The break-down of control over printing at the start of the 1640s released a torrent of published news-sheets, ballads, books and pamphlets that gave an outlet to new ideas and ways of expressing life. This seems to have been a moment when the inner lives of thinkers and ordinary people bubbled up to the surface of society. As well as printing ideas, people talked about different ways of doing things, and groups and characters came out of the framework of this early-modern world, sharing, preaching and showing a life that could be different from the strictly regulated society that surrounded them.
image from A glorious liberty, AL Morton, courtesy of Bristol Radical History Society
Towards the end of the 1640s, when the Parliamentary authorities had regained some incomplete control over what was printed and what was preached, these unofficial prophets and subversive teachers were seen by the authorities as being dangerous and seditious. They were described as ‘Ranters’ and they were persecuted wherever possible. The term ‘Ranter’ seems to have been applied to a nebulous group that believed that God created everything, he is within everything he has created and, therefore, there is no such thing as ‘sin’ and therefore, no necessity to abide by moral laws and regulations. Often this view was connected to a belief that the Second Coming of Christ was imminent and that to prepare for it everyone must share everything. This event would usher in a glorious era of equality and justice and lead to the punishment of the rich and powerful.
But there was no central organisation for these people. They spoke what they thought, they shared their ideas, argued about them and, if they were arrested, they would often say whatever was needed to get their freedom. Their creed was a pragmatic one that was difficult to suppress.
This Ranter definition was applied to anyone claiming any unorthodox beliefs. Spreading their views was very unhelpful and disturbing for loyal Christians and, obviously, they had to be stopped.
Many Ranters openly agreed that they were ‘seekers after the truth’ and so changed their stance on what they believed over time. Some were Baptists, some joined a group that came to be called ‘Quakers’ (another nickname) and some joined other groups. Some changed their stance multiple times. Some just shrugged and went back to farming or their former professions after the tumults of the 1640s and early 1650s. The impact of the Ranters was greatest in the late 1640s and early 1650s. Possibly, their presence, size and strident preaching resonated at this point due to the unsettled political and religious situation. After this date, their virulence ebbed, like an abating fever in the bloodstream, becoming, over decades, mingled with Puritan and other ideologies, into the non-conformist denominations that flourished in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.