The development of religious separatism in the Diocese of Canterbury : 1590-1660

The first part of this study concentrates on too development of conventicling and attempts to analyse the line dividing those private assemblies of a non-separatist nature from their separatist counterparts. It is argued that although there were signs of nascent separatism in the Diocese of Canterbury prior to the reign of Charles I, the port of Sandwich being notable within this context, rapid growth of separatism was very much a feature of the late 1620s and 1630s. Much of the evidence for this part of the study is taken from an exhaustive examination of the Ecclesiastical Records in the form of Visitation Comperta and entries in the Acta Curiae Books. Two definite areas of separatist activity emerge as a result of this investigation; the Weald and East Kent. In the case of the former, the process by which Puritan nonconformity developed into outright covenanted separatism is analysed with reference to the experience of the conventiclers of the parishes of Sutton Valence and Egerton, and the role of the Sutton Valence chandler, John Turner, is shown to be of especial importance. The methodology that has been employed has been consciously restrictive; no attempt has been made to analyse the socio-economic determinants that might lie behind provincial dissent, nor, largely as a result of lack of manuscript evidence, has any microscopic examination of a dissenting community been attempted. The aim of the study has been to concentrate closely on the developmental aspect of separatism over a given period of time. Consequently, the second part of the thesis looks in some depth at the growth of the radical sects and of the Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers in the Diocese during the Interregnum, demonstrating, where possible, the links of these various groups and denominations with their earlier separatist roots.