The web of friendship
Subtitle: Nicholas Ferrar and Little Gidding
By: Joyce Ransome
Publisher: James Clarke & Co.
Published: 2011
Place of publication: Cambridge [Eng.]
Language: eng
Number of pages: 291
ISBN-13: 9780227173480
Subjects: Church of England; Little Gidding (Christian community); Biography; Clergy
Other titles: Nicholas Ferrar and Little Gidding
Description: "The biography of Nicholas Ferrar (1593-1637) is the story of a man whose ministry to his family turned a worldly misfortune into a spiritual opportunity. When financial crises struck the family in 1624, he persuaded them to abandon London for their newly acquired property at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, there to embrace a distinctive pattern of piety that made them an example of community to their own and future generations. As he succeeded in transforming his merchant family into a religious and educational community, Ferrar hoped their example would become a 'Light upon a Hill' to inspire his contemporaries. While that hope was at best only partially fulfilled in his lifetime, those who had known him at Little Gidding preserved accounts of his and the family's life that offered later generations an example of community to follow or adapt. For some that example took the form of voluntary religious societies and helped to make such groups acceptable within a Church of England that was changing from a national to an established but essentially voluntary institution. For its fresh prospective [i.e. perspective] on the unique Little Gidding that Ferrar created, this book will appeal to both an academic and general audience of readers interested in early modern history, church history, English literature, theology, family history (historical sociology) and gender studies"--Publisher's description, back cover.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [261]-285) and index.
Table of contents: title: Formative years : 'the time of his ingathering'; title: The new household at Little Gidding : 'united not only in cohabitation but in hartes'; title: Enlarging the community : the 'web of friendship'; title: Voluntarism and the wider mission : 'a light upon a hill could not be hid'; title: Temperance and tensions : "frayltie & fears'; title: Harmonies royal : 'rarities in their kind'; title: Nicholas posthumous.