A research blog on the history, literature and culture of early-modern and eighteenth-century religious nonconformity (1500–1800)
By Mark Burden Although they have been widely consulted by church historians and historians of religion, the role played by Puritan church records of the 1650s in the furtherance of personal, church, and national reformation has rarely...
By Rachel Adcock On 14 February 1654 the Baptist church that would later meet regularly at Loughwood, East Devon, gathered at nearby Kilmington and recorded the first entry in what is now known and catalogued in the...
Dissenting Experience is pleased to announce its latest publication, An Inventory of Puritan and Dissenting Records, 1640-1714 (2016), compiled by Mark Burden, Michael Davies, Anne Dunan-Page and Joel Halcomb. The Inventory contains full bibliographical details of over...
By Mark Burden In recent times, historians have quite correctly expressed reservations about the wide–spread assumption that a family’s non–attendance at a parish church might indicate their support for dissent. However, little attention has been paid to...
Please click on the link below to view a pdf table summarising the contents of approximately 900 disciplinary citations at White’s Alley Baptist Church, 1681-1714: White’s Alley – Disciplinary Cases – Appendix The table has been compiled...
By Mark Burden Despite having been almost completely ignored by historians, the records of the General Baptist church at White’s Alley in London, 1681-1714 provide one of the fullest sets of disciplinary cases surviving for a dissenting...
We are pleased to inform readers that our project inventory, providing bibliographic details of around 350 early dissenting church books and registers, has been submitted to our advisory board for comments. Revisions will be made across the...
By Mark Burden In a previous blog, ‘Sabbatarianism, Literary Form, and the Lothbury Square Church Book’, I explored various misconceptions which have arisen from historians’ interpretations of the so-called More-Chamberlen church book of 1652-4 (Bodleian Library Rawlinson...
By Mark Burden Debates about the relationship between Baptist doctrines, church practices, and literary forms have tended to centre around key texts such as Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, and have often been expressed in rather blunt and monolithic...
By Mark Burden The Puritan poet and intellectual Lucy Hutchinson’s 62-page manuscript work ‘My Owne Faith and Attainment’ (1667) has received scant critical attention; on the few occasions that it has been discussed, the text has been...
