Naomi Pullin | Isolation and the Quakers: Spiritual Solitude and Godly Sociability in Early Modern Britain

Naomi Pullin, an associate professor of history at the University of Warwick, will be presenting a section of her current book project on Quakerism, isolation, and religious experience and practice in early modern Britain. 

This paper sets out to examines the challenge that solitude posed to a religious culture that rejected monastic cultures of seclusion, whilst emphasizing a shift from mediated worship to individual faith, via the doctrines of sola scriptura, sola gratia, and sola fide (by scripture, grace, and faith "alone"). After exploring the long-standing trials that were recognized to accompany solitude, which accelerated after England's break from Rome in the 1530s, the paper uncovers the ways in which spiritual solitude was rendered acceptable and how men and women behaved (or were expected to behave) when they found themselves alone without the watchful eyes of their friends, families, masters, and acquaintances upon them. In particular, it considers the ways in which attitudes towards solitude were carefully weighed with the competing challenge of company. Was a faithful Christian more exemplary when they chose to retire from unprofitable companions to converse alone with God, or was their piety and Christian duty more evident when they labored with others? In balancing these competing tensions, Pullin employs the concept of "godly sociability," to encapsulate how time spent alone dedicated to matters of the soul might translate into something profitable for the wider godly community. In so doing, the paper seeks to problematize more fully the distinction between public and private lives and early modern Christian culture and to show the ways in which spiritual withdrawal was a highly social activity that shaped religious life across the denominational spectrum. 

This event is co-sponsored by the Anglo-California/Stansky Fund for British Studies.