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Prophetesses & she-preachers of the 17th century
00:34:06
Naomi Baker reveals how religious conviction drove women to take on influential public roles in the 17th century
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- [00:01]
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- [01:21]
Ellie Cawthorn
Welcome back to the History Extra Podcast. A very happy 2026 to you. From the prophetess who warned Cromwell against killing the king to the Yorkshire maidservant granted an audience with the Ottoman sultan, the religious tumult of the 17th century gave ordinary women opportunities to have their voices heard more than ever before. Naomi Baker profiles several such women in her book Voices of Thunder, and Ellie Cawthorn spoke to her to find out more.
- [01:47]
Naomi, in your new book, Voices of Thunder, you look at radical religious women of the 17th century who took on some roles in society that people might not expect. So what kinds of things did these women get up to?
- [02:01]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Well, they preached and they traveled independently of men, and above all, they wrote. They wrote many different forms of text, but especially about their own lives. So in my book, I look at some of the very early forms of autobiographical writing that we have in English in the form of conversion narratives. But these are women who are writing about their lives, who believe that their lives have vast eternal spiritual significance and therefore that it's important to tell their stories. So they tell their stories. They also interpret the Bible in all kinds of new ways. That's one of the unexpected discoveries as I was writing the book, really the extent to which these women are theologically innovative and write about new interpretations of the Bible. So they are involved in all kinds of areas that we may not have expected them to be.
- [02:41]
Ellie Cawthorn
So this explosion of women's voices in the religious spirit doesn't come from nowhere. So what do we need to know about the religious landscape of the 17th century in order to make sense of all of this?
- [02:53]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes, a very good question. Well, these women are radical Protestants. So obviously they are Protestants. They're part of the Protestant movement, which emphasized the importance of subjective experience of a direct and personal relationship encounter with God. And I think that belief is absolutely at the heart of all the women that I write about. I mean, they do come from a variety of perspectives. They don't all share an identical theological perspective, but they do all share that belief that God is speaking to them personally, that he's dealing with them directly. And what follows from that is a very strong sense of spiritual equality. So they draw on that to kick against and to push against the intensely hierarchical institutional forms of power which were, of course, operating in the 17th century, including within the church, very hierarchical Church of England, in which women played a very limited role in terms of leadership, or obviously not preaching, not having a formal capacity of leadership. So that's the context that they're operating in. And yet they have this sense of being able to relate directly to God. And as a result, they no longer accept or believe that they are inferior in a spiritual sense, at least with men or with anyone else. And so that applies to social class as well as to gender, that they may not be from a well educated background. Most of them in my book are not from a well educated background. They're not particularly wealthy, they don't have any particular social distinction, and yet they do believe that they are equal with everyone else in the eyes of God. And so it really is that theological, ultimately theological belief that drives them to believe that their lives matter, that they can speak out, that they don't have to accept an inferior position.
- [04:23]
Ellie Cawthorn
And the 17th century, I mean, it's a famously turbulent era. You've got civil war, you've got plague, you've got fire, and this sense of a world turned upside down. And I guess that's an important aspect of this too as well, right?
- [04:36]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes, there are intense struggles over the nature of authority in this era. Who should we obey? Who are we subject to? Obviously that plays out on a military basis at the political level, because, you know, people have to decide whether they're accountable for who they're accountable to. Is it parliament? Is it a divinely appointed king? Who should they be obeying? Who should they subject themselves to? It's become a theological question because ultimately these women and many women and men like them decided that they were only ultimately accountable to God, which translates as being accountable to your own conscience, your own sense of God, God speaking within you. And therefore that means that you question external forms of authority. But that questioning of authority, of course, was going on right across the nation in all kinds of different ways. That was playing out in the Civil wars, of course, in all the debates that were happening.
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Ellie Cawthorn
So in your book, you profile several different women who became quite influential. But what are some of the key religious groups that we see them becoming influential in?
