Rhiannon Grant
I am the Tutor for Quaker Roles at Woodbrooke Quaker Study Centre. My research on Quaker uses of religious language was recently published as a book, Telling the Truth about God.
Location Birmingham
Activity
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
A lot of adornments for the body (or the home - holes or cords around the antlers could have been used to hang them around a tent or shelter made of poles) are about status. As well as whatever spiritual connection there is between a worked deer skull and other deer, there is the significance of owning/wearing one within the human community - is it an honour...
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
If you live closely with an animal, hunting and playing and eating together, I think it makes sense that you'd give it a burial (rather than eating it, for example), when it died. That probably counts as 'ritual', although for many cultures there isn't a sharp distinction between the ordinary and the religious. It's all What We Do.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
I was most interested in the evidence for using reeds. I'd assumed they would move fairly often, and so want light materials which could be carried to a new site (like a tent), but the reed roofing suggests a longer-term house.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
Could the rolls be a storage method? Like a ball of wool ready to knit into something, a roll of birch bark could be waiting to be used in a mat or similar.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
The wide, flat shale beads look more like they were designed for sewing onto clothing, while the 'celtiform' item does look like it would hang naturally as a pendent.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
Since flint tools seem to have been used in almost every part of mesolithic life, I think almost everyone would need some basic knapping skills, perhaps with more difficult jobs passed to the most skilled.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
It's not so much the individual finds but the fact that they are found together which interests me. It means we can start to build up a more rounded picture of what life would have been like at that time.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
Given how many things from Africa are now in British museums, I'm happy that something from Star Carr reached Ghana - but life would obviously be easier if those arrangements between museums were properly documented, and if the documents about all the finds had been kept. I guess all we can do now is make sure today's records are archived properly, with...
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
If Star Carr hadn't been found, is it possible that Clark would have searched other bog sites? He might have found something from another period, like Flag Fen, or perhaps there's another mesolithic site which hasn't yet been found because of the effort put into Star Carr.
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Rhiannon Grant made a comment
I've been interested an archaeology for as long as I can remember - I visited lots of stone circles with my parents and was a member of a Young Archaeologists Club for a bit - but I'm also a novelist writing stories set in prehistory. My first novel was set in Neolithic Orkney and I'm now working on a project set in the Mesolithic so this course should be very...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Chris Gregson
Glad you liked it, Chris! When you give your talk, please include the information above about further courses and let the U3A group know that we expect this course to run again next year. :)
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Andy Bourne
To hear from nontheist Quakers in their own words, you might like to explore this website: https://nontheist-quakers.org.uk/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Linda Burt
Yes - mostly, that Quakerism has spread very quickly in Kenya and other East African countries after arriving in 1902. A brief history can be found here: https://www.fwccafrica.org/about/history/
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It is passive - but the active player is God, so it's more like accepting that this is a gift rather than something in her control. She "desired the Lord that I might be kept in it", that is, wished for the Lord to keep her in this new state.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Christine Vass
We can see in the early period (and today!) that some people do take on leadership roles - whether through personality, circumstances, or (depending on your theology) being led by God to do so. Quakers tend to think about this in terms of 'many gifts, but the same Spirit', that is, everything comes from God and everyone can access Divine guidance, but not...
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Thomas Fell died in 1658, six years after the incident described here.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Tony Richards
Free will is a tricky one - Stuart Masters and I were discussing this recently, and our conclusion is that most early Friends believed we have a little bit more free will than none (because they don't accept full-on predestination, and talk about choosing to obey God), but not very much free will (because having chosen, they must obey God, and can't pick and...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Richard Welch
Quakers absolutely do have theology/theologies (my book on the subject is in preparation!). People do still sometimes experience a convincement which they see as similar to the first generation of Quakers. To explore Quaker theology a bit further, you could look for Geffeory Durham's 'What Do Quakers Believe?' and my 'Telling the Truth about God' in the Quaker...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Marion Woolnough
To answer the question about numbers, we would need to define time and place. Very roughly, in Britain Quakers have shrunk as a percentage of the population since the early high; the community got pretty small, bounced back a bit, and is now shrinking slightly but not as fast as other churches. In some other places, like Kenya, Quaker numbers are rising. For...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Tilda Maria Forselius
It's tricky! Perhaps this passage, which offers guidance to Quakers on handling diversity of ways of thinking in the context of decision-making meetings, might help you understand the attitudes required to make it work: https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/3-05/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to T R Harrington
It is difficult to understand, although two points might help. One is that both Buddhism and modern Quakerism often focus on practice rather than belief. The other is that some argue that Buddha only said 'don't speculate about the gods', and Quakers claim to have direct experience and therefore are not speculating.
