Religion
Religion in Baker
In seventeenth-century England, religion played a central role in everyday life. In the latter half of the century, when Margaret Baker began to write her recipe book, England was a Protestant country. However, this did not mean that the entire country followed Protestantism, and although there was one state religion, Catholicism and several varieties of Protestantism were also practiced. Despite this, it is wrong to assume that these various religious groups who did not follow Protestantism were ‘condemned’ by the conformists, and actions towards these groups were in fact, a lot more complicated. The development of various Governmental Acts in the latter half of the seventeenth-century were developed with the intent to restrict dissenters from opportunities that could put them in a place of power, control, and influence over the country, and aimed to crack down on such religious ‘rebels’.
The development of The Corporation Act (1661) and The Test Act (1673) eliminated nonconformists from the state and civil office, and made the oath of allegiance and non-resistance to the monarchy compulsory, whilst also prohibiting them from gaining university degrees from Oxford or Cambridge (Schechner, 290). The development of The Act of Uniformity (1662) meant that all clergy had to be episcopally ordained, and were required to read solely from the Common Book of Prayer. In this same year, The Licensing Act was enacted, which meant that all religious works required a license from the Bishop before it could be put into publication (Schechner, 290). The country wasn’t actively trying to condemn these non-Protestants but aimed to make their life, and their beliefs a lot harder to progress in Protestant England.
It is interesting to underline the religious context of which Baker’s recipe book was placed; the belief in the Protestant religion was essential in order to be treated humanely and just. However, this is not claiming that anyone who was Protestant became so due pressure of authorities, but it underlines just how important religion was in the eyes of the 17th century English folk.
The expression of the Protestant religion, for both a man and for a woman was very important. It was not important because it was seen as a way of conforming to the country’s laws through proving their faith to the Church of England, but because it proved their utter devotion, loyalty and love to Him. By continuing God’s purposes, they were increasing their chances of good returns from Him. However, both men and women underwent very separate religious experiences due to the Biblical stories that bound them to gendered roles and limitations. Yet, it would be naïve to suggest that women were entirely restricted due, although society was dominated by a patriarchal structure, religion actually began to loose the noose over women by their superior men.
Patriarchy and the Bible
The Biblical story of Adam and Eve was the initial foundation of which patriarchy and misogyny could be built upon. The religious story proved a justification for male domination over women; Eve was created for Adam, to provide and accompany him, and her weakness and allurements that lead her to give into temptation underlined the necessity for women to be controlled, as their weakness left them liable to danger for themselves and for man.
Ideas that women, like Margaret Baker, were to stay at home and conform to their husbands needs, was one that was preached in religious congregations. It was understood that that women were to stay within the confines of the pubic sphere, whilst the man was a pronounced member of the public. Henry Smith’s 1591 sermon states these gendered beliefs; that where ‘the cock flyeth abroad to bring in.. the dam sitteth upon the nest to keep all at home’ (Flather, 17). However, religious assumption was one thing, it did not mean that they played out the same in reality, and in fact, it didn’t. Women were becoming more religiously active both privately and publically.
Broadening of Women's Religious Freedoms
Reformation saw women finding their religious voice, and they ultimately became more present in prayer meetings or ‘gathered churches’ which were often located in their own homes’ a place where their prophesies began to grow more prominent and important throughout the century (Couchman, 133). (Example?) This did not mean that women held religious power in the grander scheme of things; they were still restricted from serving in church, or from studying theology in University.
However, with developments of both strength and leadership through religion, women found autonomy, and this imprinted on their domestic life. They stretched further than being simply a married woman whose main duty was to care for her husband and raise her children. They became more academically curious, they preached, evangelised and debated on a much wider scale, (Crawford, 210). They found their footing and purpose that sprouted initially from religious freedoms, but encouraged them to develop outside of it.
Women began to gain more of a place in society.
Female Preachers in the 18th century.
