Books like Strangers and Pilgrims, Travellers and Sojourners

This excellent local history survey enables us to step back to the period immediately before the migration to the Netherlands to see the kind of life the future Pilgrims were leading in their home shires. The East Midlands had long been a home of religious radicalism. Some of the men and women destined to take the historical transatlantic journey grew up listening to Puritan preachers berate the clergy of the established church for not being sufficiently reformed. Under the microscope of Sheils' research, we can see the emergence of ever more extreme separatism and the emergence of groups of impatient, intolerant 'saints' meeting clandestinely and contemplating leaving their homeland in search of the perfect church.

This is the biography of one of the most disruptive figures in the separatist movement. It brings to life the turbulence of the life of the Netherlands settlers more vividly than generalisations about conditions in Amsterdam, and Leiden can do. Johnson was the most extreme and dogmatic of the English separatists. He led a congregation in London in the 1590s, was exiled, made an abortive attempt to set up his own colony in Nova Scotia, then joined the separatist community in Amsterdam. There he fell out with the established leadership and created a split in the English community. The vivid (perhaps 'lurid' would be a better word) story of a maverick so domineering that he could excommunicate his own father and brother reveal the destructive depths to which religious certainty could descend.

This incisive account of the development of Protestant extremism reveals that the beliefs of the Pilgrims were not novel. Dr Gunther traces their development back to the early years of the Reformation. When the religion of images and priests was replaced by the religion of words and preachers the implications for the English church could only be extensive and devastating. When the Bible was translated into the vernacular and increasing numbers of Christians read it for themselves it is clear (though only in hindsight) that the centre could not hold. People were driven by conscience to oppose, not only their bishops, but also their sovereign. This book is valuable for weaving the separatist vision into the weft and warp of Tudor society.

This book describes the colonising element which was the background to the final movement of the Pilgrims from Leiden to America. That move would not have taken place without (a) the pioneering attempts of Elizabethan adventurers to settle the North American seaboard, (b) the mercenary (and unscrupulous) determination of businessmen to exploit the land and people of the region, and (c) The desire of English monarchs to enhance their prestige and wealth. Horn tells in graphic detail the story of early troubled attempts to make a settlement at the mouth of the James River. By the time that the Pilgrims were seriously contemplating moving on from Leiden, the leaders of the Virginia Company were becoming desperate to recruit potential colonists. The result was a muddled, stop-go venture driven by mixed motives. As one of the Pilgrims exclaimed, 'If ever we make a plantation it will be because God works a… show more.

If you want to learn about the Pilgrims and Plymouth Colony, the most essential source is Mayflower passenger and longtime governor William Bradford’s own history. Bradford explains the circumstances that led a portion of his congregation to transplant themselves to the New World, then goes year by year through the colony’s first three decades. His annals aren’t dry, though. Bradford also has a wicked sense of humor. If would-be colonists weren’t tough enough for what awaited them in New England, they should remain across the Atlantic “till at least they be mosquito proof.” You shouldn’t only read Bradford. He’s a partisan in this contentious history, after all. But you shouldn’t pass on one of the great works of seventeenth-century American non-fiction.

If you want to know the individual stories of the men, women, and children who traveled on the Mayflower, you won’t find a better short guide than Caleb Johnson. This book is concise and meticulously researched at the same time. Caleb Johnson is a indefatigable researcher whose efforts have brought forth new information about several Pilgrims. In The Mayflower and Her Pilgrims you can read about pious separatists, bastard children, and feisty servants, all in one well-organized and easy-to-digest book.

Ok, I knew that the story of Thanksgiving taught in grade school was a myth, but until I read this book, I had no idea that this iconic event was so deeply embedded in a much larger, more complex relationship between colonists and Indians in Massachusetts.

Silverman explains why the Wampanoag forged an alliance with the Puritans and what a terrible price they paid for their decision. I was completely immersed in his richly detailed account of this early encounter between indigenous peoples and the interlopers who wanted their land.  

Most people knows that the Pilgrims were religious, but most Americans today know very little about the beliefs and practices that animated the separatists who chose to leave England and the Dutch Republic and cross the ocean. Francis Bremer is the best possible guide to this essential part of the Pilgrim story. Bremer knows puritanism better than anyone, and he knows how to fit the Pilgrims into that larger framework. In One Small Candle (the title comes from William Bradford’s history), Bremer explains how the lay leadership of men and women was central to separatism and to the religious organization of the colony.

I don’t always agree with Bart Ehrman, but I do here. Forgeries, heresies, martyrs, even unfamiliar texts featuring women (who was Thecla and why was she hanging around with Paul?) contribute to an engaging read.

Whereas MacCulloch provides the “big picture” of Christian history, Ehrman targets the first centuries of Christianity—those centuries so critical to current debates about gender and lay roles in churches—to help us understand what we don’t understand about holy texts, especially ones that never made it into Christian Bible.

Ehrman takes us into the thought processes of early Church communities to help us see how Christians made decisions that shaped church policies relevant to gendered and lay leadership today.

I normally avoid books on historical witchcraft since they are normally written by biased academics who have never set foot in a magic Circle. This title is recognised as one of the most influential historical studies of European witchcraft beliefs; it began as an enquiry into the origins of the great European witch-hunt. It ended as something wider. It argues that the stereotype of the witch, as it existed in many parts of Europe in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, is made up of elements of diverse origins, and that some of these derived from a specific fantasy which can be traced back to Antiquity. (1975)  Cohn argues that there never were any devil-worshipping witches in Early Modern Europe, and that all of those persecuted for being so were innocent.