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Plainness of Speech, Behaviour and Apparel in Eighteenth-Century English Quakerism1
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
Extract
The aim of this communication is to illustrate and examine the official attitude of the Quakers to their testimony on plainness in the eighteenth century, with a few examples, limited by available space, of the opinions of individuals. It is also limited to England since official attitudes in America and Ireland were somewhat different; it attempts no comparison with other contemporary English traditions; it cannot do more than touch on such gaps as may have existed between individual practice and official attitude; nor can it make use of the ample surviving local records. To understand what lay behind the testimony on plainness it is necessary to go back briefly to the rise of Quakerism in the mid-seventeenth century.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Studies in Church History , Volume 22: Monks, Hermits and the Ascetic Tradition , 1985 , pp. 307 - 318
- Copyright
- Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1985
Footnotes
1
I am deeply indebted to Edward H. Milligan, Librarian of the Society of Friends, for his suggestions about an earlier version of this paper.
References
2 I believe that it is reasonable to write of a testimony on plainness despite the argument by Rufus M. Jones that the customs constituting plainness ‘do not rise to quite the same level of interior significance as do the “testimonies”’ in The Later Periods of Quakerism 2 vols (London 1921) 1 p. 147.
3 There is useful material about the American experience in J. William Frost The Quaker Family in Colonial America (New York 1973) chapter 10 and John M. Moore ed Friends in the Delaware Valley (Haverford, Pennsylvania 1981).
4 An obvious comparison is with William Law A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (London 1728) especially chapters IV-IX.
5 Watkins, Owen C. The Puritan Experience (London 1972) p. 232 Google Scholar.
6 Ellwood, Thomas The History of the Life of Thomas Ellwood… (London 1714) pp. 33–4 Google Scholar.
7 The standard account of Quaker dress is Amelia Mott Gummere The Quaker, a study in costume (Philadelphia 1901).
8 Epistles [from the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London to the Quarterly and Monthly Meetings… from 1681 to 1857…] 2 vols (London 1858) I pp. 321–2.
9 Christian and Brotherly Advices [Given forth from time to time by the Yearly Meeting in London] (manuscript, 1738). A number of copies of this manuscript exist and given possible variations in pagination it seems best not to refer to pages but simply to use the subject heading and the year of any extract. The extract above is from the heading ‘Questions’.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
12 Ibid.
13 I owe these examples to Edward H. Milligan.
14 Christian and Brotherly Advices and Extracts from the Minutes and Advices of the Yearly Meeting of Friends held in London (London 1783).
15 The epistles were issued in printed form and various collections appeared later such as Epistles but there were also for some years in the eighteenth century quite separate written epistles from the yearly meeting.
16 Christian and Brotherly Advices and its successor are referred to in the text as the book of discipline. Six further headings were added before the printed version appeared.
17 See note 9.
18 Isaiah 3, 1 Timothy 2:9-10, 1 Peter 3:3-5.
19 Epistles 1 p. 108, (1704), see also 1706, 1710, 1717, 1719 etc. to 1791, 1798.
20 Ibid 1 p. 157 (1720).
21 Ibid 1 p. 123 (1709).
22 Ibid 1 pp. 221 (1738), 338 (1765).
23 Ibid 1 pp. 157–8 (1720).
24 Ibid 1 p. 109 (1704).
25 Ibid 1 p. 212 (1736).
26 Ibid 2 p. 3 (1770).
27 Ibid 1 p. 109 (1704).
28 Ibid 1 p. 347 (1767).
29 Ibid 2 p. 22 (1774).
30 Voltaire Letters on England, trans by Leonard Tancock (Harmondsworth 1980) p. 36, Letter 4.
31 Contained in a footnote in editions from the third onwards of Wesley’s Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion in The Works of John Wesley ed Gerald R. Cragg (Oxford 1975) pp. 254–7.
32 Brinton, Howard H., Quaker Journals, Varieties of Religious Experience amongst Friends (Wallingford, Pennsylvania 1972) p. 35 Google Scholar.
33 Pike, Joseph, Some Account of the Life of Joseph Pike of Cork (London 1837) pp. 60–2 Google Scholar.
34 Ibid p. 140.
35 Ibid p. 147–8.
36 Ibid p. 189.
37 in Hall, David, Some Memoirs of the Life of David Hall (London 1758) pp. 58–94 Google Scholar.
38 Ibid pp. 76–7.
39 Ibid pp. 87–8.
40 Ibid p. 166.
41 Woolman’s visit and the nature of the evidence for the narrative accounts of it are fully discussed by Henry J. Cadbury John Woolman in England (London 1971).
42 Ibid p. 102.
43 3 vols (London 1806).
44 Ibid 1 pp. 271–2.
45 for some account of this see Elizabeth Isichei, Victorian Quakers (London 1970) pp. 145–6, 161–2.