Ranters

Last updated April 18, 2024 • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

The Ranters were one of a number of dissenting groups that emerged about the time of the Commonwealth of England (1649–1660). They were largely common people,^[1] and the movement was widespread throughout England, though they were not organised and had no leader.^{[ citation needed ]}

History

The chaos of the Second English Civil War, the execution of King Charles I, and the animosity between the Presbyterians and Independents during the era of the Commonwealth gave rise to many sectarian groups that attempted to make sense of their society and place within that society. The Ranters were one such group. They were regarded as heretical by the established Church and seem to have been regarded by the government as a threat to social order. The quote "...the bishops, Charles and the Lords have had their turn, overturn, so your turn shall be next...",^[2] published in a Ranter pamphlet, no doubt caused some concern in the halls of power. The Ranters denied the authority of churches, of Scripture, of the current ministry and of services, instead calling on men to listen to the divine within them. In many ways they resemble the 14th century Brethren of the Free Spirit.^[1] In fact, they were causing such controversy, that by the early 1650s multiple anti-Ranter pamphlets were circulating throughout Britain.^[3]

The origin for the term "Ranter" seems to come from an anonymous pamphlet titled "A Justification of the Mad Crew", where the word rant was used in reference to the enemies of those espousing this particular view, equating ranting with hypocrisy. The anonymous author calls those who would eventually be deemed Ranters "the Mad Crew" instead. There is also a confluence between the term "Ranter" with the verb rent, as in to be rent away from God. Most written evidence points to the use of "Ranter" as an insult by the enemies of the sect and not a self-designated moniker.^[3] By the 1660s, the term became attached to any group that promoted theological deviance but since most of the literary evidence we have was created by those opposed to Ranters in general, it is difficult to determine their exact creed.^[4]

There are few primary sources actually written by Ranters, but those that do exist give us a clearer picture of what they believed. The most famous English member, Laurence Clarkson or Claxton, joined the Ranters after encountering them in 1649.^[5] Although he does not mention them directly, his 1650 tract called A Single Eye is widely believed to have been inspired by this dissenting group and directly reflects their views. Other less well known members of the Ranter cohort included Abiezer Coppe and Joseph Salmon.

Their central idea was pantheistic, that God is essentially in every creature, including themselves.

"If God be in all things, then in all creatures that hath live whatsoever, so that wherein is man better than these, or hath any pre-eminence above these?"^[6]
— Laurence Clarkson, A Single Eye (1650).

"My most excellent Majesty (in me) hath strangely and variously transformed this form. And behold, by mine own Almightiness (in me) I have been changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the trump."^[2]
— Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll (1649).

They embraced antinomianism and believed that Christians are freed by grace from the necessity of obeying Mosaic Law, rejecting the very notion of obedience. They held that believers are free from all traditional restraints and that sin is a product only of the imagination. The Ranters revived the Brethren of the Free Spirit's amoralism and "stressed the desire to surpass the human condition and become godlike".^[7]

“...for indeed sin hath its conception only in the imagination; therefore; so long as the act was in God, or nakedly produced by God, it was as holy as God...”^[6]
— Laurence Clarkson, A Single Eye (1650)

"I can if it be my will, kiss and hug ladies, and love my neighbour's wife as myself, without sin."^[2]
— Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll (1649).

They denied the authority of the church, of accepted religious practice and of Scripture. In fact, they denied the power of any authority in general.

“No matter what Scripture, Saints, or Churches say, if that within thee do not condemn thee, thou shalt not be condemned.”^[6]
— Laurence Clarkson, A Single Eye (1650)

"Kings, Princes, Lords, great ones, must bow to the poorest Peasants."^[2]
— Abiezer Coppe, A Fiery Flying Roll (1649).

Gerrard Winstanley, a leader of another English dissenting group called the Diggers, commented on Ranter principles in characterizing them by their "general lack of moral values or restraint in worldly pleasures".^[8]^{[ self-published source? ]} However, another prominent Digger, William Everard, was, some time after the failure of the Digger communes, imprisoned as a Ranter, and later confined to Bethlem Hospital.^[9] John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress , wrote in his autobiography, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners, that he had encountered Ranters prior to his Baptist conversion.^[10]

In England, they came into contact and even rivalry with the early Quakers, who were often falsely accused of direct association with them.^[1] In the American colonies, there is evidence that Ranters were actually breakaway Quakers who did not agree with the standardization of belief that occurred in the late 1670s. Although the Quakers retained their loose, sect-like character until the 1660s, they began to formalize their worship practices and set of beliefs in order to gain some stability in the New World; this in turn pushed out those who did not fall in line, creating a group of people referred to as Ranters.^[4] (Whether these people were directly inspired by the Ranters in England or if the moniker was simply imported via anti-Ranter pamphlets that were so popular during this era is debatable.)

The historian J. C. Davis has suggested that the Ranters were a myth created by conservatives in order to endorse traditional values by comparison with an unimaginably radical other.^[11] Richard L. Greaves, in a review of Davis' book, suggests that though a very radical fringe existed, it was probably never as organized as conservatives of the time suggested.^[12]

In the mid-19th century, the name was often applied to the Primitive Methodists, with reference to their crude and often noisy preaching.^[1]

Related Research Articles

The Diggers were a group of religious and political dissidents in England, associated with agrarian socialism. Gerrard Winstanley and William Everard, amongst many others, were known as True Levellers in 1649, in reference to their split from the Levellers, and later became known as Diggers because of their attempts to farm on common land.

