Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end : women's millennialist prophecy 1630-1670

Abstract

This study looks at prophecy as a form of human behaviour that is historically and culturally determined. The prophetic texts of Eleanor Davies, Sarah Wight, Anna Trapnel, and early Quaker women are examined within a systematic reworking of issues relating to England's religious and political conflicts of 1640-1660 and rising Protestant millenarian expectations.

Published prophecies by women first appeared in quantity in England in the 1640s and 1650s. At this time women were conventionally prohibited from public speaking. Yet for a prophetess claiming to be a conduit of God's word, such a lack of social power could become an asset, entitling her to address wider audiences, including religious and secular leaders, in the shifting political fortunes of the century's middle decades.

Part I looks at the role of dissenting congregations, in which equality of membership and promotion of personal and experiential forms of spiritual witness allowed women more active roles in church affairs. Also, with the fall of censorship, the testimonies of ordinary believers could gain new authority as printed texts. A parallel survey of gender constructs of familial and governmental patriarchy, and of the operations of the print industry from the early 1640s, shows that factors relating to the pursuit of power and profit were decisive in the formation and presentation of female prophecy.

Part II investigates spoken, written, and non-verbal forms of prophetic discourse. In the century's broader movement for linguistic reform, language's ability to convey religious and secular 'truths' was widely debated.

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