The Little Gidding community was an extended family and religious group based at Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire (now in Cambridgeshire), England, in existence from the middle of the 1620s to the later 1650s. It gained attention in its time because of the interest Charles I of England showed in it. In the 19th century associated buildings were restored; T. S. Eliot was attracted to it as an examplar of religious life in the Church of England, and subsequently made it prominent by his poem Little Gidding , one of the Four Quartets . [1]
Little Gidding near Sawtry was a small village when it was the site chosen by Nicholas Ferrar and his mother Mary Ferrar for a new Ferrar family home: they were then retreating from adverse events in the London and court circles. There was an existing church, in a poor state of maintenance, and a life of work and prayer was set up. [2]
In 1620, Esmé Stewart, Earl of March sold the manor of Little Gidding to Thomas Sheppard. Population had declined in this rural area. Sheppard then sold the property to Nicholas Ferrar and his cousin Arthur Wodenoth in 1625 as trustees for Mary Ferrar (née Wodenoth). The Ferrars and Wodenoths were investors in the Virginia Company. [3]
John Ferrar, elder brother to Nicholas, was a merchant partner of Thomas Sheppard, who by the early 1620s was heavily in debt. The legal position made John also liable for those debts. The purchase of Little Gidding from Sheppard was used by Nicholas to settle with the creditors, relying on Mary's money, and untangle John from the liability. [4] In the aftermath of the 1622 collapse of the Virginia Company, and the loss of a large portion of their fortune, the Ferrar family moved to Little Gidding. An immediate reason to leave London was the second plague pandemic, and a 1625 outbreak there. [5]
The rector of St John's Church, Little Gidding, from 1614 was Michael Reade, an Oxford graduate in 1608. He had other livings, in particular becoming rector of Cottisford in 1625. [6] In 1626, Nicholas Ferrar was ordained as a deacon by William Laud, then Bishop of St David's, in Westminster Abbey. [7] [8] The parish of Little Gidding was in the diocese of Lincoln. [9] Its bishop when the community was founded was John Williams. He was a supporter in church terms, and made three visits to Little Gidding. [10]
The community as founded amounted to around 30 persons. [11] Mary and Nicholas Ferrar were joined at the Little Gidding manor house by two siblings of Nicholas, John Ferrar, and Susanna who was married to John Collett (born 1571), with members of their families. [12] [4]
Mary Ferrar died in 1634, having handed over her matriarchal role in 1632 to Mary Collett. [12] [1] [13] Nicholas, who was unmarried, died in 1637. [12] The girls of the community were educated in Latin, as well as practical skills. Antonia Fraser links suspicion of women having Latin, the deficit in female education caused by the dissolution of the monasteries in the previous century, and the gibes aimed at the community about being a "Protestant nunnery". [14]
The community put a large effort into producing examples of a distinctive type of book, a one-off illustrated gospel harmony. Biblical text was enriched with larger assemblages made from cut-up Netherlandish prints. [15] Among the engravers whose work was used for illustration was Boetius à Bolswert. [16] A major source was prints of 16th century Dutch and Flemish artists with strong Italian influences: Marten van Heemskerck, Jan van der Straet, Marten de Vos. [17]
Little Gidding was also renowned for its bookbinding. The bindings were of velvet or leather, and typically were stamped in gold with simple motifs. [18]
The University of Cambridge is about 30 miles (48 km) from Little Gidding. Nicholas Ferrar had been an undergraduate at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was taught by Augustine Lindsell, graduating B.A. in 1610. Lindsell attended his ordination as deacon in 1626. [7] [19] [20]
Ferrar Collett, brother of Mary Collett, went to Peterhouse, matriculating in 1636, and studied under Richard Crashaw. [19] [21] Crashaw possibly knew Nicholas Ferrar in London; he certainly visited Little Gidding in the years after 1631, as a Cambridge student, and kept up his relationship with the community after Nicholas had died. [22]
The poet George Herbert was public orator at Cambridge in the 1620s, and from 1626 had a prebendal residence at Leighton Bromswold, close to Little Gidding. He was in the orbit of Ferrar and the community, for the years until 1630 when he moved away to a living at Bemerton. [23] The church at Leighton was in need of repair. The landowner there was Katherine, Duchess of Lennox, widow of Esmé Stewart (died 1624) who had owned Little Gidding. She financed some of the construction work required. John and Nicholas Farrar managed it. [7]
After Herbert's death in 1633, his papers went to Nicholas Ferrar and his cousin Arthur Wodenoth. [22] A folio manuscript of the poetry collection by Herbert, which became known as The Temple, was made at Little Gidding by Anna and Mary Collett (perhaps with help), in order to apply for permission to publish. Later owned by William Sancroft and Thomas Tanner, it is now MS Tanner 307 at the Bodleian Library. [24] [25]
Little Gidding was visited in 1634 by an outsider, the barrister Edward Lenton. [1] He was able to observe liturgical details in the church that went against the idea that the community was Laudian. In fact Bishop John Williams did not enforce Laud's strictures on altars. [26] Nonetheless, Lenton's account was used by the community's critics in an attack of 1641. [1]
On an occasion when Nicholas Ferrar was away, Charles I was in the district on a royal progress. He asked through a courtier to borrow one the community's books, about which he had heard. It led to a commission to produce a book for the king. [27] He visited Little Gidding in 1633, on the way north to his coronation in Edinburgh. [28]
Charles I stayed at Little Gidding early in March 1642, as he made his way north, just before the outbreak of the English Civil War. He had with him the Prince of Wales (later Charles II), and they examined the final book to be made at Little Gidding, a Pentateuch harmony, thought to be intended for the Prince. [29] The king also went hunting, shooting a hare. [30] An ample account was published in Peter Peckard's edition of John Ferrar's biography of his brother, including the king's parting words "Pray, pray for my speedy and safe return". [31]
In the last days of the First English Civil War, Charles I arrived at Little Gidding unaccompanied, on 2 May 1646. John Ferrar found him a place of concealment at Coppingford. [1] From there he reached the Scottish army at Newark, via Stamford, on 5 May. [32]
George Herbert was a Welsh poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devotional lyricists." He was born into an artistic and wealthy family and largely raised in England. He received a good education that led to his admission to Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1609. He went there with the intention of becoming a priest, but he became the University's Public Orator and attracted the attention of King James I. He served in the Parliament of England in 1624 and briefly in 1625.
