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The Puritan Work Ethic Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Paul Seaver*
Affiliation:
Stanford University

Extract

Whether Puritanism gave rise to a “work ethic,” and, if so, what the nature of that ethic was, has been a source of controversy since Max Weber published The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism more than seventy years ago. Experienced polemicists have waged international wars of words over its terms, and tyros have won their spurs in the battle. With repect to England, there is at present no agreement either about the reality of a peculiarly Puritan work ethic or about the impact, if any, that such an ethic might have had on the attitudes and behavior of the emerging capitalist bourgeoisie, if such a species indeed existed as a distinctive social class or group in the early modern period. In fact, since perfectly sane and competent historians have questioned on the one hand, whether “Puritanism” is more than a neo-idealist reification of a nonentity, and on the other, whether the early modern middle class is more than a myth, it might be the better part of wisdom to inter the remains of these vexed questions as quietly as possible. What follows is not a perverse attempt to flog a dead horse, if it is dead and a horse, but rather on the basis of a different perspective and different evidence to resurrect a part of what Timothy Breen has called “the non-existent controversy.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 1980

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References

The research for this study was made possible in part by a summer grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

1 See, for example, the bibliography in Green, Robert W., ed., Protestantism and Capitalism. The Weber Thesis and Its Critics (Boston, 1959), pp. 115–16Google Scholar.

2 For the argument that the use of the term “Puritanism” implies a neo-idealist reification, see George, C.H., “Puritanism as History and Historiography,” Past and Present, no. 41 (1968), pp. 77104Google Scholar, esp. 97-100; see also Elton's, G.R. comments in a review, Hist. Journ. xvii (1974) 214Google Scholar. For the muddle over the middle class, see Hexter, J.H., “The Myth of the Middle Class in Tudor England,” Reappraisals in History (London, 1961), pp. 71116Google Scholar. For a more fruitful approach to the complexities of London society, which avoids the kind of broad generalizations Hexter warned against, see for example, Brenner, Robert, “The Social Basis of English Commercial Expansion, 1550-1650,” Journ. of Econ. Hist. xxxii (1972): 361–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Lang, Robert, “Social Origins and Social Aspirations of Jacobean London Merchants,” Econ. Hist. Rev., 2nd s., xxvii (1974):2847CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Breen, Timothy Hall, “The Non-existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600-1640,” Church History 35 (1966):273–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Little's, DavidReligion, Order, and Law (New York, 1969)Google Scholar is an obvious exception to my generalization, since he embarks on a sophisticated reconsideration of Weber's thesis, a considerably more complex task than that implied by my two issues.

5 Hill, Christopher, Society and Puritanism in Pre-Revolutionary England (London, 1964), pp. 134, 138Google Scholar.

6 Charles, H. and George, Katherine, The Protestant Mind of the English Reformation, 1570-1640 (Princeton, 1961), p. 143CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Anti-Entrepreneurial Attitudes in Elizabethan Sermons and Popular Literature,” Journ. of British Studies, xv (Spring, 1976):20Google Scholar.

8 The New England Merchants in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1955; Torchbook edition, New York, 1964), p. 39Google Scholar.

9 The Non-existent Controversy: Puritan and Anglican Attitudes on Work and Wealth, 1600-1640,” Church History, xxxv (1966):287, 281, 286Google Scholar.

10 Religious Typologies and Popular Religion in Restoration England,” Church History, xlv(1976):37Google Scholar.

11 For a radically different perspective, see George, C.H., “The Making of the English Bourgeoisie,” Science and Society, xxxv (1971):385414Google Scholar. If Professor George is correct, it is the seventeenth-century theorists who equate private interest and public good and champion the absolute rights of private property, who signal the coming triumph of the bourgeoisie.

12 The Godly Man in Stuart England (New Haven, 1976)Google Scholar, passim.

13 See, for example, Seaver, P.S., The Puritan Lectureships, 1560-1662 (Stanford, 1970)Google Scholar; Jordan, W.K., The Charities of London, 1480-1660 (London, 1960)Google Scholar; and Manning, Brian, The English People and the English Revolution (London, 1976)Google Scholar.

14 Puritanism and Revolution (London, 1958), p. 238Google Scholar.

15 Ibid., pp. 229, 230.

16 Ibid., p. 230.

17 New England Merchants, pp. 40-44; see also The Apologia of Robert Keayne, Bailyn, Bernard, ed. (New York, 1965)Google Scholar. For Puritan anxiousness, see Walzer, Michael, The Revolution of the Saints (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar, passim.

18 It is a mistake to suppose that all merchants were aggressive entrepreneurs; see, for example, Robert Brenner's observation that “most of the Merchant Adventurers appear to have lost any interest they had in commercial innovation” in the latter half of the sixteenth century. The Civil War Politics of London's Merchant Community,” Past and Present, no. 58 (1973), p. 57Google Scholar.

