Festschrift zur Feier des zweihundertjährigen Bestandes des Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchivs ; Bd. 2. - (Mitteilungen des Österreichischen Staatsarchivs ; 3)
it was an attitude to religion and morality that was peculiar to England; since it showed Calvanist influence but in infinitely varying degrees. By itself that definition is inconclusive. The reader must in the circumstances accept a personal and unsubstantiated belief that the essence of Puritanism was to be found in the history of English society; before the Reformation it had been a turbulent and relatively backward society s ) ; after the Refor mation, the leading spirits, who took pride in their obdurately
unenlightened ancestry, were more free to follow each his own line of thought at a time when Europe was experiencing a succession of new movements. In England this conjunction issued in Puritanism. It would follow that those who, like Gardiner, consider that the proceedings in Parliament during the preceding 50 years, the Scottish wars, the fate of Laud's church, the two civil wars, and Charles' own execution were ultimately decisions on religion, are in error 6 ). That means directly controverting
Gardiner's solemn sentence (Horresco referens). 'If no other question had been at issue, than the political one, there would have been no permanent division of parties, and no Civil War' 7 ). Others, holding the balance, make reference to 'religio-political' disputes. On the hypothesis mentioned above, these episodes were ultimately decisions on politics, on the shape of society, however much religion may have been the ground of dispute. The subsequent history of religion in England and J ) Gardiner
S. R., History of the Great Civil War, vol. IV, pp. 326 ff. 2 ) Cf. Mathews, Social Structure of Caroline England, p. 10; Jordan W. K., Development of religious toleration, vol. II, p. 189; Usher E.G., Reconstruction of the English Church, vol. I, p. 246. 3 ) Quoted by Robertson H. M., Aspects of the Rise of Economic Individualism, p. 208. 4 ) Usher, ibid. 6 ) Cf. Smith A. L., Church and State in the Middle Ages, Lecture II, passim; Maynard-Smith, Pre-Reformation Church, Chaps. IV and V. 6 ) Cf. Davies
, op. cit., p. XX. ') Gardiner, History of England, vol. X, p. 32.