Nicholas Ferrar was an English scholar, courtier and businessman, who was ordained a deacon in the Church of England. He lost much of his fortune in the Virginia Company and retreated with his extended family in 1626 to the manor of Little Gidding, Huntingdonshire, for his remaining years, in an informal spiritual community following High Anglican practice. His friend the poet and Anglican priest George Herbert (1593–1633), on his deathbed, sent Ferrar the manuscript of The Temple, telling him to publish the poetry if it might "turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul." "If not, let him burn it; for I and it are less than the least of God's mercies." Ferrar published the verses in 1633; they remain in print.
Richard Crashaw was an English poet, teacher, High Church Anglican cleric and Roman Catholic convert, who was one of the major metaphysical poets in 17th-century English literature.
Thomas Allen was an English mathematician and astrologer. Highly reputed in his lifetime, he published little, but was an active private teacher of mathematics. He was also well connected in the English intellectual networks of the period.
Anglican religious orders are communities of men or women in the Anglican Communion who live under a common rule of life. The members of religious orders take vows which often include the traditional monastic vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, or the ancient vow of stability, or sometimes a modern interpretation of some or all of these vows. Members may be laity or clergy, but most commonly include a mixture of both. They lead a common life of work and prayer, sometimes on a single site, sometimes spread over multiple locations.
Little Gidding is the fourth and final poem of T. S. Eliot's Four Quartets, a series of poems that discuss time, perspective, humanity, and salvation. It was first published in September 1942 after being delayed for over a year because of the air-raids on Great Britain during World War II and Eliot's declining health. The title refers to a small Anglican community in Huntingdonshire, established by Nicholas Ferrar in the 17th century and scattered during the English Civil War.
Augustine Lindsell was an English classical scholar and Bishop of Hereford. In church matters he was advanced by Richard Neile, and was a firm supporter of William Laud. As a scholar he influenced Thomas Farnaby.
Matthew Sutcliffe was an English clergyman, academic and lawyer. He became Dean of Exeter, and wrote extensively on religious matters as a controversialist. He served as chaplain to His Majesty King James I of England. He was the founder of Chelsea College, a royal centre for the writing of theological literature that was closed at the behest of Charles I. He also played a part in the early settlement of New England as an investor.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Little Gidding is a small village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. It lies approximately 9 miles (14 km) northwest of Huntingdon, near Sawtry, within Huntingdonshire, which is a district of Cambridgeshire as well as a historic county.
Robert Mapletoft was an English churchman and academic, Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge and Dean of Ely.
John Sheepshanks was an English Anglican Bishop in the last decade of the 19th century and the first one of the 20th.
Arthur Wodenoth or Woodnoth (c.1594–1645) was an English goldsmith and colonial pioneer, a member of the Virginia Company and Somers Islands Company.
Arminianism was a controversial theological position within the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century. A key element was the rejection of predestination. The Puritans fought against Arminianism, and King James I of England opposed it before, during, and after the Synod of Dort, 1618-19, where the English delegates participated in formulating the Calvinist Canons of Dort, but his son Charles I, favored it, leading to deep political battles. The Methodists, who espoused a variant of the school of thought called Wesleyan–Arminian theology, branched off of the Church of England in the 17th century.
The Great Tew Circle was a group of clerics and literary figures who gathered in the 1630s at the manor house of Great Tew, Oxfordshire in southern England, and in London.
William Laud was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 and executed towards the end of the First English Civil War in January 1645.
St John's Church is the Church of England parish church of the village of Little Gidding in Cambridgeshire. It is dedicated to St John the Evangelist and is a Grade I listed building. It is brick with a Ketton stone facing and a Collyweston stone slate roof.
John Ferrar was a London merchant and brother of Nicholas Ferrar the Younger. The son of Nicholas Ferrar the Elder, he was deputy governor and treasurer of the Virginia Company of London under Edwin Sandys.
Martha Peckard was a British poet. She is best known for her works "Ode to Spring" (1758) and "Ode to Cynthia" (1758).
Mary Ferrar was the matriarch of the Ferrar family who with her son Nicholas Ferrar founded the Little Gidding religious community in Huntingdonshire in 1625.