19 Clarke, Samuel, The Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons in this Later Age (London, 1683), Part II, p. 104Google Scholar.

20 Guildhall Library MS. [henceforth GLMS] 3302/1, Turners Company Book of Apprenticeship Bindings and Admissions, entry dated 20 May 1620.

21 British Library, Sloane MS. 922, fo. 71r-74r.

22 GLMS 17,607, Parish Register of St. Leonard's Eastcheap, 1538-1752, passim.

23 GLMS 3800, Turner Company Charter of 1604, p. 11; GLMS 3295/2, Court Minutes of the Turners Company, 1633-1688, entry dated 30 July 1640.

24 GLMS 204. The volume has 517 numbered pages.

25 British Library, Additional MS. 21,935 and Sloane MS. 1457.

26 British Library, Additional MS. 40,883 and Sloane MS. 922.

27 In what amounts to a last will and testament, which Wallington appended to the end of the volume on “The Mercies of God,” he regrets leaving “but very little or no portion of worldly riches,” but leaves instead as “all my will … such precepts as myself have received of the Lord (which I have recorded … in this book)” GLMS 204, pp. 506-07. His writings must have been a major part of his estate, which passed on his death to his son-in-law, Jonathan Houghton, whose signature appears in each volume, dated September 9,1658. The spelling and punctuation of this and all subsequent quotations have been modernized.

28 GLMS 204, p. 470.

29 On one occasion in the summer of 1642, Wallington paid a creditor 12 shillings, believing that he had emptied his coffers in doing so, only to discover another 13 or 14 shillings distributed about his various pockets and various drawers in his shop and house. B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.37v. Even on those occasions when Wallington attempted to be specific about his daily receipts, he either gave round numbers or approximations: “… for I did this day [25 June 1643] take almost four pounds, which made me to admire at this great mercy of God, and the next day I took about forty shillings … His name be praised.” Ibid., fo. 117v.

30 GLMS., pp. 428-30.

31 Ibid., pp. 39-41. The fines may not, of course, be a fair measure of Wallington's value system, but rather testimony to his sense of which values required the strongest sanctions. Feelings of lust apparently troubled him during the early years of his marriage, whereas, presumably, he was well aware of the fact that if he did not pursue his calling he and his family would starve. (By 1622 he and his wife had ceased to live in his father's house and had set up housekeeping several doors away, ibid., p. 38.)

32 For example, on April 20, 1641, Wallington recorded that he “should have been at a fast, but I was very backward …. I had many excuses, how it was a drying day and wife would a forth a drying. And I had great want of money, which moved me to be more diligent ….” B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.6v.

33 Ibid., fo.69r.

34 B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fo.102v; GLMS 204, pp. 21, 16.

35 B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.75v.

36 GLMS. 204, pp. 48-49.

37 Ibid., p. 40.

38 B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.27v.

39 B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fos.103r; GLMS 204, p. 341.

40 GLMS 204, pp. 445-46.

41 Ibid., p. 334.

42 Ibid., pp. 55, 109.

43 Ibid., p. 108.

44 B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fos.175v, 169v.

45 GLMS 204, p. 440.

46 Ibid., p. 479; B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fo.175v.

47 GLMS 204, p. 454; Wallington is here quoting without attribution from Dent, Arthur, The Plaine Mans Path-Way to Heaven (London, 1601), p. 123Google Scholar.

48 B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fo.32r; Wallington is here quoting from a letter by Richard Greenham, dated 1612.

49 GLMS 204, pp. 12, 487.

50 Ibid., p. 452.

51 B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fos.5r, 187r.

52 For Wallington's service on the grand jury, see GLMS 3461/1, Bridge Ward Within: Wardmote Inquests, etc., under dates 1644, 1645,1655. For his participation as a member of the Fourth London Classis, see The Register-Booke of the Fourth Classis in the Province of London 1646-59, transcribed and introduced by Surman, Charles E.. Harleian Soc. Pub., vols. 42–43 (London, 1953), pp. 3124Google Scholar.

53 GLMS 3308, Turners Company Ordinances, 6 James I, 1608, passim.

54 See GLMS 3295/1, 3295/2.

55 On August 21, 1641 Wallington notes that his neighbor “took as many pounds as I took shillings,” and a few days later he notes that his apprentice and a neighbor talked him into lowering his prices, he feared below his costs. B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fos. 8v, 9r; see also fo.166r.

56 GLMS 3295/1, 19 January 1625/6; B.L., Add. MS., 40,883, fos. 112v, 144v, 179v.

57 B.L., Sloane MS.922, fo.56r.

58 Wallington notes that one of his customers was reputed to be one who “always goes to these Puritans.” B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.9r.

