Patrick "Pat" Collinson, CBE , FBA (10 August 1929 – 28 September 2011) [1] was an English historian, known as a writer on the Elizabethan era, particularly Elizabethan Puritanism. He was emeritus Regius Professor of Modern History, University of Cambridge, having occupied the chair from 1988 to 1996. He once described himself as "an early modernist with a prime interest in the history of England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries." [2]
Collinson was born in Ipswich, the son of Cecil Collinson and Belle Hay Patrick. [3] His father came from a Yorkshire Quaker family, and both Patrick's parents were Christian missionaries. He later wrote that his childhood home was "an evangelical hothouse where the Second Coming was expected daily". [4] Before he was 20, he was baptised at Bethesda Chapel in Ipswich.
After a short spell at Bethany School in Goudhurst, Kent, and Huntingdon Grammar School, Collinson was educated at King's Ely, and Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1949 to 1952. He was also trained as a radar mechanic during his national service in the Royal Air Force. [4] He became a postgraduate student at the University of London in 1952 under the supervision of the Tudor historian J. E. Neale, who handed him some notes on East Anglian Puritanism; in 1957 Collinson completed his doctorate on Elizabethan Puritanism, its 1,200-page size causing the administration to impose a word limit on future dissertations; it was published in 1967 as The Elizabethan Puritan Movement, which showed Puritanism to be a significant force within the Elizabethan Anglican Church instead of merely a radical group of individuals, becoming a standard work. [5]
Collinson was a lecturer at the University of Khartoum, and from 1961 assistant lecturer in ecclesiastical history at King's College London (where he taught Desmond Tutu). In 1960 he married Elizabeth Albinia Susan Selwyn, a nurse. He thought about becoming an Anglican minister but in the end chose not to. [4]
In 1969 Collinson emigrated to Australia to become chair of the history department of Sydney University. Although he appreciated a more open-minded approach favouring interdisciplinary studies, he opposed what he termed the "fungus" of postmodernism and so returned to England in 1976 as professor of history at the University of Kent. [4] He was President of the Ecclesiastical History Society (1985-86). [6] He was chair of modern history at the University of Sheffield from 1984 to 1988 before he succeeded Sir Geoffrey Elton as Cambridge Regius Professor of History, [7] where his attempt to reform the tripos failed due to opposition from within; his inaugural lecture was entitled "De Republica Anglorum: Or, History with the Politics Put Back." [2]
By the time of his retirement in 1996, Collinson was one of the doyens of English Reformation history. His short summation of the period, The Reformation, was published in 2003. Collinson's work laid the foundations, in many ways, for what historians of the English Reformation currently term the 'Calvinist Consensus' in the latter decades of the 16th century and during the reign of James I/VI. As such, the belief that Puritanism was anything but religiously radical in relation to English, and indeed British, culture stands as one of his great achievements as an historian.
In July 2000 Collinson was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex. [2] In 2011 Boydell Press published Collinson's memoir The History of a History Man Or, the Twentieth Century Viewed from a Safe Distance: The Memoirs of Patrick Collinson as part of its Church of England Record Society Series. [8] Collinson was the founding president of the society in 1991. [9]
Collinson's political views were left-wing; he was a republican and a supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. [4]
The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to purify the Church of England of Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. Puritanism played a significant role in English history, especially during the Protectorate.
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia was first used in 1572, and often thereafter, to mark the Elizabethan age as a renaissance that inspired national pride through classical ideals, international expansion, and naval triumph over Spain.
Edmund Grindal was Bishop of London, Archbishop of York, and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reign of Elizabeth I. Though born far from the centres of political and religious power, he had risen rapidly in the church during the reign of Edward VI, culminating in his nomination as Bishop of London. However, the death of the King prevented his taking up the post, and along with other Marian exiles, he was a supporter of Calvinist Puritanism. Grindal sought refuge in continental Europe during the reign of Mary I. Upon Elizabeth's accession, Grindal returned and resumed his rise in the church, culminating in his appointment to the highest office.
Thomas Sampson was an English Puritan theologian. A Marian exile, he was one of the Geneva Bible translators. On his return to England, he had trouble with conformity to the Anglican practices. With Laurence Humphrey, he played a leading part in the vestments controversy, a division along religious party lines in the early years of the reign of Elizabeth I of England.
Thomas Bilson was an Anglican Bishop of Worcester and Bishop of Winchester. With Miles Smith, he oversaw the final edit and printing of the King James Bible.
