I thought this was going to be a two part thing, but when I got to 3000 words without even mentioning the Conformatorium, I knew it would be three. Part 2 is going to focus on Puritan-specific theology. Part 3 will be Puritanism in practice.
Puritanism in the Boiling Isles Part 2: The Origins of Puritanism and Puritan Theology, and its Impacts
Part 1, which discusses Calvinism, the theological framework that forms the basis of Puritanism, can be found HERE:
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A Brief History of Puritanism
Mary’s reign would, like her brother’s, last 5 years. When her sister, Elizabeth became queen, most of the Marian exiles would return to England, bringing Calvinism with them, becoming, by and large, the original Puritans. Before we get into that, we do need to get into one important thing that many Reformers got up to while with Calvin in Geneva.
An English Bible Translation for the Masses
Much of what the Puritans valued was in opposition to that of the Catholic Church. One major point of contention was the perceived gatekeeping of the Bible. They wanted the Bible to be read by everyone, which meant translations into the vernacular. An early reformer, William Tyndale, had translated and printed large chunks of the Bible into English, but it was never completed. Henry VIII had, during his lifetime, commissioned an English language version, but it was very much intended for church use only. It was large, and it was expensive. An update of that Bible commissioned by Elizabeth was not much better.
While in exile, a team of scholars undertook to create their own translation, relying heavily on Tyndale’s original translations. It would become known as the Geneva Bible, owing to its origins. Compared to the translations authorized by the English monarchs, the Geneva Bible was far cheaper to print. It remained by far the most popular edition for English laypeople until well into the seventeenth century until the King James Version finally overtook it, after the Puritan migration to New England had tapered off. The Geneva Bible would still be the preferred translation in New England long afterward, and this is the version that Caleb and Phillip would have been familiar with.
A Meandering Trip to Scotland, because Misogyny
In the introduction, I said most Marian exiles returned to England. That qualification is because there was one particularly spectacular a-hole that Elizabeth refused to allow into the country, a well-known author who lived in Scotland, one who alienated a bunch of former allies by publishing a deeply bigoted screed, one who would ultimately double down and exercise their considerable influence on the Scottish Parliament, one with the initials “J. K.” I am, of course, talking about John Knox.
John Knox was a Scottish minister and theologian who had been captured by the French after fleeing Scotland, then exiled to England prior to Mary’s reign. Like many reformers, he would flee to Central Europe and meet John Calvin, who would influence his own theology. While in Geneva, he would publish his best known pamphlet, in which he would attempt to make a theological argument against the sort of monarchs responsible for his frequent banishment: Women.
You see, Mary of Guise, acting as regent for her daughter, Mary, Queen of Scots, was responsible for his arrest by the French. After some time in the French Galleys, he was exiled to England, until Mary Tudor forced him into exile from England! A logical person would see that the cause of his banishment was the Catholic vs. Protestant tit-for-tat. But no. The problem is women.
The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women is a steaming pile of misogynistic dung. The best thing about that pamphlet is that it provides the name for possibly my favourite Discworld novel, Monstrous Regiment (GNU Sir Pterry). Knox appeared to have sensed that his pamphlet was utter drivel, because he had it published in secret, initially anonymously, without the prior knowledge of his friends, including Calvin. Their general reaction was “dude, this is a little much.” Again, these were his friends.
Knox’s pamphlet was ridiculously short-sighted. One of the Catholic queens he was railing against was at an age where the odds of her successfully producing a Catholic heir were miniscule. Her presumed heir was Protestant! Her heir was…also a woman.
Elizabeth was royally pissed, and, from all accounts, she never forgave him for the offense. Knox was not allowed to return to England. He decided to return to Scotland, but the quickest and safest way to get there was through England. Elizabeth refused to even grant him a passport. Poor boy had to take the long way around.
I bring up Knox not just because I find Elizabeth’s understandable anger at him hilarious. And not just because of the Discworld plug, either. Knox got up to a lot of politics when back in Scotland. He would lead a revolution that would ultimately see Mary of Guise deposed. When she died suddenly, the road was wide open for the Scottish parliament to establish a new, Protestant, Church of Scotland.