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Yes, the Toleration was part of the 'Glorious Revolution' - read more about it here: https://www.britannica.com/event/Toleration-Act-Great-Britain-1689
I'm not sure about the link to the Huguenots, who had a great deal of royal support and may have been regarded as more or less conformist (they were, for example, granted space in Canterbury cathedral).
I... -
Unfortunately, we don't know! She could have told it or written drafts many times or hardly at all, and the historical evidence which survives doesn't prove that either way.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to C .
Fell had been attending the ordinary church but also in the habit of welcoming other religious teachers to her home; for whatever reason, she was already unhappy with the religious teaching she'd heard before and looking for something new at the time she meets Fox.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ian Campbell
Heckling, or at least speaking, in a church service was also acceptable at the time - Quakers and other groups widely took advantage of their right to speak in church, but it wouldn't have felt as dramatically disruptive as it does today.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Chrissie Pax
Yes and no... the husband would have been expected to be in charge, at least of big decisions, but reality was more complex. Thomas Fell was often away, and in any case the woman was often head of the actual household: she handled money, instructed servants, etc. Running a large household of this period requires roughly the same skill set as running a small...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jan Cantle
Then as now, thieves need people to make a living from, and uninhabited areas can be safer than cities. The famous highwaymen come a bit later than this period, with Dick Turpin born in 1705.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jan Cantle
By leading or preaching, usually! Or, in their own accounts, because they have been called by God to those roles.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maria A
She was arrested "for failing to take an oath and for allowing Quaker Meetings to be held in her home". You can find a bit more about it in this short biography: http://www.quakersintheworld.org/quakers-in-action/14/Margaret-Fell
(or much more in one of several books which have been written about her). -
Rhiannon Grant replied to Erika KS
Something like this happened at least twice. There were the children of Reading meeting, who you can read about here in a fictionalised version: https://westernfriend.org/media/childrens-meeting-1663
And a meeting in Bristol, which you can read about here in an extract from an original text: https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/19-35/ -
Rhiannon Grant replied to Pamela B
Yes... ish. Quaker women formed separate women's decision-making meetings, which could be powerful (could say yes or no to a marriage, for example), but didn't always get to consider the full range of questions open to the men's meeting.
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They were mostly able to work in ordinary jobs, especially making and selling things - which did lead to some Quakers, excluded from universities, focussing on business. However, I have also heard it said that we shouldn't be surprised Quakers made money during the industrial revolution because practically everyone in that time and place made money! Quakers...
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There are Quakers today who would agree with you on this - especially gathered in the Quaker Universalist Group in the UK (https://qug.org.uk/) and the Quaker Universalist Fellowship in the US (https://universalistfriends.org/). Some Quakers might not be comfortable with the Masonic associations of 'Great Architect' language (especially if they have rejected a...
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Yes, that's a very plausible reading.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Dennis Orgill
The Wikipedia article on Thomas Fell fills in extra information about him: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Fell
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Irene Double
I think he's not opposed to the act of preaching so much as being wrong or getting your content in the wrong way. In particular, he's opposed to people preaching from human stuff, their own ideas or what someone else told them, rather than preaching what God tells them to say on that occasion (of course, he counts himself as always inspired by God directly).
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Yes - I don't think he planned this route at all in the sense of mapping it out in advance. (He might have said that God planned the route and he followed.) Instead, he had a sense that there were helpful people somewhere over this way, and was exploring to find them.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Sue Hayes
I think the contacts would have been important - at each place he might meet people who give invitations or recommendations about where to go next.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Simon Dell
Yes - but 'almost' is an important word! There's a fine but sometimes blurred line between claiming to be Christ-like, or acting on behalf of Christ, or doing what Christ would do, and claiming to be Christ, and early Quakers sometimes got into trouble for crossing that line or getting too close to it.
