Carl n degler were the puritans puritanical

For complaints, use another form. Study lib. Upload document Create flashcards. Flashcards Collections. Documents Last activity. Add to Add to collection s Add to saved. Were the Puritans Puritanical? By: Carl Degler To Most Americans -- and to most europeans, for that matter -- the core of the Puritan social heritage has been summed up in English historian Thomas Babington Macaulay's well-known witticism that the Puritans prohibited bear baiting not because of torture to the bear, but because of the pleasure it afforded the spectators.

Were the Puritans Puritanical?

And as late as , H. Though this process is essentially a negative one, sometimes it is clarifying to set forth what an influence is not as well as what it is. Fundamental to any appreciation of the puritan mind on matters of pleasure must be the recognition that the typical, godly Puritan was a worker in the world. Puritanism, like Protestantism in general, resolutely and definitely rejected the ascetic and monastic ideals of medieval Catholicism.

It was this same John Cotton, incidentally, who successfully contended against Roger Williams' argument that women should wear veils in church. Most restrictions on dress that were imposed were for the purposes of class differentiation rather than for ascetic reasons. Thus long hair was acceptable on an upper-class Puritan like Oliver Cromwell or Winthrop, but on the head of a person of lower social status it was a sign of vanity.

If the Puritans are to be saved from the canard of severity of dress, it is also worth while to soften the charge that they were opposed to music and art.