One problem: Mary of Guise had been acting as regent for her daughter, who at that point was in France. The year following her mother’s deposition and death, Mary, Queen of Scots, would return to Scotland. Knox was the leader of a fairly popular revolution however, and he would use the intimidation of the masses to install himself as an advisor close to the queen. He did not last long in this position, but he did have the political acumen to avoid getting charged with treason.
Shortly thereafter, at the youthful age of 50, he would marry the 17 year old daughter of a friend. Even in the 16th century, eyebrows were raised.
Knox would not be deeply involved in politics after this point, although he did preach a number of very influential sermons and write a book on the Reformation in Scotland. Queen Mary gave birth to a son, James, in 1566. Not long after he reached a year, at which he was considered to have survived infancy, the Protestant nobility around Mary had her deposed and exiled to England. A Protestant regency for King James VI would be established. Knox would preach at the young king’s coronation.
Folks in England Start Getting Ideas
Knox would die in 1572, but his legacy was profound. While the ultimate origin of Puritanism was the return of the Marian exiles, those same people in England would see Knox’s reformation in Scotland and decide that was their goal. Knox’s writings would prove deeply influential on the reformers in England. It was somewhere around this point when the word “Puritan” started appearing in print in conjunction with the group.
It was an insult. Turns out, “Puritan” back then meant the exact same as it does now. The actual Puritans preferred to use words such as “the saints,” or “the elect” (all those Calvinist words earlier). Shakespeare used the word in that context, which, considering the Puritans wanted to get rid of theatre altogether, seems like a fairly mild offense.
Elizabeth would appoint bishops that were, on the whole, Calvinist, but this was not good enough for the Puritans. Elizabeth was almost certainly wary of them, but she was wary of everyone. While she had excellent reasons to eschew marriage altogether that are not at all relevant to this discussion, the experience of her cousin in Scotland indicated that even declaring her heir publicly might empower her enemies to depose her. Negotiations with potential heirs were conducted through coded letters. Had the Puritans known that King James VI of Scotland had become her preferred choice, they likely would have been chomping at the bit to see him on the English throne. He had been raised Scottish Presbyterian, after all, by those of John Knox’s ilk.
James Thinks the CofE (& Witch Hunting) is Pretty Cool
The Puritans were destined for disappointment. They weren’t the only ones. James was king of playing the middle of the field, and I am not just talking about his rumoured bisexuality. Puritans saw his Calvinist upbringing and saw an opportunity to purge the Church of England of its remnants of Catholicism. Catholics saw someone who took a genuine interest in other religious practices and saw an opportunity for more religious tolerance. If you remember the 5th of November (the gunpowder treason and plot), it was YET ANOTHER act of violence in the ongoing Catholic v. Protestant back-and-forth sweeping across Europe at the time. That time, English Catholics were the perpetrators, disappointed that James had not loosened anti-Catholic restrictions as they expected.
James became king in England, and he thought the Church of England, as it was under Elizabeth, was pretty awesome, actually. His reign in Scotland had been characterized by constantly butting heads with the Kirk, the church structure. James saw the Church of England as the natural middle ground between Protestant and Catholic, to the extent that he got it into his head that he would be the one to solve the 30-years-war that was being waged across the European continent. He would arrange marriages for his children (or attempt, in the case of his son Charles) with the goal of encouraging peace on the continent. It didn’t work, because of course it didn’t.
Before you decide James sounded okay, if painfully naive at times, one his monikers is “the witch hunter king.” One of the reasons for the witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is because Scotland had been associated with witches as a result of James’ witch hunts prior to his reign in England. He wrote the Daemonologie, one of the major witch hunting texts. James also did a lot of stake burnings, although in many (most?) cases that was a means of dealing with the body after they were hung.
The first group of Puritans, the “Pilgrims” of first Thanksgiving fame, would settle in Massachusetts during James’ reign, fed up that they were not allowed to tell other people what to do.
