The Pilgrim Chronicles

by Rod Gragg

  Like much of Holland, Leiden teemed with refugees who had fled from repression in other countries. The Reformation had been embraced by much of the Dutch population, and Holland was a melting pot of Protestant exiles—German Reformed, English Reformed, Puritans, Scots Presbyterians, French Huguenots, Walloons, Lutherans, Anabaptists, Mennonites, and others. Although it was the predominant faith, the Dutch Reformed Church was not the official government denomination, as was the Anglican Church in England. Like England, however, Catholicism was outlawed in Holland. In the late sixteenth century, the Dutch Revolt—a revolution led by Holland’s Protestants—overthrew generations of rule by Catholic Spain in what would become known as the Eighty Years’ War. In retaliation, Spanish troops slaughtered thousands of Dutch Protestants, almost wiping out entire populations in several Dutch cities. The city of Leiden barely survived a brutal siege by Spanish forces, which reduced the city’s population to starvation. Now Holland was enjoying the peace resulting from a twelve-year truce with Spain, but memories of the bloody occupation were still fresh. While Catholic worship in private homes was tolerated by authorities in Holland, Catholicism was officially banned.

  With a cityscape dominated by Pieterskerk—St. Peter’s Church—the city of Leiden was renowned for its architecture, network of canals, and picturesque gardens.

  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

  As for the Scrooby Separatists, they now enjoyed the freedom of religion they had sought for so long and under such hardship back home in England. No longer did they fear being rounded up at worship or seized at home and taken to jail. They were free to live their faith in public, to worship without harassment, to talk aloud about what they believed with one another or others. Under Pastor Robinson’s leadership, the congregation had grown substantially, and had become known for its “true piety, humble zeal and fervent love toward God and his Ways.” The integrity and winsome ways demonstrated by the members of the congregation also won them favor among their Dutch neighbors. “First, though many of them were poor,” William Bradford would recall, “there were none so poor but that if they were known to be of that congregation, the Dutch (either bakers or others) would trust them to any reasonable extent when they lacked money to buy what they needed. They found by experience how careful they were to keep their word, and saw how diligent they were in their callings, that they would even compete for their custom, and employ them in preference to others.”

  As depicted on this seventeenth-century illustrated map, the Old Rhine River flows around the walled city of Leiden and also slices through it via a canal system. Pastor Robinson and much of his congregation lived in homes near the Pieterskerk.

  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

  Leiden University—with its steadily expanding library—was an up and coming center of learning in Holland. Pastor Robinson attended theology classes there and participated in the university’s theological debates.

  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

  In Leiden, Pastor Robinson ministered to the personal needs of his congregation, preached three sermons a week, wrote prolifically, attended theology classes at the university, and was invited to join in the university’s theological debates. He and his wife Bridget would eventually have at least six children. William Brewster became a ruling elder in the church. For Brewster, coming to Holland was a financial hardship. He had walked away from his bailiff’s income at Scrooby, and was untrained to work as a tradesman or laborer. Initially, he provided for his wife and five children by working as a tutor, teaching English to affluent Dutch and German students at the nearby university. Eventually, however, he found his calling as a book publisher. Under the imprint Puritan Press, he published books on Puritan theology and Bible commentaries—largely written by English authors—and exported them for sale in England, where many of them had been banned and were largely unavailable.

  “The Dutch . . . would trust them to any reasonable extent when they lacked money”

  William Bradford got a job working in Leiden’s textile industry, but upon his twenty-first birthday he received a long-awaited inheritance from his parents. Unaccustomed to handling money, he soon lost most of it in various attempted investments and necessary living expenses. Humbly, he came to view his loss of fortune as an act of grace through which the Lord preserved his virtue. He managed to purchase a home in a modest Leiden suburb—flanked by the homes of a tanner and a cloth-maker—and made his way as a fustian weaver, fashioning heavy cotton material into a corduroy-like fabric that was popular in Europe in the day. He also became increasingly valuable to his congregation as his faith grew to reflect the biblical position stated by the Apostle Paul: “For I esteemed not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Known for a biblically grounded faith that was consistent and unwavering, he habitually extended respect and charity to believers who disagreed with him, acknowledging—in his words—that “it is too great arrogancy for any man or church to think that he or they have so sounded the word of God to the bottom.”

  As depicted by an artist, a seventeenth-century Separatist wedding was usually a simple affair. While in Holland, twenty-three-year-old William Bradford married sixteen-year-old Dorothy May.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

  He also married while in Holland. On December 10, 1613, the twenty-three-year-old Bradford married sixteen-year-old Dorothy May in Amsterdam. Little is known of his young bride, who apparently belonged to an exiled English family from the village of Wisbech, which was located about forty miles north of Cambridge. The public proclamation of their intended vows was recorded according to Dutch and English customs, and was preserved in Leiden’s court archives.