William Gouge (1575–1653) was an English Puritan clergyman and author. He was a minister and preacher at St Ann Blackfriars for 45 years, from 1608, and a member of the Westminster Assembly from 1643.
John Dod, known as "Decalogue Dod", was a non-conforming English clergyman, taking his nickname for his emphasis on the Ten Commandments. He is known for his widely circulated writings. Although he lost one means of livelihood because of Puritan beliefs, he had important support from sympathetic members of the Puritan gentry throughout a long career.
John Coffey is a British historian who works on religion, politics and ideas in the Protestant Atlantic world, c. 1600-1850. He studied History at Cambridge and completed a PhD under the supervision of Mark Goldie at Churchill College, Cambridge, where he held a Junior Research Fellowship, before taking up a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at University College London. He has taught the University of Leicester. since 1999, serving as Head of History from 2013 to 2016. He has written monographs on Samuel Rutherford and John Goodwin and was an editor on the critical edition of Richard Baxter's Reliquiae Baxterianae. His Persecution and Toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 is the first overview work on the topic since W. K. Jordan's four-volume work The Development of Religious Toleration in England (1932–1940).
Sir John Ernest Neale was an English historian who specialised in Elizabethan and Parliamentary history. From 1927 to 1956, he was the Astor Professor of English History at University College London.
John Darrell was an Anglican clergyman noted for his Puritan views and his practice as an exorcist, which led to imprisonment.
The reign of Elizabeth I of England, from 1558 to 1603, saw the start of the Puritan movement in England, its clash with the authorities of the Church of England, and its temporarily effective suppression as a political movement in the 1590s by judicial means. This of course led to the further alienation of Anglicans and Puritans from one another in the 17th century during the reign of King James (1603–1625) and the reign of King Charles I (1625–1649), that eventually brought about the English Civil War (1642–1651), the brief rule of the Puritan Lord Protector of England Oliver Cromwell (1653–1658), the English Commonwealth (1649–1660), and as a result the political, religious, and civil liberty that is celebrated today in all English speaking countries.
The Westminster Conference of 1559 was a religious disputation held early in the reign of Elizabeth I of England. Although the proceedings themselves were perfunctory, the outcome shaped the Elizabethan religious settlement.
Clerical Discipline was an incentive by church authorities to regulate the behaviour of local clergy in early modern England.
The Actes and Monuments, popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day. It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there. The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs.
Historians have produced and worked with a number of definitions of Puritanism, in an unresolved debate on the nature of the Puritan movement of the 16th and 17th century. There are some historians who are prepared to reject the term for historical use. John Spurr argues that changes in the terms of membership of the Church of England, in 1604–6, 1626, 1662, and also 1689, led to re-definitions of the word "Puritan". Basil Hall, citing Richard Baxter. considers that "Puritan" dropped out of contemporary usage in 1642, with the outbreak of the First English Civil War, being replaced by more accurate religious terminology. Current literature on Puritanism supports two general points: Puritans were identifiable in terms of their general culture, by contemporaries, which changed over time; and they were not identified by theological views alone.
The Convocation of 1563 was a significant gathering of English and Welsh clerics that consolidated the Elizabethan religious settlement, and brought the Thirty-Nine Articles close to their final form. It was, more accurately, the Convocation of 1562/3 of the province of Canterbury, beginning in January 1562.
Brett Usher was an English actor, writer and ecclesiastical historian. Although he appeared frequently on stage and television, it was as a radio actor that he came to be best known. His many radio roles ranged widely, from farce to Shakespeare and new works. In addition to acting he also wrote for radio.
Sir Edward Lewknor or Lewkenor was a prominent member of the puritan gentry in East Anglia in the later Elizabethan period, and an important voice on religious matters in the English Parliament.
Iconophobia refers to an aversion to images, especially religious icons. Iconophobia is differentiated from iconoclasm in that iconophobia refers to the aversion to or hatred of the images whereas iconoclasm refers to the actual destruction of images that may arise from iconophobia. Chari Larsson wrote:
“If iconophobia is defined as the suspicion and anxiety towards the power exerted by images, its history is an ancient one in all of its Platonic, Christian, and Judaic forms. At its most radical, iconophobia results in an act of iconoclasm, or the total destruction of the image. At the other end of the spectrum, contemporary iconophobia may be more subtle. Images are simply withdrawn from circulation with the aim of eliminating their visibility.”
Richard Lee Greaves was an American historian of seventeenth century British history who was also Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of History at Florida State University.