One can extract these independences; as a result of religious freedoms through Margaret Bakers book, in her recipe titled ‘A remidie’. (PICTURE) At the close of the recipe which describes madness and the cures for it, she states that ‘these words were prenominated in the braverie of helth’ (Baker, 22v. 23r), indicating that Margaret had taken part in extensive research of an outside sophisticated and knowledgeable source.
(f .22.) 'A Remidie', taken out of Boorde's 'Bravarie of helth'
The Breviary of Health was a famous health book written by the cleric and physician Andrew Boorde in 1542, which listed hundreds of remedy’s to cure all types of problems. It is clear that Baker has taken a lot of notice on Chapter 43 in the book, that ‘doth shew.. the kinds of madnesse’ (Boorde, 13) where she has almost copied verbatim from the four kinds of madness
This development of extensive research undergone by Baker, highlights that this was not simply a wife living to the expectations of patriarchy, and to her ‘God-given’ role and duty in society to keep the household in good health. She was fulfilling her curiosity through research and self-teaching.
Front Page of the Breviarie of Health (1587 Edition)
Not all women actually kept recipe books, as it was not interesting to them, however, Baker was obviously one who found this mentally stimulating, and enjoyed practising ‘science’ as well as dabbling in alchemy. She exceeded religious expectations, and is a key example of a woman who was gaining individuality via initial religious freedoms, and it seems as though gender roles really did begin to transform alongside the transformation of religious expression.
Notes taken by Baker from Andrew Boorde’s Breviary of Health, is also intriguing in terms of religion itself, and it notes people who have given to religion excesses, or in the belief that they have supernatural powers.
‘They the which bee maniac in their madness be full of divination, as thinking the selfe to concure or to create or to make things that noe man can do but God & doth pressure upon super natural things, thinking that they can or doe the thing which is unposible for man to do’ (Baker, 22v. 23r.).
The fact that Baker considers and notes acts of madness, which goes against the religion at the time, underlines the flexibility and allowances of women. The cause and ideas of mental illness were always believed to have been in the hands of the devil; that the demons existed and supported any opposition of their religion by influencing irregular mental states of a person (Koenig, 9). This is interesting, the recipe book lacks in any other remedy to cure mental health, or fails to mention supernatural powers in such depth, and there may be an easy simple answer to this irregularity: Baker could have simply been intrigued and amused at the ridiculous fact that mad men were believing they actually held religious excesses and powers, and that the only one who could hold such divine and righteous power, was God himself.
Picture of an exorcist - trying to repent the Devil out of the 'madman'.
Women and Religious Expression
Crista DeLuzio underlined the idea that women did not have to hold a monastic role in order to prove their faith and allegiance to God, that Protestants understood that ‘salvation came out of faith and God’s love rather than out of good works and participation in church-sanctioned sacraments, thus making the external hierarchies less important’ (DeLuzio, 36). This meant that salvation could still be possible for women, despite the fact they were not as present in Churches as men, and they were still able to receive the same salvation from God as men did, despite their differentiation in expression. Not only could women develop their own prayer meetings outside the all-male church confederation, but also they were encouraged to compensate through various types of worship: through mentioning, recognising and studying God’s universal power, generally through the Bible.
The prominence of women active in this Bible note taking also saw women producing their own sermons, notes and prayer. Many ‘were trained to compile their own collections [of their thoughts, ideas and beliefs] on bound or loose-leaf pages, either following the subject headings of a trusted authority or devising a scheme that met their particular needs’ (Sherman, 75). For example, a Mary Wilkinson was “very careful to remember, and took much pains in writing sermons, and collecting special notes out of practical divines” and “kept a diary of God’s dealings with her soule, and of those various dispensations she met withal [and] she was much busied in prayer, meditation and self-examination” (Charlton, 216).
Religion in Recipes
It is doubtful that we would find such sermon notes and religious reflections within books for recipes and treatments. However, God is included within Baker’s recipe book multiple times, within recipes themselves, and is mentioned in regards to cures and treatments for illness’, not in recipes for food.