  Then appeared also as before William Bradford from Austerfield, fustian weaver, aged 23 years old, dwelling in Leyden, where the banns have been published, declaring that he has no parents, on the one part, and Dorothy May, 16 years old, from Wisbeach in England, at present living on the New Dyke, assisted by Henry May, on the other part, and declared that they were betrothed to one other with true covenants, requesting their three Sunday proclamations in order after the same to solemnize the aforesaid covenant and in all respects to execute it, so far as there shall be no lawful hindrances otherwise. And to this end they declared it as truth that they were free persons and were not akin to each other by blood—That nothing existed whereby a Christian marriage might be hindered, and their banns are admitted.3

  “They were betrothed to one another with true covenants”

  “Then appeared. . . William Bradford from Austerfield, fustian weaver, aged 23 years”

  “Butter-Mouths,” “Great Lubbers,” and “Manifold Temptations”

  Strange Customs and Culture Shock in Holland

  Although grateful for the religious liberty they enjoyed in Holland, the Leiden Separatists found the Dutch lifestyle to be a culture shock. The shock consisted of more than the differences between rural village life and urban living. Nor was it merely the challenge of having to learn a new language, master a new occupation, and adapt to the unfamiliar customs of the “butter-mouths”—the derisive term that some English travelers applied to the dairy-loving Dutch. Robinson, Brewster, Bradford, and the other Separatists appear to have successfully coped with all of those hurdles. What challenged and troubled them the most was what they viewed as the general Dutch attitude toward morality—and especially its potential impact on their children.

  Seventeenth-century Dutch aldermen discuss the issues of the day. Tolerant Dutch officials granted Pastor Robinson’s Separatist congregation “free and unrestrained” movement in Holland.

  RIJKSMUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM

  Despite the widespread influence of the Dutch Reformed Church and the array of exiled Protestant communities in Holland, the Separatists found life in The Netherlands to be far more secular-minded than what they had known in England. While the relaxed, liberal attitude typical of Dutch culture allowed for greater religious tolerance than was found in England, the Separatists eventually concluded that it also pro
duced a general lack of personal discipline and a casual attitude toward Bible-based morality. Despite its many attractions, William Bradford observed, Dutch culture also produced “great licentiousness” and “manifold temptations.” Early seventeenth-century English travel writer Fynes Moryson, who was not a Separatist, concurred with Bradford’s observation. In his classic work An Itinerary, Moryson advised English travelers to Holland to expect to find a casual attitude toward the Lord’s Day, and he cited an example:

  “Here is little respect had to sanctify the Sabbath”

  Here is little respect had to sanctify the Sabbath; the young girls walked all Sabbath afternoon with cups in their hands; they were about five or six years of age; others, about twelve or thirteen, guided them and sung, screaming and squeaking and straining their voices. Such as they met gave them money, which they put into the cups, was intended to buy a them a wasail cup or a carouse. This continued all [day]. . . .

  Dutch men of the early seventeenth century, Moryson opined, were typically given to “excessive drinking,” and Dutch women, he generalized, were often bold and brazen:

  Dutch neighbors cheerfully cavort on the Lord’s Day. Pastor Robinson, William Bradford, and other English Separatists were troubled by what they viewed as a frivolous attitude toward the Sabbath in Holland.

  RIJKSMUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM

  The women (as I have heard some Hollanders confess) not easily finding a husband, in respect of this disparity of the sexes in number, commonly live unmarried till they be thirty years old, and as commonly take husbands of twenty years of age, which must make the women more powerful. Nothing is more frequent than for little girls to insult their brothers much bigger then they, reproving their doings, and calling them great lubbers. I talked with some companions [who] told me it was a common thing for wives to drive their husbands and their friends out the door with scolding. . . . I may boldly say that the women of these parts, are above all others, truly taxed with this unnatural domineering over their husbands.

  “Nothing is more frequent than for little girls to insult their brothers . . . calling them great lubbers”

  The travel writer’s critical and generalized observation of Dutch womanhood stood in contrast to the ideal of early seventeenth-century middle-class English women, whose lifestyle was stereotyped in a popular self-improvement book on English home life. The book was published at the time the Scrooby Separatists were in Leiden.

  Next unto her sanctity and holiness of life, it is meet that our English housewife be a woman of great modesty and temperance, as well inwardly as outwardly; inwardly, as in her behaviour and carriage towards her husband, wherein she shall shun all violence of rage, passion and humour, coveting less to direct than to be directed, appearing ever unto him pleasant, amiable and delightful; and, tho’ occasional mishaps, or the mis-government of his will may induce her to contrary thoughts, yet virtuously to suppress them, and with a mild sufferance rather to call him home from his error, than with the strength of anger to abate the least spark of his evil, calling into her mind, that evil and uncomely language is deformed, though uttered even to servants; but most monstrous and ugly, when it appears before the presence of a husband.

