Barbara Blaugdone's An Account Of The Travels Sufferings & persecutions

Résumé du document

Barbara Blaugdone was born in England in 1609. Her journal entitled An Account OF THE TRAVELS; Sufferings & Persecutions was published in 1691. It is an autobiographical work where she relates her personal and perilous adventures, as a testimony of what she endured when she traveled both in England and Ireland to spread the word of God as a female Quaker preacher. Her journal began with the day she decided that it was her duty to "take up the cross and advocate for her belief." Her account is a good example of the courage and independence which characterised female Quakers in the mid of the 17th century England. Barbara Blaugdone died in 1704 at a very old age. To what extent can we say that An Account OF THE TRAVELS Sufferings & Persecutions is a testimony of a female Quakers' courage and determination to convert people to her faith thus confronting the harshness and intolerance of the 17th century English society? Our study will be divided into two parts; firstly we will focus on women and Quakerism in the 17th century. Then we will analyse Barbara Blaugdone's devotion to Quakerism through her travels.

Extraits

[...] Women represented 55% of the sect in 1660. This interference of women in religious matters was a revolution since they were forbidden to have this status in the traditional established Church of England. It was considered even outrageous not only for its social implications, but because it contradicted the apostle Saint Paul's injunction that women should remain silent in church. The latter justified the denial of equality to women by stating that women were created after men and that they sinned first. [...]

[...] Barbara Blaugdone belonged to the large number of female writers who challenged women's subordination in religion in seventeenth century England. In other words, Quakerism favoured women's emancipation in the English patriarchal society. Barbara Blaugdone and the Inner Light Barbara Blaugdone, through her travelling ministry was guided by God for the spreading of his word. As she herself says: can speak it to the glory of God, he never moved me to any thing, but that he gave me Power to perform it, and made it effectual”. [...]

[...] To what extent can we say that An Account OF THE TRAVELS Sufferings & Persecutions is a testimony of a female Quakers' courage and determination to convert people to her faith thus confronting the harshness and intolerance of the 17th century English society? Our study will be divided into two parts; firstly we will focus on women and Quakerism in the 17th century. Then we will analyse Barbara Blaugdone's devotion to Quakerism through her travels. Women and Quakerism in the 17th century Women during the early modern England were to be under the authority of either a father or a husband throughout their lifetime. They had to stay at home, to cook, and to educate their children. [...]

[...] So human hazards were part of Barbara's everyday-life. Brenna Deutchman's The Long and Dangerous Road: Travel Overland in the 17th century tells us that Barbara “travelled well over a hundred miles” in England, which comes as no surprise knowing that she spread her message in many towns situated in the south of England a while after I was made to go into Devonshire, to Molton, and Bastable, and Bediford ( ) and I went to Earl of Bathes ( Barbara also went to Ireland where people were unfamiliar to the Quakers' message and “travelled over two hundred miles.” She never seems to rest: the Lord moved me to go for Ireland, and I went in a vessel to Corke ( Further she added: we [passengers] were put to Dublin”P7, as well as: then I went to Limrick ( (P12) We notice that she went back to England and quickly returned to Ireland: ) I returned home to Bristol. [...]

[...] Barbara Blaugdone's prophecies had great effects on the people she met. After having talked to a Deputy from Dublin about her religious convictions, he becomes and Melancholy” and refuses to go neither to “bowls nor no pastime at all”. All these illustrations show that Barbara Blaugdone had a magic power because of her status of God's message deliverer. The Blasphemy Act of 1650 According to Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary, blasphemy is defined as a showing contempt or irreverence for God or sacred things. [...]