- [05:29]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Women in my book are drawn from a variety of backgrounds, as you say, a variety of groups. But probably the most prominent ones within the book are the Baptists and the Quakers, although there are several women who don't fit into either of those groups who are just operating independently. But the Baptists were a very important movement that began in the 17th century in England, at least as a wider movement on the continent before that point. But that's one of the groups. And then there were the Quakers who emerged in the 1650s, who kind of took Protestant theology to its extreme at that point in terms of just believing that God speaks within you, that you have an inner light, very much downplaying the authority of any institutional form of religion, even downplaying the authority of the Bible to a large extent, and very much relying on a personal, subjective experience of God. So I think three or four of the women in my book will identify as Quakers, but I do think it's worth saying that these groups were quite fluid and the women did often pass through several different groups. I actually think it's quite important not to get too hung up on the category or the specific group that each woman is part of. So I don't think it gives us a very clear picture to just say they are a Quaker or they are a Baptist. I mean, they do go through these groups and they join these groups, but often they're on the fringes of the groups or they might leave the group and return. It's very fluid situation, as was the whole 17th century, in terms of people's beliefs and allegiances, of course.
- [06:44]
Ellie Cawthorn
Yeah. So let's talk a bit more about what these women got up to. You have a section in the book called she Preaches, but women weren't allowed to preach in a formal sense at the time. Is that right? Is this more of an informal role they could take on? Can you give us some examples?
- [06:57]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes. Even within the radical religious groups, where people were operating a lot more freely, including women participating, able to take part In. Well, most men within the groups were able to take part in lay preaching. Women, even within these groups, were not usually allowed to preach in a formal capacity. So it is important to note that there was never full equality of the sexes even within the Quakers. They did take it a lot further than the other groups, but even within any of these groups, it was never full equality of the sexes, especially, as you say, in relation to preaching. But within these groups, women did begin to preach, again, drawing on this sense that God spoke to them, that if God has spoken to them, who are they to hold it back? You know, who are they to not speak out when they believe they possess God's truth and they want to speak God's truth, so they do speak out. That sometimes gets them into a little bit of trouble within their own communities, let alone within the wider community, where that was really scandalous. Women, of course, did not preach within the Church of England or in any other institutional context in England at this time. And so it was highly scandalous for women to preach, even, as I say, within these more radical groups. But women did begin to preach. And the reason we know about this is mainly because of people who were so outright that they would write tracts or pamphlets denouncing this shameful practice, really in very strong terms. It seems excessive to us, as we look back now, the extent to which this appalled people. But I think that does show the power of this way of thinking, this idea of spiritual equality, the fact that it really did shake the foundations of society. It really attacks the very basis on which hierarchical society operated. So therefore, although it was women preaching was the kind of outward demonstration of it. There was a more fundamental principle at stake, which was that people were no longer accepting their role in society. They were now seeing themselves on more equal terms. So the very first public female preacher that we probably know about. Of course, there's a lot of speculation around this and there's murky reporting and we have to rely on very hostile accounts. But Elizabeth Attaway was a woman who lived in London who did preach publicly to both men and women in late 1645 and into 1646. And she has a good claim to being the first public female preacher. She's linked to a Baptist church which met in a very similar location. But this Baptist church, along with all the other Baptist church, as I've already said, did not really permit women to preach in a formal capacity. So it's likely that she was just striking out on her own, holding midweek meetings, holding separate meetings. But the people were very Very interested. And thousands of people came to hear her preach alongside other women who did preach alongside her. But the only reports we have of this are very hostile, very sarcastic, very derogatory. That's part of the problem when you're researching this sort of area, that you have to try and see these women through this very host lens that has been put up by the way that they've been written about in the history books. But even looking through that lens, we catch a glimpse of an extremely brave woman who was just determined to be true to her sense of what God was telling her, even if that meant potentially offending her own Baptist community, let alone everyone else.
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Ellie Cawthorn
Yeah, as you say, you must have had to be quite brave to take this on, to take on this opposition, to strike out on your own in this way. Can we see that as a thread that runs throughout all the women that you looked at, or is there anything else we can generalize? In terms of their personalities, I think.