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She wrote a lot before this - including letters to Quaker ministers, letters to the King and other public figures, and pamphlets putting the Quaker cause. It's more that Fox's death prompted her to write about him. (This ebook edition of Fox's journal contains Margaret Fox's Testimony in full, near the beginning, if you want to read the whole text for...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Isobel Birch
Although British colonialism had a huge impact on East Africa, the Quaker connection runs via the US, with Quakerism brought to Kenya by student pastors from Ohio. https://www.fwccafrica.org/about/history/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Michael Bath
Thanks for your feedback, Michael - we are very aware that we can only cover a little bit in a three week course. Barbara's link to the Quakers in Britain site might be useful. You could also look at what is offered by the Friends Historical Society, who have similar interests to yours: http://www.f-h-s.org.uk/
Woodbrooke also offers other courses on Quaker...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Diana Pearce-Dyke
Women continue to play a pivotal role in modern Quakerism. Most Quakers at least in Britain today send their children to state schools; separate schools founded by Quakers historically still exist but are private, not state funded, and the vast majority of their students and staff are non-Quaker.
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I'm not sure where you got that from, Anne - singing was part of church services throughout the period (and is mentioned in Fox's accounts of this day, as well, for any independent value that adds!). Puritans favoured Psalms but also sang other hymns: https://calvinistinternational.com/2017/05/31/17th-century-exclusive-psalmody-hymnody/
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This is a great question! As well as the possibility of memories and interpretations differing, it's certainly possible that Fell's choice of words is influenced by the present situation (and by looking back on her early encounters with the man she eventually married and is now grieving).
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maria A
It was a private home, but a large household, and servants would have had instructions to greet visitors. I think at the time, when things couldn't be arranged in advance by telephone, there would be much more giving of hospitality and more acceptance that guests stayed until the hosts were ready for them.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to John Page
No, Fox didn't take control of the Fell estate - although it would have been expected at the time, he assured her children that he was not interested, left it in her hands, and indeed didn't live there for long as he was busy travelling/preaching/being in prison.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Barbara Cooper
I think this language implies that God was telling him not to eat with them.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maria A
The penultimate paragraph gives us more about Fox's own views - "God was come to teach His people by His Spirit" (that is, direct inward teaching as discussed last week), "to bring them off from all their old ways, religions, churches, and worships; for all their religions, worships, and ways were but talking with other men’s words" (planned worship and...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Linda C
I think the filth referred to is deception. In Fox's opinion, Lampitt is misleading people (with his 'high notions and perfection', he is 'under death', i.e. not yet saved by the true Christ), and not telling them the truth about religion (which we hear about towards the end of the passage: 'God was come to teach His people by His Spirit'). Given that...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maureen W
@CarolHalesCollins Quakers don't have any food rules, so requirements for a shared meal would come down to individuals. If you are catering for a large group of Quakers, perhaps expect more vegetarians/vegans than in the general population, but don't assume they will all be veggie; while most meeting houses ban alcohol, many Quakers will drink some alcohol at...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Gerry Y
Good question! Quietism certainly doesn't mean nothing was happening - there are still Quakers traveling, writing, teaching, etc. throughout the eighteenth century. Arguably, that's a period which has been relatively ignored because it's not as dramatic as the events of the seventeenth century.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maureen W
Also, Fox's message was different, but his methods weren't - speaking during church services, preaching in town centres and to gatherings, visiting and debating in army camps, and publishing pamphlets were all methods being used by lots of competing groups at the time. Sometimes Quakers got lumped in with other groups, too, accused of being Ranters or that...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Gé O.
No, it's not Quaker - it was added by the film maker.
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Good question - depends which Buddhists and which Quakers! Some modern unprogrammed Quakers certainly find they have much in common with some Buddhists, especially with Zen and Engaged Buddhism like that of the Community of Interbeing. Other forms of Buddhism can have less in common with Quakerism (rich imagery and emphasis on reincarnation cosmology, among...
