Volume 32: Early Quaker Controversy in Reading

Description

Volume 32: Early Quaker Controversy in Reading: The Minute Books of the Two Reading Monthly Meetings, 1668-1716

Quakerism was born out of the spiritual exploration and religious controversy of the 1640s and 1650s. The activities of the primary business meeting or Monthly Meeting as it was called, which began at this point, survive in the minutes. In addition to financial matters, the pastoral care of those who attended worship and the regulation of marriages between members, the minutes also provide us with examples of how disputes arose and were resolved by the community.

In Reading, as elsewhere, the major dispute concerned whether or not the national organisation held any spiritual authority over individuals and meetings. It led to a split between those who remained in sympathy with the national bodies (the ‘orthodox’) and those who continued to assert the primacy of the individual’s relationship with God (the ‘separates’). From the 1680s, the ‘orthodox’ were forced to leave the meeting house and worship in rented accommodation in the town. Eventually the meetings reunited in a new meeting house built on the current site in Church Street.

These minute books not only provide a rare record of this schism amongst early Quakers but also provide fascinating insights into the character of the Quakers involved, largely drawn from the merchant classes in the town.