- [10:00]
Dr. Naomi Baker
They were certainly all brave. They were all driven by a very intense sense of personal conviction, and they were determined to be true to that conviction. Within that, of course, they show very wide range of personalities. Some are much more hesitant, very tentative. Clearly feeling really quite uncomfortable about stepping outside the usual sphere. Even in terms of writing about their lives. You can see that in the way that they express themselves and the way that they will hedge things around with a lot of apology and self deprecation. Other women, like Hester Biddle, who's one of my favorite women in the book, is a Quaker preacher who really, you know, is fiery to the very core, does not suffer fools of any kind, and doesn't seem to be intimidated on any level. She's probably fairly exceptional in her levels of bravery. Really determined to just go out there and do what she thinks is right. Speaks really in really fiery terms against economic and social injustice, not just in terms of religious principles, but just a wider social and political conscience. She really articulates, denounces London for its economic inequalities, for its obliviousness to the fate of the poor, who she sees starving on the streets of London. And she speaks really strongly against the church leaders as well as the political leaders who don't do anything about this situation. So she's a very fiery character. She doesn't seem to be intimidated. Other women are more nervous, but nevertheless are putting themselves out there because they're trying to be true to their sense of what God has asked of them.
- [11:15]
Ellie Cawthorn
You mentioned earlier, quite briefly, that a lot of these women, you know, they weren't from the gentry. Can you tell us a bit more about the backgrounds that they came from?
- [11:22]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Well, Rose Thurgood, who is the first subject of the first chapter of my book, writes about the fact that she's poor to the point of starvation along with her four children. It's really, really unus and striking account because we hardly have any voices from this era from anyone, let alone from women who are suffering that level of social deprivation, who then go on to record their stories, which then survived for us to read them. So to my mind, that's an almost unique text, a woman from the 1630s writing about that level of poverty. Nevertheless, she does say in her conversion narrative that she did used to have a higher social status. She says she used to associate with people from the King's court. Maybe that's why she's had more of an education. Maybe that's why she's able to write her story. I mean, I'm just speculating because, you know, I don't really know any more detail about her background, but she's fallen into poverty because her bad husband, as she calls him, has sold his land and his living. That's the way she puts it. And so therefore the family has fallen into poverty. That was an all too familiar story in this era, where people may have a certain amount of land, a certain amount of status, but they can easily lose that as increasing social mobility, both upwards and downwards at this time. People losing land, selling off land, and then being essentially destitute. So she becomes very poor, she experiences extreme hardship, something which is quite shocking to hear, that people within England were literally facing the threat of starvation at that point. But as I say, she may have come from a slightly better off background before that point. As I said about the religious groups, there's a lot of fluidity here. The people don't necessarily stay in one position all of their life. Other women in the book are from more what we might call the middling sort. They've had some level of education, whether that's just a home education, but they have been taught to read and write in many cases. Well, in nearly all the cases, and they have come from a slightly more affluent background. But there are no women who would come from the gentry or more of an elite status.
- [13:10]
Ellie Cawthorn
You said that a lot of these women were motivated by intense personal conviction, and some of them were motivated by visions or prophecies that they had. How can we account today for what they perceived as messages from God at the time?
- [13:24]
Dr. Naomi Baker
They had a very intense and subjective experience of God. I would go as far as to say that many of these women were essentially mystics in the sense that they do prioritize that sense of having a strong experience. So they're taking part in a mystical tradition which has its roots in medieval Catholicism and way before that point as well. Of course, it's hard for us today, perhaps, if we're not within that tradition, to associate with that, but it is a recognized theological tradition. So they're not completely out on their own. They're not completely coming up with this idea of experiencing God in that very powerful way. And the men alongside them, within their groups also had similar experiences. So I wouldn't say that that is gender specific, but they are driven by that sense, and that is what empowers them to feel that they are acting on behalf of God, that they have a sense of God.
- [14:10]
Ellie Cawthorn
Do you have any examples of some of these women who had visions?
