Viscountess Ranelagh and the Authorisation of Women’s Knowledge in the Hartlib Circle

Abstract

In late 1658, the Hartlib circle was in crisis. Two of their figureheads were aging and ill and their financial as well as political patrons were struggling to assist them. Its long-held ideal of European Protestant unity was imploding on the battlefields of Northern Europe and panicky members were still considering plans to support a military attack on the Vatican.1 In a moment in which he despaired for the future of Protestantism, an emotion heightened by news of Oliver Cromwell’s death, Peter Figulus, a senior figure amongst the circle at Amsterdam, translated and circulated amongst his correspondents a series of letters from another member, Lady Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh, which had been sent to him by the circle’s principal secretary and founder Samuel Hartlib.2 These letters, composed eighteen months earlier, perhaps directly to Hartlib, would see her hailed by her European readers as a ‘sybila’ whose powerful and erudite arguments could justify the network’s principles and renew their ambitions.3KeywordsSpiritual CallingFemale MemberChristian CommunionProtestant ChurchReligious MatterThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.