  A Dutch artist caricatured the relaxed moral values displayed by many people in Holland—a cultural tendency that contrasted sharply with the biblical worldview held by the Separatists.

  RIJKSMUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM

  Outwardly . . . in her apparel . . . she shall proportion according to the competency of her husband’s estate and calling. . . . Let therefore the housewife’s garments be comely and strong, made as well to preserve the health, as to adorn the person, altogether without toyish garnishes, or the gloss of light colours, and as far from the vanity of new and fantastic fashions, as near to the comely imitation of modest matrons.

  Seventeenth-century Dutch citizens enjoy a balmy day along one of Holland’s fabled waterways. Although Holland offered many attractions for the exiled English Separatists, it was still a foreign culture for them.

  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS IMAGES

  Let her diet be wholesome and cleanly, prepared at due hours, and cooked with care and diligence, let it be rather to satisfy nature, than her affections, and apter to kill hunger than revive new appetites; let it proceed more from the provision of her own yard, than the furniture of the markets; and let it be rather esteemed for the familiar acquaintance she has with it, than for the strangeness and rarity it brings from other countries. . . .

  To conclude, our English housewife must be of chaste thoughts, stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleasant, constant in friendship, full of good neighbor-hood, wise in discourse, but not frequent therein, sharp and quick of speech, but not bitter or talkative, secret in her affairs, comfortable in her counsels, and generally skillful in the worthy knowledge which do belong to her vocation.4

  With an ale jug placed conveniently nearby, a Dutch woman lights up with an attentive companion. As the years passed, the exiled Separatists began to fear that their children’s faith would weaken amid the liberal Dutch culture.

  RIJKSMUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM

  “How Hard the Country Was Where We Lived”

  Life in Holland Begins to Take a Toll

  If such an idealistic lifestyle was demanding for middle-class women in England, it was surely daunting for the wives and mothers among the Separatists in Leiden. Many of them—perhaps most—were forced by circumstance to put aside traditional homemaking skills and even important child-raising tasks in order to earn a wage in the commercial workplace. Holland’s textile boom had attracted workers from throughout Western Europe, leaving few high-paying jobs for the newcomers, most of whom were farmers and villagers unskilled in the urban trades. To survive on scanty pay, entire families—children included—went to work with long hours and monotonous tasks. They became weavers, drapers, twine-makers, ribbon-weavers, hat-makers, and wool-carders. Others found jobs outside the textile industry, working as bakers, coopers, chandlers, leather-workers, cobblers, dock workers, glover-makers, wood-sawyers, and pipe-makers.

  An English family dines on simple fare in this seventeenth-century woodcut. For many of the English exiles, keeping the family fed, clothed, and housed in Holland required fathers, mothers, and even the children to join the local workforce.

  WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

  Despite difficulties and hardship, the members of Robinson’s congregation were frugal and responsible, and most managed to earn an adequate living, given that few appeared on Leiden’s delinquent tax records. They generally accepted their new and demanding routines to be a fair trade for the freedom of faith they had so desperately sought. As the years passed, however, their hardscrabble lifestyle took a toll. They also began to fear that their children would be discouraged by continued hardship and that the worldly Dutch culture would lure them from their faith. Years later, one of them would recall “how hard the country was where we lived, how many spent their estate in it . . . how unable we were to give such good education to our children as we received.” In a private account of the Pilgrim odyssey, William Bradford would later describe what the Separatists saw as the dark side of living in Holland.

  “Our English housewife must be of chaste thoughts, stout courage, patient, untired, watchful, diligent, witty, pleasant . . . and generally skillful”

  After they had lived here for some eleven or twelve years—the period of the famous truce between the Low Countries and Spain—several of them having died, and many others being now old, the grave mistress, Experience, having taught them much, their prudent governors began to apprehend present dangers and to scan the future and think of timely remedy. . . .

  First, they saw by experience that the hardships of the country were such that comparatively few others would join them, and fewer still would bide it out and remain with them. Many who came and many more who desired to come, could not endure the continual labor and hard fare and other inconveniences which they themselves were satisfied
with. But though these weaker brethren loved the members of the congregation, personally approved their cause, and honored their sufferings, they left them, weeping, as it were . . . for, though many desired to enjoy the ordinances of God in their purity, and the liberty of the gospel, yet, alas, they preferred to submit to bondage, with danger to their conscience, rather than endure these privations.

  Life in Holland was especially challenging for many of the Separatist mothers, who had to work long hours outside of the home while also raising children, cooking meals, and maintaining the household.

  RIJKSMUSEUM OF AMSTERDAM

  Some even preferred prisons in England to this liberty in Holland, with such hardships. But it was thought that if there could be found a better and easier place of living, it would attract many and remove this discouragement. Their pastor would often say, that if many of those who both wrote and preached against them were living where they might have liberty and comfortable conditions, they would then practice the same religion as they themselves did.