Charles Throws a Temper Tantrum
James’ son, Charles I, was a Divine Right of Kings guy. To be fair, so was James—he literally wrote a book on the subject—but James was much more cognizant of the practical limitations of claiming “God put me here, you have to do what I say.” The way his grandmother and mother were both deposed likely left some impression. Charles did not learn that lesson, or if he did, it wasn’t until his neck was on the block.
As mentioned before, James had previously attempted to arrange a marriage for Charles, to the Infanta of Spain. The idea of Charles marrying a Catholic was about as popular as the plague, and the Puritan faction of Parliament and the clergy strongly objected. The lesson Charles learned from this was “don’t give Parliament a chance to object.”
Almost the first thing Charles did upon the death of his father was marry 15-year-old Henrietta Maria of France. Yes, she was Catholic. He was 25. He consummated the marriage before he called his first Parliament. This is noteworthy because, contrary to what pop culture would have you believe, royal marriages did not always consummate right away, at least not that young. Royals would be married, sometimes by proxy, in order to secure alliances, but consummation would wait until the woman was considered old enough to safely carry a potential heir to term. Fifteen was borderline.
Unsurprisingly, Parliament did not take well to this. So Charles stopped calling Parliament. The first waves of the Puritan “Great Migration” were largely a response to this act.
The Calvinist bishops in the Church of England also disapproved of Charles’ marriage. So Charles appointed bishops ascribing to a more Arminian theology (broadly speaking, anti-Calvinist).
The bulk of the Puritan Migration was in response to this, specifically the appointment of William Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury. The aspect of the Puritan mythos claiming to have been fleeing persecution did not come out of nowhere. Laud was a big fan of torture for non-conforming bishops, and, if you couldn’t tell, Charles did not opposition in a particularly mature manner.
Puritan Theology and its Evidence in The Owl House
The Puritanism Belos grew up in arose out of all of this. 70 years passed between the return of the Marian Exiles and the first wave of the Great Migration. That time allowed it to take more shape, to develop into the form that would characterize the communities in New England. The ability to get the Bible into more hands would shape Puritan thinking. Ministers seeing their teachings in practice in their congregations see questions arise from that experience, and they would determine answers. Most importantly, between John Knox’s success in Scotland and Charles I’s general incompetence, gaining wider control started becoming central to how they thought about things.
Similar to Part 1, I will explain these theological developments partly by how they can be seen in The Owl House.
Trinitarianism and Belos’ Personal Imagery
This theological point is probably the least relevant to the Owl House, but I did want to mention it for the sake of thoroughness. I’m mentioning this first to get it out of the way.
The idea of the Trinity is the idea of God as three-in-one: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ), and God the Holy Spirit. That specifically does not come up in the show at all, although I do find it interesting how much Belos incorporates triangles in his personal imagery. The magic of the Boiling Isles is based on circles; Belos forces a triangle onto it.
If you think that’s a stretch, you should see my notes on how a structural load path could be used as a giant magic circle. The danger of the “calculus is arcane knowledge” trope, one clearly evoked in Phillip’s diary, is that sometimes the weird math and physics nerds will try to make it make sense.
But back on triangles, there is a possible read on Belos’ triangle imagery in conjunction with how he presents himself in relation to the Titan, but more on that later.
Biblical Societal Roles: A Possible Inspiration for the Coven System
A stopped clock is right twice a day. There was one thing that the Puritans unequivocally got right: they strove for universal literacy. That in and of itself doesn’t directly connect into the Owl House, other than explaining why Phillip is able to read and write in the first place. Given the brothers’ implied lack of wealth, at that time in history, they would have likely been illiterate literally anywhere else.
While the Puritan emphasis on literacy was a good thing, the primary goal was so that everyone could read the Bible. In and of itself, that is not bad either. It is a good thing for all worshippers to have access to their holy texts. However, the Puritan idea of what would result from Biblical literacy was naive at best.
Christians, in general, do not know how to disagree with each other. This is not a Puritan thing. That is just history. There are so many different sects of Christianity when compared to any other religion because whenever anybody disagrees with somebody, they start a new denomination. In the early modern period, those splits accompanied times of great violence, as that disagreement was seen as heresy, a capital offense (so many stake burnings).