- [14:14]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Anna Chapnell is a great example. She had very powerful visions from an early age. She claimed to see visions which predicted events in the future, including military events during the Civil War, including political events. That's quite unusual, actually. I think I talk in the book about the nature of what they mean by prophecy. Prophecy at this time doesn't always mean predicting the future, really. It just means a message from God that might just be a message to your present moment. It doesn't have to be a prediction. But in Anna Chapnell's case, she did feel that she had visions which did reveal truths that she thought were later fulfilled. So she very much casts herself in a biblical model of the Old Testament prophets who had very striking and visual and sensory visions of kind of beasts with horns or of beasts made up of different animal forms, that kind of thing. Again, it seems very far out there when we look at it now, but she is aligning herself with a very clear biblical tradition. So I don't think it would seem as extreme in the 17th century as it might do to us. Because they were so much more biblically literate, they would be aware of that tradition. Nevertheless, for a young girl, as she is essentially an adolescent girl, to be having these visions and speaking publicly about them, and for the intensely political content of them, that does make her visionary language very, very striking and very unusual because her visions essentially coalesce around extreme condemnation of Oliver Cromwell. She's very much set against Oliver Cromwell. So her visions and her prophecies, very specifically political, trying to reject Conwell's authority and trying to instigate what she would see as a more godly form of society. She didn't think he was anywhere near radical enough. She wanted much more radical changes. So her visions are very biblical and very striking and strange, but they're also intensely contemporary and political and very local to her moment. That's what I love about her writing, that she manages to bring all those elements together.
- [15:59]
Ellie Cawthorn
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- [17:10]
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- [17:41]
Ellie Cawthorn
It's interesting, isn't it? Because in this period the political and the religious are so deeply entwined, aren't they? Another woman who got involved in political debate via religious preaching, I guess, was Elizabeth Poole. I wonder if you could tell us about her.
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Dr. Naomi Baker
Elizabeth Poole really exemplifies the fact that prophecy was an intensely political genre at this time, as I've been saying in relation to Anna Shrapnel. She went to speak to the Council of the army, the council of officers who were meeting in Whitehall at the end of 1648 and into the early weeks of 1649, and they were essentially debating whether or not it was okay to execute the king. A Fairly big question to be considering. Oliver Cromwell was part of those debates. He wasn't always present, but he was present at the time when Elizabeth Poole appeared. And she claimed that she appeared before the council of officers and said she had message from God. Now, that in itself wouldn't have seemed odd. These were men who saw themselves as godly figures who were trying to bring about a new form of godly society. So they very much would expect God to be speaking to them about that. And it wouldn't be unusual for him to choose what might seem like an unusual figure, like a woman, someone who is slightly unusual, because that's, of course, again, what happens in the Bible, that God would use people who weren't necessarily the ones that you would expect to speak to you. So that in itself wasn't odd, but the way she then conducted herself and the message that she brought was very striking. So initially she seemed to be on the side of the army and she was quite encouraging in what she said. She seemed to be going along with what they wanted. But then when she came back for a second visit, she very much clearly argued that they should not be part of any trial which would ultimately lead to the execution of the king. So she was arguing against the execution of the king. So it wasn't just a general prophetic message. It was a very specific argument against executing the king, which is not what they wanted to hear, because they were set on executing the king, as they, of course, went on to do a few weeks later. But it just shows the extent to which the role of prophecy, or calling yourself a prophet, saying you had a message from God gave you access to power at the highest level. Although she's the only clear example we've got of someone actually having an audience at that sort of political level. And of course, her message wasn't heeded, but she was to some extent taken seriously. She had a huge backlash against her after she did this. Nevertheless, she was initially given an audience. I think that's quite important to emphasize. So it allowed her access to these men who were the highest figures in the state at the time, and she was heard by them, and then her message was considered by them, even if it was then rejected.
- [20:06]
Ellie Cawthorn
So she basically used religious messaging to have a voice in a political arena that she otherwise wouldn't have done as a woman.
- [20:13]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes, although I don't think she would have put it in those terms because she genuinely believed that she was speaking on behalf of what her gods had told her. But the effect of that. Yes. Was to make was to Have a political intervention.
