Christopher Hill; The World Turned Upside Down; Radical ideas during the English revolution

Interesting how often the phrase ‘the world turned upside down’ appears in a range of contemporary writings…

I did skip some chapters – the Ranters for example, a series of mini-biographies of contemporary eminent/notorious figures, difficult to differentiate and who are now completely forgotten – although aspects of their beliefs, like all those examined here, have more than survived and flourished. I think this would have been better as a separate paper on them and with some sort of conclusion/overview about them as a group of individuals.

Interesting, although not perhaps THAT surprising, to be aware of how many very ordinary people had/found their voice and are remembered – at least in history of this sort of radical movement. Unsurprising of course, as the movements and beliefs were of the ‘ordinary people’, not the wealthy and powerful whose voices are usually the only ones that we hear. There was a particularly fascinating chapter (14) on democratization of learning – schools (some suggested free) and universities for all – and get the hold of the established church from those places. Truly revolutionary times.

It was also fascinating to read how the development of the protestant work ethic connected with the radical ideas, [particularly of the freedom from the intellectual and social influences of the powerful church hierarchy - and yet as it developed it replaced, to a degree I felt, what the radicals had wanted to get rid of. I could also, I think, see some connections between it and the prosperity gospel as practiced by the sleazy manipulative moneymakers of the USA megachurches – but I think this is a possibly larger topic that needs much more careful thought and investigation.

And the conclusion was excellent; Hill managed to have an overview of all that he had covered and then tie it in to the world as it was going to be, and is still now. On P.284 the importance and influence on the idea of truth being discernible through direct, often personal, experience connected for me to later developments in philosophy with Descartian rationality. And I never realized that Culpeper’s Herbal was translated as a part of the ‘turning the world upside down’ so that people could treat themselves and not have to rely on a self-appointed elite.

But in some areas there has not been as much change; the comment on P.289 that ‘conviction of sin has to take more sophisticated forms today than ‘the Bible’ says so’’. Well, not with the crazed fundamentalists of the USA and elsewhere…