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Thanks for reporting your experiment, Terence. It's a good reminder that the processes of remembering and recording are more complex than we sometimes imagine.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maureen W
Interesting reflections, Maureen. A while ago I wrote on my personal blog (i.e. writing as a Quaker, not as a course tutor) some ideas about what might happen if 'early Quakerism' happened again today: https://brigidfoxandbuddha.wordpress.com/2017/12/08/oceanofdarkness-early-friends-today/
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Yes, that's the usual way around, inward light confirmed in scripture - although of course these are people who had probably known the Bible in detail since childhood, so it's possible their inner experiences are shaped by that knowledge.
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Exactly - these comparisons occur throughout early Quaker writing.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Mike Chaney
As a tutor on this course, I'd like to say that I'm just as happy with this response as anyone else's! Howgill's experience is very far removed from yours, and it's right to note that. He wrote with the intention of convincing others (among other purposes), but in running a historical course we don't share that aim.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ian Campbell
The 1652 eclipse was predicted, but understandings of 'natural phenomena' were different at the time. Here's a useful blog post from a library with examples of the way the eclipse was discussed in terms of astrology: https://collation.folger.edu/2017/08/black-monday-great-solar-eclipse-1652/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to James Michael Reilly
... and yet many early Quakers felt very deeply that they were in the wrong, and struggled to change the habits of a lifetime to obey what they felt they were being told inwardly.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ian Campbell
I don't think anyone has explored this, but I can think of evidence one might use to construct the argument: read the poor handwriting as a form of dyspraxia rather than a form of dyslexia, look at the way he wants language and behaviour to be logical and follow clear yet unconventional rules (his comments on using 'thee' for one person as well as the...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Marion Woolnough
There was indeed some difference, but the early Quakers also took steps - meeting up regularly, exchanging lots of letters, and a meeting which reviewed/censored publications - to make sure that they were all sharing the same general ideas.
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True! A time when faith and ideas about God and salvation were commonly discussed and sometimes changing quickly.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Steve Olshewsky
Yes, Fox is generally universalist about salvation (not to be confused with universalism about truth although some early Quaker texts move in that direction).
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Pat U
Yes, the biblical references would have been familiar.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Phyllis Wynne
I agree, Lucy - the Quaker meetings I know welcome enquirers, including people (say, students doing research projects) who are clearly there just to learn. They might not find your questions easy to answer but they are unlikely to be offending by you asking if you genuinely want to know.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Tracey M
Another aspect of the geography of travel is established routes - so the Caribbean because British ships were already going there as part of the slavery and sugar trading system (a system Quakers would later come to question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quakers_in_the_abolition_movement ).
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jane Hale
Yes! So many printed materials. You can get an idea from this page which provides lists of all the items known to have been written by Quakers in the early years: http://www.qhpress.org/rmoore/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maria A
Soon after - formal statements of pacifism date from 1660, when Quakers wrote to Charles II to reassure him that they weren't plotting violent actions. https://qfp.quaker.org.uk/passage/24-04/
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ruth Saunders
Yes, the story goes that it was a nickname derived from being mocked for their shaking and trembling before God.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Hazel Lintott
'Reasoning' can have several meanings, including arguing or persuading. Howgill could be saying that they are going to base their religious beliefs on their experience, not on the arguments of others - rather than rejecting rationality. Early Quakers did reject creeds and some kinds of religious rules, where they saw that these weren't based on experience.
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Yes - they expected to find the things God said to them directly echoed and supported in the Biblical text.