- [20:23]
Ellie Cawthorn
It strikes me that this is quite dangerous to be throwing your oar in in this way and saying, you know, God has told me you should do the opposite to what you are doing to those in charge. Is that the case? Were any of these women in real danger?
- [20:36]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes, many of the women were imprisoned. Many of them were abused physically, definitely verbally by people within their own families, let alone their own communities, let alone the wider society. They really did come up against extreme opposition. That was particularly the case for the Quakers who were intensely persecuted, especially after the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. Intense clampdown on the Quakers and they were imprison multiple times.
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Ellie Cawthorn
On what basis?
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Dr. Naomi Baker
Usually under things such as the Vagrancy Act. The Vagrancy act was used to persecute intensely women such as Hester Biddle, other Quaker women who travelled around the country, in fact traveled around the world. But the act was used to persecute them within England when they were traveling. Saying that you should stay at home, you shouldn't be wandering, you know, gadding about as it might have been put at the time. And they would be thrown in prison overnight, maybe not for very long periods of time, but abused within that context, violently, physically abused and thrown in prison because they weren't keeping to their proper sphere, by which, you know, literally weren't keeping to their proper sphere. They weren't keeping to the boundaries of their home. So acts like the Vagrancy act were used against them. And then later, after the Restoration, there were specific acts prohibiting Quaker worship, prohibiting non conformist gatherings, and that of course those acts could then be used to persecute them.
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Ellie Cawthorn
You mentioned that some of these women were not just gadding about around England but around the world. And one story that you do share is of a Yorkshire maidservant who eventually got herself an audience with the Ottoman Sultan. Tell us more about this.
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Dr. Naomi Baker
She is incredible. This is Mary Fisher who as you say, was working in service in Selby in Yorkshire and she was coming up to 30 years of age when she was convinced of Quakerism and immediately adopted its very fiery spirit. It's very fiery anti clericalism. She immediately went into her local church and denounced the man preaching as he was preaching and was thrown in prison immediately, I should say, then began to travel first of all around England. She was one of the first Quakers to go to Cambridge to spread the Quaker message. To Cambridge did not go down very well there either. She was whipped in the marketplace and thrown out of town without even being given a cup of water is one detail that was given. So did not get a very friendly reception there, but was completely undeterred, then took herself off to Barbados, went to New England, traveled all over, as you say, all on the basis that she was following her sense of witnessing to the light within. So she's a Quaker and of course that means testifying to the fact that God has given his light to all people. And she traveled all over the world not to convert people. I think that's the wrong way of putting it, but more to find evidence of this light that was already within all the people of the earth. So Quakerism is a very universal belief system which believed that God had given his light to everyone. And in fact, what she's trying to prove a lot through her travels and through the way she talks about her travels is that God's light is maybe even stronger elsewhere than it is within the so called Christian country of England, where she doesn't think there is actually much Christian light going on at all because she's getting a very hostile reception there. So as you say, she travels off, she actually sets off for Jerusalem and mid journey she diverts to Turkey. This is very typical of the way that Quakers operated. They didn't really have a very coherent plan. They were very much following their instincts, following the sense of what they would call God's calling, and just following what they thought they should do at the moment. So she diverts off to Turkey. She maybe had another woman alongside her. That's a little bit murky in the record, but she walks a very long way, potentially hundreds of miles across Turkey to get to where the Sultan of the Ottom Empire, his camp. Just to give some context of the Sultan's reputation outside of Turkey, within England, anyway, he was regarded as an extremely terrifying, fearsome figure. He was known as the Great Turk. He was seen as barbarous, he was seen as violent. There were stories of him doing all kinds of terrible things to people who tried to cross him or to bring Christian missionaries who did any kind of encounter with him. So he was a fearsome figure. But Mary Fisher, this, this maidservant from Yorkshire originally, is completely undeterred. She marches straight into the camp of the Sultan. And the way she gives an account of what happened is that he was extremely kind, extremely courteous. He gives her a reception, he lets her speak, he listens to what she has to say and she goes away thinking that he's very much showing this light of God within him. And as I say, the way she talks about it is to kind of shame the People back at home that they can't give her a reception. People in Cambridge throw her out. But the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire shows her respect. So that's the way she tells the story. I don't think she was trying to convert him, as I say. I think she was just trying to testify to the fact that God's presence is everywhere and she can go anywhere because she's got God within her and she can find God's truth elsewhere as well. But it's an incredible story. For someone, for anyone from this era to have an audience with this sultan was an amazing thing.