The idea of Providence ties in entirely to all mentions of God’s faith through healing, this was the belief that God foresaw all care and supervision over all beings and creatures of the Earth. (http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/153450?rskey=82rLTR&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid) Therefore, through God, life could begin, and could be taken – people could be awarded through health the same way they could be punished through infection and disease.
Written in ‘A medicine against ye plague, measells, smale pox, surfett & diverse other diseases’ Baker finishes the medicine by stating that ‘under God trust to this for there was never; man; woman; or child that this had ever decieved’.
Top - ' A Medisine Against the plague, measells, smale pox; surfett & diverse other diseases' (f. 81.) Bottom - (r.82.) Baker regarding God within her recipe.
In the seventeenth-century, the Plague was believed to be a punishment from God to all immoral people who had sinned, and that only the most pious and most dedicated could avoid His wrath.
Keith Thomas underlines that Protestants in the seventeenth-century, ‘instead of relying on supernatural aid’ believed that by remaining ‘faithul’ the ‘hardships of their life would be made tolerable by the blessings of the next’ (Thomas, 90). It is obvious that Baker believed that ‘Under God’ one could be healed and restored from their illness, or could stay punished, and remain a victim of their moral condition (Thomas, 97) – but with God’s trust, it would succeed. He was the only one to decide the fate of the medicine and the ill, and it is clear that Protestant women, like Baker, understood that without God’s support, the result would not be promising.
Pamphlet asking for God's mercy in regards to the Great Plague.
Healing in the Bible
It is understandable as to why God is so widely mentioned in a book that involved healing and eating, as the importance placed on healing, and especially in this case: herbal remedies, was noted in Revelation 22.2.
‘Through the middle of the street in the city; also, on the other side of the river, the tree of life with its 12 kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations” (Revelation 22.2)
The Bible is stating that God has put solutions for all difference ills and diseases within nature itself, and if one looks hard enough, they will find them. Baker uses a number of herbal remedies to cure different illnesses or problems, and obviously this significance of natural ingredients was understood.
Not only this, but the Bible produces a small link between both food, and healing. The tree with its '12 kinds of fruit' was not only utilised as an ingredient for food, but an ingredient for medicine, and they therefore went hand in hand. The book compiled a combination of both recipes for food, to recipes for medicine and treatments. Not only did the book underline such detailed descriptions and instructions, it reflected the same importance placed on both food and medicine that the Bible did. The Bible was its own type of recipe book, laying the foundations, as well as teaching and instructing people how to life their lives, from The 10 Commandments, to the Story of Adam and Eve.
God the Father by Cima da Conegliano, c. 1515.
Moses with the Ten Commandments by Philippe de Champaigne.
By Florence Hearn.
Bibliography
Baker, Margaret. Receipt Book of Margaret Baker, ca. 1675, MS V.a.619. Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington, D.C.
Boorde, Andrew, The Brevarie of Helth, (1578).
Charlton, Kenneth, Women, Religion and Education in Early Modern England, (London, 2014)
Couchman, Jane, The Ashgate Research Companion to Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe, (Farnham, 2014).
Crawford, Patricia, Women and Religion in England 1500-1720, (London, 2005).
http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/153450?rskey=82rLTR&result=1&isAdvanced=false#eid
Koenig, Harold, Handbook of Religion and Mental Health, (Amsterdam, 2007).
Ryrie, Alec, Being Protestant in Reformation Britain, (Oxford, 2015).
Schecher, Sara Comets, Popular Culture and the Birth of Modern Cosmology, (Princeton, 1999).
Sherman, William, Used Books: Marking Readers in Renaissance England, (Philadelphia, 2010).
Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic, (London, 2012).
Wear, Andrew, Knowledge and Practice in English Medicine, 1550-1680, (Cambridge, 2000).