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Yes, I think early Quakers thought that God could speak directly to everyone (but that a lot of people weren't listening). At least some modern Quakers are interested in Islam specifically, or practice both Islam and Quakerism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppjCv5g3ThE
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Diana Pearce-Dyke
They talked to each other and sought answers together, one of the core activities of a Quaker community.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Janette McCain
Yes, both of those! Plus: we've found the truth and everyone will be better off knowing it. And a bit of: lots of other groups are out there preaching and gathering people, we should have a go too.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Judi Boutle
We'll get to funding, but I think there was a mix of support from other Quakers and hospitality from the communities they traveled to/through. Perhaps this was just kindness, and perhaps it was seen as a trade: bed and board in exchange for the entertainment value of the preaching.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Michael Hughey
Quaker practice has changed.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to John Plimsoll
One of Margaret Fell's roles, as we'll see next week, was to set up financial systems so travelling ministers (and the families they left behind) could be supported.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to John Cope
I think they benefit from the passing of time - great way to put it! Fox did have a good memory, at least for some things (e.g. Biblical passages), but we have two versions of the Journal which aren't identical. And no evidence he kept notes, although there are lots of earlier letters.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Barbara Cooper
This is a rural area, with steep hills and river valleys coming down to an estuary where it is possible - but dangerous - to walk across the sands at low tide. At the time Fox walked through, there would have been connections between towns for trading and so on, but also a sense of being far away from the authorities in London. You might also like to Google...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ruth Barron
Yes, the Friends Ambulance Unit allowed Quakers and other COs to serve in non-combatant roles. That commitment to the rejection of war is still taking shape in this early period - we'll see that many people who became Quakers had been involved in fighting during the Civil War - and was never universal. With every war individual Quakers test their leadings;...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jan Cantle
I'm not sure Fox had anything against the Bible - he's said to have known it by heart. He thought that people were reading it just as a text, assuming its truth, and not experiencing the Spirit of God for themselves.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Maria A
It is difficult! Even many native speakers find 17th century English hard work. If you're interested, you're welcome to ask about specific phrases here, or you may like to look at one of the translations into modern English (like Rex Ambler's Turn of the Heart), or perhaps there's even a translation into your native language?
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Guy, I think the two come together in the Inward Light - it shines from outside, into the human mind.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Annie B.
Not to the same extent. Some themes come round again, like how much power does Parliament have?, but religion isn't the same issue any more, the situation in Ireland (and with devolved government) has changed enormously, and factors like economic inequality and climate change are coming in.
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Some early Quakers had been more conventional ministers, and had formal education, but they didn't send their children to university (not least because until the mid-nineteenth century that option wasn't open to non-conformists in the UK). They did found Quaker schools, although those tended to focus on practical education and letting children develop inwardly...
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Yes, I think this is a very plausible reading. Fox certainly wanted to find his own way and he was rebelling against existing structures - not only, but in part, represented by his parents.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jan Cantle
Sounds like you've done some good research, Jan, but is that the right video link? It seems to go to something called "Five Foreign Secretaries"!
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Lisa Lister
I think individualism and quietism were the main factors, but there are probably other points too: starting with a good number of people helps in forming a self-sustaining community; the changing political landscape allowed quietism (rather than e.g. forcing Quakers to keep arguing publicly); and depending on one's theological perspective, perhaps luck, God's...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Irene Double
Sorry to hear you had trouble - it's working fine for me so I'm not sure why that happened.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Cathy Kelly
You should be able to click on the images on this page: https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/quakers/maps/googmaps_index.html
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This Wikipedia article looks like it includes translated material, and gives something of an overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Robes
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I agree about reading aloud, Sarah and Simon, and I also like the idea of copying the passage out as a way to engage with it.
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Yes, politics, economics, religion, and science and technology all contributed to this move - which, as you say, would also be true of the 1960s!
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A very real question, for other Quakers as well as Fox! I think Fox had a strong sense of inner certainty, perhaps not always granted to others; he also checked what he was told against the Bible, expecting to find what God said to him directly echoed in what God had said to other people in the past. And later - still in Fox's lifetime - the system of working...
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Cath Lees
Yes, that's certainly one implication of that family story - another might be that having ancestors who were said to be martyrs gave Fox a model for determinedly holding to his faith even when the state and others around him rejected or ridiculed his beliefs.
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Ben Wood
Just over thirty years. "The first Baptist church in England met in Spitalfields, London in 1612." https://www.baptist.org.uk/Groups/220596/Baptist_History.aspx
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Rhiannon Grant replied to Jan F
Yes - you can read about Bournville, the town the Cadburys built, here: https://www.bvt.org.uk/our-business/the-bournville-story/