- [25:12]
Ellie Cawthorn
It is an incredible story going against everything that her gender and her class would expect at the time. And I think that's something that strikes me about all of these women's stories. You know, it's very tempting from the 21st century to look back at these women and, you know, say they're feminist icons or girl bosses or whatever you want to say. But how much was the role of women part of their preaching at the time? Did any of these women have anything to say that about the empowerment of women? Or was that kind of not on the agenda at all?
- [25:41]
Dr. Naomi Baker
They weren't motivated specifically by trying to champion women's rights. And so to that extent, it probably is difficult to call them the mothers of feminism. Nevertheless, they very much preached and spoke about the principle of spiritual equality. And that often took the form of saying we are equal with men. So they would talk about the position of women and how women should be seen in spiritual terms as equal with men. But they weren't agitating for political reform. They were agitating to get the vote, for example, or, you know, there were aspects that we might have wanted or expected them to take on which they probably weren't really interested in. It was much more on a spiritual level. However, I don't think that means it didn't have a knock on effect in terms of challenging the wider position of women in society. Because the knock on effect of that spiritual equality was for them, for example, to travel completely independently of men. These women who were traveling around the world, not in Mary Fisher's case actually, but for the other women, many of the ones I look at leave behind husbands with the children at home while they travel, sometimes for years on end around the world. And so they are doing things which they were breaking the mold, they're acting in a way that was not expected of women. So in terms of their example and the way that they live, they're challenging those ideas. But I wouldn't say that they're specifically agitating for gender reform or for sexual equality as such. I think it's more of an implication of disbelief in spiritual equality.
- [26:56]
Ellie Cawthorn
Yeah, definitely. It's a nuanced thing. Just to return for a moment to visions and prophecies, because they're so fascinating, I think people want to know more what are some of the recurring themes in these visions? Because a lot of them were quite apocalyptic, weren't they?
- [27:11]
Dr. Naomi Baker
Yes. So I have a whole section at the end of the book on women's responses to and use of apocalyptic ideas. I think that's a very important theme that runs through a lot of their writing and their prophecy. They draw on images, often from the Book of Revelation, of course, the Christian narrative of the apocalypse that unfolds there. Often seen as a very problematic book of the Bible in terms of its depiction of women, I have to say, because it has a famous figure called the Whore of Babylon. It has more positive figures of women as well. But women are used very symbolically in that book of the Bible in a way that is quite. Can be seen as quite polarizing. So kind of women as virgins or whores, that kind of idea. Nevertheless, what I found really interesting is that many of the women that I write about used apocalyptic imagery, including that revelation imagery, to make very specific interventions in their moment. And they used it in ways of. In which to challenge that idea of women just being used very stereotypically in that context. And so their prophecies, as I've said in terms of Anna Chapnel, are often they're very biblically infused. They have biblical imagery threaded through them, but they often fuse that biblical imagery with quite local imagery. So Anna Chapnau, to go back to her, she drew on images from Ezekiel, from the Book of Daniel, in the Hebrew Bible, all of those Hebrew prophets. She draws on their language and imagery, but she puts it in a very specific 17th century context. So she has one long prophecy about water and about the river flooding through London. And her father was actually a shipwright. And this prophecy is all full of imagery of the River Thames, of the ships and the boats on the River Thames, of the work that's going on within London, of the actual dirty, muddy River Thames. That's very vividly depicted, but then alongside it you've got this very biblical language and these biblical kind of events being threaded through that imagery. So that's the way I see their prophecy working. They draw on biblical language, they draw on biblical imagery, but they do very much weave into that, their own local context. Their own sensuous. And they say you do get a sense of the 17th century alongside this more biblical apocalyptic world. That's really one of the fascinating things about them. And it's why I think they're fascinating as writers as well as as thinkers and activists, because they are writing in a very distinctive way, drawing these threads together, creating really a whole new form of language, which I think is one of the ways that they haven't been given enough recognition for their innovation as authors, as writers. Whether they're writing prophecy, whether they're writing about their own lives, they're doing this in a very innovative way. They're speaking from the heart, you know, they're speaking, speaking very much from the heart rather than using the mannered language. It's quite familiar in the 17th century.