Gerrard Winstanley (1609–1676) was an English Protestant religious reformer, political philosopher, and activist during the period of the Commonwealth of England. Winstanley was the leader and one of the founders of the English group known as the True Levellers or Diggers. The group occupied formerly common land that had been privatised by enclosures and dug them over, pulling down hedges and filling in ditches, to plant crops. "True Levellers" was the name they used to describe themselves, whereas the term "Diggers" was coined by contemporaries.

Abiezer Coppe was one of the English Ranters and a writer of prophetic religious pamphlets.

English Dissenters or English Separatists were Protestants who separated from the Church of England in the 17th and 18th centuries. A dissenter is one who disagrees in opinion, belief and other matters. English Dissenters opposed state interference in religious matters and founded their own churches, educational establishments and communities.

The Interregnum was the period between the execution of Charles I on 30 January 1649 and the arrival of his son Charles II in London on 29 May 1660, which marked the start of the Restoration. During the Interregnum, England was under various forms of republican government.

Lodowicke Muggleton (1609–1698) was an English religious thinker who gave his name to Muggletonianism, a Protestant sect which was always small, but survived until the death of its last follower in 1979. He spent his working life as a journeyman tailor in the City of London and was imprisoned twice for his beliefs. He held opinions hostile to all forms of philosophical reason, and had received only a basic education. He encouraged quietism and free-thought amongst his followers whose beliefs were predestinarian in a manner that was distinct from Calvinism. Near the close of his long life, Muggleton wrote his spiritual autobiography which was published posthumously.

Laurence Clarkson (1615–1667), sometimes called Claxton, born in Preston, Lancashire, was an English theologian and accused heretic. He was the most outspoken and notorious of the loose collection of radical Protestants known as the Ranters.

Many religious denominations emerged during the early-to-mid-17th century in England. Many of these were influenced by the radical changes brought on by the English Civil War, subsequent Execution of Charles I and the advent of the Commonwealth of England. This event led to a widespread discussion about how society should be structured.

Major William Rainsborowe, or Rainborowe, was an officer in the English Navy and New Model Army in England during the English Civil War and the Interregnum. He was a political and religious radical who prospered during the years of the Parliamentary ascendancy and was an early settler of New England in North America.

John Dury was a Scottish Calvinist minister and an intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was also a preacher, pamphleteer, and writer.

William Erbery or Erbury was a Welsh clergyman and radical Independent theologian. He was the father of the militant Quaker Dorcas Erbery.

Richard Coppin was a seventeenth-century English political and religious writer, and prolific radical pamphleteer and preacher.

Jacob Bauthumley or Bottomley (1613–1692) was an English radical religious writer, usually identified as a central figure among the Ranters. He served as part of the New Model Army, leaving in March 1650. After the Restoration of 1660, he took up a job as a librarian in Leicester, where he produced a book of extracts from John Foxe, published in 1676.

Joseph Salmon was a significant English religious and political writer of the middle of the seventeenth century.

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William Everard was an early leader of the Diggers.

John Pendarves (1622–1656) was an English Puritan controversialist. His wife Thomasine Pendarves was of an independent mind. She was the subject of speculation after Abiezer Coppe published letters her had exchanged with her. She later intercepted a letter to her husband and replied with her own opinion.

Dorothy White was an English Quaker and writer of religious pamphlets. These give useful information on Quaker beliefs at that time, for instance, in relation to the Inner Light.

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Thomasine Pendarves was an English aspiring visionary prophet with influence on Abingdon Baptists. She was said to have deviant views and these were independent of her husband. Her writing on nature was anthologised in 2021.

References

1 2 3 4 Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ranters" . Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 895.
1 2 3 4 Coppe, Abiezer. "A Fiery Flying Roll". Ex-Classics. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
1 2 Gucer, Kathryn (2000). ""Not Heretofore Extant in Print": Where the Mad Ranters Are". Journal of the History of Ideas. 61 (1): 75–95. doi:10.2307/3654043. JSTOR 3654043 . Retrieved 8 March 2021.
1 2 McConville, B. (1995). "Confessions of an American Ranter." Pennsylvania History: A Journal of Mid-Atlantic Studies, 62(2), 238-248. Retrieved March 8, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27773805
↑ "Laurence Claxton". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 1998. Retrieved 13 May 2019.
1 2 3 Clarkson, Laurence. "A Single Eye". Ex-Classics. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
↑ Chiara Ombretta Tommasi, "Orgy: Orgy in Medieval and Modern Europe", Encyclopedia of Religion, no. 10 (2005).
↑ ExLibris staff (1 January 2008). "Ranters". ExLibris. Archived from the original on 1 September 2012. Retrieved 1 July 2012.^{[ self-published source ]}
↑ Hessayon, Ariel (October 2009). "Everard, William (bap. 1602?, d. in or after 1651)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/40436.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
↑ Bunyan, John, Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners. par. 44–45
↑ J.C. Davis, Fear, Myth and History: The Ranters and The Historians, Cambridge University Press, 1986/Revised edition, 2010
↑ Greaves, R. L, (1988). "Review: Fear, Myth and History: The Ranters and Their Historians by J. C. Davis", Church History, 57(3), pp. 376–378. JSTOR 3166599. doi : 10.2307/3166599.

Ranters

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History

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Related Research Articles

References

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