s and 1650s. The proposal consists of three separate but extremely closely linked projects. The first part (Classical Republicanism in England in the 1640s) examines the political ideology of classical republicanism in the 1640s and the impact of the popular politics on the political thinking. The second part (Words in Print. The English Newspapers in the English Civil War) investigates the ways in which the new forms of political printing, namely the birth of the newspaper fuelled the fierce political debates and changed the ways the domestic politics were discussed. The third part (Belief or Propaganda? Anti-Catholicism in England in the 1650s)focuses on religious aspects of popular politics and studies the ideology and influence of the popular anti-catholic debate during the interregnum.

The period under examination is unique in English history. The Civil War, the abolition of monarchy and the erection of a republic spawned an unprecedented efflorescence of diverse political philosophy. In addition to this, it also witnessed the emergence of popular politics and the formation of the public sphere for the first time in European history. When both magisterial and episcopal censorship collapsed at the beginning of 1640s a heated public debate about the matters of state and religion soon ensued. England was replete with political and religious petitioning campaigns, pamphlets and newsletters; politics had spilled over into everyday life, and the people readily discussed the political and religious issues they were confronted with. This debate marked a great historical shift away from the concern with the individual or group misbehaviour and rebellion towards growing awareness of a new social force: the emergence of the public sphere.

Our research project is closely linked with the rise of the public sphere and popular politics. Our main aim is to offer the first more comprehensive and many-sided look at the emergence and manifestations of popular politics and public debate. All three parts of the project also share three guiding methodological principals. Firstly, a willingness to pursue the causes and ramifications of the historical phenomena at a number of social, cultural and institutional levels as well as to accept the multi-vocality of historiography. Secondly and much more specifically, a willingness to follow the principals of modern intellectual history and try to examine the debate in question, to understand the development of the intellectual issues and themes involved, and to locate these arguments in their practical as well as intellectual contexts. Thirdly we share the idea of popular culture and politics. This means paying serious attention to popular pamphlet literature, often overlooked by historians. It also means trying to follow recent trends in the historiography of early modern popular politics where the connections and overlaps rather than divisions and separations of élite and more popular forms of politics and culture have been emphasised. That is to say, we are not studying popular politics as hermetically sealed and largely autonomous (such as ritual misbehaviour and carnival) but rather as intermingling and interacting with middling and upper class modes of civic participation.