The Puritans had some weird idea in their head that if everyone could read the Bible, then everybody would come to the same conclusion and everyone would get along. Well, if all of “the saints” could read the Bible anyway. That two different people could read the same exact thing and come to different conclusions did not seem to occur to them. One major purpose of religion, throughout history, is to provide answers to difficult questions. Puritans thought that, by following the Bible, they could have their perfect little utopian community.
The Puritans saw order, as defined in the Bible, as the way to achieve societal perfection. It therefore became critical for everyone to stay in their assigned roles. While Puritans were remarkably egalitarian when it came to literacy, it was important for everyone to stay in their place. Mixing of men and women’s activities could lead to adultery. While Puritans did eschew sartorial excess, there was still an expectation that those of lower class would not dress above their station.
And here is where we get into the Boiling Isles. I often see discussion on exactly how much of the draining spell that the Collector was responsible for. My headcanon is that the Collector was responsible for the mechanics, Belos was responsible for the implementation. The “pretty colours go boom” feels like the sort of twisted kid chaos that characterizes the Collector. The Coven System, on the other hand, is extremely Puritan. Or proto-fascist as the case may be. Same diff.
The coven system is the exact sort of thing I could see coming out of the mind of a person who had been raised to believe that keeping to your assigned role was the key to societal perfection.
Belos may have a number of issues that affect his critical thinking, but he’s not, generally-speaking, stupid. He has difficulty applying that critical thinking towards himself and his own actions. He’s perfectly capable of applying it toward other people.
He needs to figure out how to control the populace to convince them to brand themselves. What exactly are these brands, and how would he sell it? The sigils are a way of assigning a role, something Puritans ascribed to. What did his people say was the benefit of keeping to your role?
Of course, he isn’t among his fellow saints. These hellspawn aren’t going to care about God’s proper order of things; it isn’t worth his time to try. How to convince the people to choose order over chaos? Seeing the general reverence for the Titan, even if only as a form of respect for the land you live on, and the way witches and demons use magic, perhaps he can utilize that as an angle.
The way Belos presents the coven system maps fairly cleanly onto Puritan thinking. The Titan wants you to live your life in accordance with his order, and that means accepting the “purification” of your magic, accepting a set role. The “talked to the Titan” less so—that sounds more like Quakerism—but Belos doesn’t have a Bible equivalent he can refer to. If he doesn’t have any prophets to reference, he’d have to create his own.
The sigils themselves don’t have a Puritan analog as much, but it is easy to extrapolate from other signifiers of devotion that Belos would likely have been aware of. My personal headcanon is that the idea behind the sigils is a hybrid of the Mark of the Beast and the idea of a “witch’s mark,” one of the things that 17th century witch hunters would look for. That seems like the sort of sick sense of humour expected from a guy who would name at least one clone of his reformed witch-hunting brother he murdered “Hunter.”
The sigils do tie back to the Calvinistic idea of “the Perseverance of the Saints.” There’s no take-backs, however, unlike the vague status of election by God, the sigils actually enforce it.
Sanctification and the “Protestant Work Ethic” As Seen in The Emperor’s Coven
Talk to almost anyone steeped in Calvinist theology, and one of the questions that often arises is that of grace versus works. The core of the debate is this: there is nothing you can do to affect your own salvation; it is entirely the grace of God. God’s grace covers all sins. You also believe that, apart from God, people are infinitely depraved. The issue is, that combination isn’t exactly conducive to a functioning society. When you tell everybody they are no more than their base impulses, but hey, God’s grace covers all the worst of it, some people are going to be more likely to give into their worst impulses.
The Puritan answer to this was a concept called sanctification. Salvation is from God alone, but once you are saved, Christ will work within you to sanctify your soul. When you are saved, you should be doing good works automatically. The extension of this is that you can tell other people are saved by their good works. It circles back to legalism very quickly, where your faith in your salvation is based on your good works (because everyone around you sees your good works).