59 Ibid., fos.7r-v.

60 GLMS 17,607, fos.25r, 20r; Lambeth Palace Library MS. 942, no. 14, for his lectureship at St. Leonard's and at neighboring St. Clement's; see also Brook, Benjamin, Lives of the Puritans (London, 1813), III, 531–32Google Scholar; Venn, John and Venn, J.A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Part I, From Earliest Times to 1751 (Cambridge, 1922), iii, 476Google Scholar. Abraham Colfe, rector of St. Leonard's, was also vicar of St. Mary's, Lewisham, Kent, where he was resident, hence, although Roborough's only title was to the lectureship, he was de facto minister of the parish.

61 Matthews, A.G., Calamy Revised (Oxford, 1934), pp. 2829Google Scholar.

62 B.L., Sloane MS. 922, fo.169r.

63 Ibid., fos.169r-v.

64 It is, of course, notoriously difficult to be precise about what level of income or wealth such terms imply. The survey conducted in 1638 for the “Settlement of Tithes” shows Wallington's house as having a rental value of 20 pounds per annum at the “moderated” rent (i.e., 75 percent of actual market value); his brother John's at 24 pounds; whereas Alderman Gurney's house in St. Vedast was valued at 70 pounds; Alderman Andrewes' at 60 pounds; Alderman Backhouse's at 60 pounds; Alderman Cordwell's at 40 pounds; Alderman Highlord's at 30 pounds; Alderman Pratt's at 60 pounds; Alderman Soames' at 70 pounds and Sheriff Atkins' at 80 pounds. On the other hand Wallington's house was one of the better in the parish: only 26 percent of the houses in the parish were assessed at a higher rent. The average rental assessed for St. Leonard's Eastcheap in 1638 was 17 pounds; of the six surrounding parishes, St. Michael Crooked Lane had an average of only 11 pounds, St. Mary New Fish Street of 13 pounds, St. Andrew Hubbard of 14 pounds, St. Clement Eastcheap of 20 pounds, St. George Botolph Lane of 25 pounds, and St. Benet Gracechurch Street of 27 pounds.

65 For examples of the casuists' art, see Perkins, William, “Epieikeia” in The Work ofWilliam Perkins, Breward, Ian, ed. (Abingdon, Berks., 1970), 489–91Google Scholar, and Ames, William, Conscience with the Power of Cases There of (n.p., 1639)Google Scholar, Bk.4, chapter 42, “Of Contracts.”

66 Ames, , Conscience, Bk.4, p. 248Google Scholar.

67 Works, ed. Breward, p. 449.

68 (London, 1601), p. 99. Wallington incorporated substantial portions of the Plaine Mans Path-Way, pp. 122-29, into his journal, “The Mercies of God,” GLMS 204, pp. 453-56.

69 Dent, , Plaine Mans Path-Way, p. 35Google Scholar.

70 Ibid., p. 197.

71 Ibid., pp. 125-26.

72 Ibid., pp. 77, 81.

73 Ibid., pp. 80-81.

74 Ibid., p. 99.

75 Ibid., p. 192.

76 Hill, Robert, The Pathway to Prayer and Pietie (London, 1613), Part 3, pp. 7778Google Scholar. To these distinctions, the Turners Company would have added those that distinguished the properly modest apprentice and the properly dignified master. As late as 1631, the company still insisted that the apprentice wear doublets, jerkins, and cloaks made of leather, fustian, or cloth and have their hair “round cut” without long locks. However, the apparel strictly forbidden suggests the actual practice of at least some fashionable young Turners, for they were warned not to wear any lace or silk or to use gold buttons. GLMS 3295/1, Court Minutes of the Turners Company, 1605-33, under date of 3 February 1630/31. The revolutionary 1640s saw some slackening of standards. After repeated orders in the 1630s against masters who wore falling bands rather than the more sober ruff bands, an order of October 22, 1645, conceded “that for time to come the wearing of ruff or falling bands shall be left wholly to the discretion of each member of this Company ….” GLMS 3295/2 under that date.

77 The Pathway to Prayer and Pietie, Part 3, pp. 81-82.

78 Ibid., pp. 78-83.

79 Ibid., p. 254.

80 Ibid., p. 239.

81 GLMS 3297/1, Wardens Account Book, 1593-1670, under the year 1637-38.

82 GLMS 3295/2, Turners Company Court Minute Book, entry for 9 October 1645.

83 (London, 1657), pp. 446-48, 452.

84 Ibid., pp. 456-57.

85 The Making of the English Bourgeoisie,” Science and Society, xxxv(1971):409Google Scholar.

86 On the whole, sermons tended to treat economic ethics in rather simple terms. Technical works of casuistry, such as those by Perkins and Ames, were not as obviously written for a popular lay audience as such works as Dent's Plaine Mans Path-Way, and it may be that most laymen were not aware of such moral loopholes as the casuists allowed them.

87 For the social origins of the nine apprentices who served Wallington in the course of his career as a master turner, see GLMS 3302/1, passim.

88 B.L., Add. MS. 40,883, fo.178r.