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Chapter Seven ORTHODOXY IN NEW ENGLAND: THE COMMUNITY The key to the success of the Bible Commonwealths in promoting Puritan values in the seventeenth century, and the reason why those values remained influential after the end of the Puritan century, lies in the local institutions that surrounded the colonists from birth to death. In the towns, churches, families, and schools of the region's communities are to be found not only the practical expressions of Puritan beliefs, but the means whereby those beliefs were handed down from generation to generation . The Town: "Christian, Utopian, Closed, Corporate Community" The New England town has a commanding place in the folklore of America, celebrated by countless politicians and historians as one of the cradles of democracy. But only in recent decades has the application of demographic and other social science techniques revealed to us the true nature of life in the towns and villages that spread across the New England landscape. Out of these studies has emerged a picture of communities that were much more traditional, English, primitive, and conservative than had previously been recognized. The latest research has revealed marked variety in the patterns of life of the various regions and subregions of England and variations in the precise structuring of different New England villages and towns, especially in regard to land distribution and agricultural practices . What follows reflects not universal practices, but general patterns that were common in the East Anglian region from which most of the colonists emigrated and thatwere adapted to local circumstances in most of the towns that have been studied. The England from which the Puritans came was predominantly a land of rural villages and hamlets. Most Elizabethan communities were small— io2 THE PURITAN EXPERIMENT some seventy families, each averaging between four and five members. Most of the villagers lived in close proximity in a central community surrounded byfieldsand woods. If the land was still tilled as in the Middle Ages, the villagers cultivated it in common, with each family assured the harvest of a designated portion. In communities where thefieldshad been enclosed and the land divided into family farms, the work was still often performed in common. Some of the villagers practiced various crafts in addition to working thefields.The principal figure in most such communities was the local lord or squire. Living in his manor, he dominated the economic and religious as well as the social life of the region. John Winthrop , for example, had held such a position in Groton. In the period just before the Great Migration, the local institutions of Stuart England had been subjected to growing pressure by the efforts of Charles I to impose centralization. But the monarch's efforts to reduce the powers of local corporations, congregations, and train bands only served to strengthen the countryman's attachment to his threatened way of life. Bringing that background of conflict to America, the early colonists labored to create local institutions capable ofwithstanding anyundue outside influence. In New England, land was granted to groups of colonists by the General Court. It was uncommon for an individual to receive such a grant, for the goal of the government was to plant communities. Usually, but not always, the core group came from the same region ofEngland or, in the case oflater townships, from older New England towns. Sometimes such groups recruited outsiders who provided valuable political influence, expertise in Indian relations, or some necessary skill. Though they became proprietors, such individuals did not always settle in the community. The land granted to such a group averaged about thirty-six square miles, being much larger than a comparable populated community in England. In one of the first modern studies of a New England town, Sumner Chilton Powell concluded that the first settlers of Sudbury, Massachusetts, held firm to the English openfieldsystem of agriculture. Since Powell's study Philip Greven has detected the same process atworkin earlyAndover, Kenneth Lockridge in Dedham, John Waters in Hingham, and Edward Perzel in Ipswich. But David Grayson Allen and others have found signs of other practices. Still, the early Puritan farmer did not build an isolated farm in the wilderness but, rather, followed tradition and built his home in a town where he farmed and lived as a member of a community. Because of the generous size of the township, thefirstsettlers generally divided but a portion ofthe land and left the remainder for future partition. Each head of a household was granted a home lot in the village. The...

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