- [29:35]
Ellie Cawthorn
Well, are there any particular texts that you would highlight that really stand out?
- [29:40]
Dr. Naomi Baker
I would highlight the conversion narrative of Rose Thurgood, who is the first chapter in the book. And this is one of the earliest known English conversion narratives, which makes it one of the very early examples of autobiographical writing in English. Of course, there are medieval examples too, but within the context of specific 17th century autobiography, this is a very early example of a conversion narrative where someone writes about their coming to a kind of more authentic, as they see it, form of faith. And this is in manuscript form. It's held in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It was completely unknown until the late 1990s when an academic from Cambridge came up and just spent one day in the library and discovered this incredible manuscript. So it's an incredible text in all kinds of ways. It's incredible generically because it's a very early example of autobiographical writing. The fact that it's written by a woman from such a poor so social situation and the way in which she writes it, the honesty and the authenticity of her voice when she talks about her rage against God because he's allowed them to come to this point of almost starving, you know, it's a very honest, authentic, very raw voice. I was amazed when I first read it. I couldn't believe this is the writing of a 17th century woman. You just don't hear voices like that from this era. So that is my all time favorite text in the book, although there are many close contenders. But that, that is a very striking example.
- [30:54]
Ellie Cawthorn
And what do you think that the legacy of these women was?
- [30:57]
Dr. Naomi Baker
That's a very interesting question and hotly contested amongst historians. Narratives of radicalism in the 17th century often end on quite a downbeat note, don't they? When people are speaking or writing about this era, they say, well, it was all. Everything began to happen in the mid 17th century. All these ideas came to the surface. There were these moments of freedom, of radical possibility. There were the diggers digging the land, trying to live communally. There were people doing all kinds of things. And then the narrative often goes that that was all clamped down on. Of course. King comes back in 16. There is a real effort across the nation to suppress these forms of enthusiasm, as they were often termed. And so you could argue, and it has often been argued, that this was just a momentary kind of blip, that women, such as the women I write about alongside the men who are in the same groups as them, were just a very short lived, failed experiment that didn't come to anything. I do not share that belief. I don't have that negative review of things. I think, as I've already said, I don't think you can necessarily call them the mothers of feminism, but I think nevertheless, the lives that they live, the texts that they wrote, the example that they gave, you can't put that kind of genie back in a bottle. You know, that has happened. Those texts are out there. Those legacies survive in terms of cultural memory, in terms of the memories within their own religious groups, but also wider than that. And I think the principle of spiritual equality, the principle of being true to your conscience, the principle of that your subjective experience of truth is more important than an authoritative external voice. Those are sort of the principles that are still very much live in our culture, which I see as coming directly through these radical traditions, including the women that I write about. And so I think they do have a legacy. It might not be a very direct, obvious one, it might be a more indirect example which feeds them into later emancipatory movements such as feminism, such as the abolitionist movements. But obviously Quakers and other radical groups played a large role in those movements later. So I think the principles that began to be established by these women become foundational in later emancipatory movements. That's the way I see their legacy as, as surviving. I certainly don't think it was just a blip which then went away.
- [32:58]
Ellie Cawthorn
That was Dr. Naomi Baker speaking to Ellie Cawthorn. Naomi is a senior lecturer at the University of Manchester and her book is Voices of Thunder, Radical Religious women of the 17th century.