Abstract
Abstract This chapter considers the radical theology of the English Revolution, in its confrontation with speculative knowledge, as a symptom of a wider and deeply gendered epistemological shift which gave newly politicized meaning to mystical theology. I compare the cultural significance of female prophets and preachers in the Revolution (‘silly women’) to that of Catholic female mystics, sought after for their pure, untainted spiritual perception. I focus especially on Augustine Baker and his muse Gertrude More, whose mystical writings published in the 1650s influenced the Restoration reaction against both Catholic mysticism and ‘enthusiasm’ or radical prophecy. The second part of the chapter examines the relationship between the high, even ultimate, status given to experiential knowledge as revelation, and women’s status in the mystical radical milieu, not least among the Fifth Monarchists in the Dublin congregation of John Rogers.
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