Ask two different Puritan ministers their opinion on where the line is, and you will get two different answers. One of the first big challenges the Puritans in Massachusetts faced as a community ultimately came down to that dispute. The Antinomian Crisis was an indicator of how the Puritans would handle disagreement in their ranks. The Puritan hegemony ultimately came down on the side of fascistic enforcement of sanctification.
What a hardcore focus on sanctification looks like, practically speaking, is a little thing sometimes referred to as the “Protestant Work Ethic.” “Protestant Work Ethic” is a fancy way of saying “push yourself to the edge of burnout.” Because anything fun is associated with depravity, given the fundamental nature of humanity, you shouldn’t want to do that. You should want to be contributing to society. Given that Puritan communities had a fairly large merchant class, this did, by implication, mean economically. American capitalism had its roots in Puritan New England.
Oh, also, you should be happy about it. You should be happy, because God is working within you so you don’t need to relax or have fun!
It’s this work ethic that is most evident in the Owl House, in particular the Emperor’s Coven. That also makes sense. The members of the Emperor’s Coven are Belos’ special select witches. They are held to higher standards. Conveniently, those same higher standards tend to leave them too overworked to question their actions. “Any Sport in a Storm” definitely hit me right in the painful memories, which is probably not the episode most people would list as one of their most personally triggering.
“Teens are probably into the same things as me. Like authority and rules!” Oh Hunter, baby, that’s the lack of free time talking. Hunter’s undereye circles make the results of that “work ethic” crystal clear. I would like to remind you that Hunter is a kid. Hunter did not understand how to have fun if it wasn’t part of some grand mission.
I suppose it should also come as no surprise that Puritan children were rarely afforded the opportunity to play.
Millennialism: Belos’ Theological Justification for the Day of Unity
There are interesting parallels between the way that Belos presented the Day of Unity and Puritan eschatology (understanding of the apocalypse). Millennialism, in the Christian context, refers to a passage in the Bible that says that Satan will be bound away in chains for 1000 years prior to the Last Judgment. The point of discussion is determining where Christ’s second coming fits into that. The “Rapture” is one such approach, however, not relevant here. The rapture, as a concept, did not start to become popularized until the 1800s.
Puritans generally held a premillennialist point of view. Premillennialist means that Christ’s second coming immediately precedes the 1000 years of Satan being bound in chains. The lead-up to that is the “tribulation,” where the persecution of the faithful increases as Satan becomes more desperate.
Puritans started to popularize the idea of mass conversions being a sign of the second coming, including conversion of Jewish people. In that sense, there was a missionary aspect to Premillennialism. Tying back into the previous point, sanctification also played a role in Puritan eschatology. It was was considered a critical component of preparing oneself for Christ’s second coming. After the second coming, Christ would make the world a utopia in which he would reign on Earth amongst his faithful.
It’s not difficult to see Puritan Premillennialism in the way Belos presented the Day of Unity. Witches and demons joining covens, turning against “wild magic,” is clearly analogous to the mass conversion idea. Belos places an emphasis of preparation for the Day of Unity, connecting to that sanctification idea. It is important for those in covens to recruit more witches. In the vision he showed the Coven Heads in “Hunting Palisman,” you can see a connection to the idea of a kingdom on earth, one which Belos explicitly describes as a “utopia.”
To take an even darker perspective, it is possible to interpret Belos’ motivations as a delusional attempt to bring about the millennium himself. I mentioned much earlier in this part the idea of the Trinity, and finding it interesting in connection with Belos’ triangle imagery. One thing I have not explicitly mentioned at this point, but is hopefully evident, is that Belos positions himself in a role analogous to that of Christ a lot. He is the only one who can purify your magic. He is the one who is in communion with the Titan. Maybe his motivations did not start that way, but so long of presenting himself as such could have warped his thinking even more. It is possible that he actually saw himself as a Christ figure. The Day of Unity was his way of “locking away Satan,” at which point he would return to earth.
If the Earth he returned to was the same as the Earth he left, he absolutely would have been executed as a heretic, a crime even worse than witchcraft.
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Part 2, complete! Part 3 probably won’t be quite as long. Probably.
EDIT: It’s just as long. Oh well.
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