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The Puritans were English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries who sought to rid the Church of England of what they considered to be Roman Catholic practices, maintaining that the Church of England had not been fully reformed and should become more Protestant. [1]
In the early 17th century, thousands of English Puritans settled in North America, almost all in New England.Puritans were intensely devout members of the Church of England who believed that the Church of England was insufficiently reformed, retaining too much of its Roman Catholic doctrinal roots, and who therefore opposed royal ecclesiastical policy.
The Puritan's main purpose was to purify the Church of England and to make England a more Christian country. History of the Puritans under Elizabeth I, 1558–1603; History of the Puritans under James I, 1603–1625; History of the Puritans under Charles I, 1625–1649; History of the Puritans from 1649; History of the Puritans in North America
The Puritans had moreover come to control most of the English Parliament. The Puritan movement would grow even stronger under King Charles I, and even for a time come to take control of England with the English Commonwealth and the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, following the English Civil War.
Under Charles I, the Puritans became a political force as well as a religious tendency in the country. Opponents of the royal prerogative became allies of Puritan reformers, who saw the Church of England moving in a direction opposite to what they wanted, and objected to increased Catholic influence both at Court and (as they saw it) within the Church.
In Europe, in the 17th and 18th centuries, a movement within Lutheranism parallel to puritan ideology (which was mostly of a Calvinist orientation) became a strong religious force known as pietism. In the United States, the Puritan settlement of New England was a major influence on American Protestantism.
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The chief poet of the Elizabethan era, Edmund Spenser, was a promoter of Puritan views. He is best known for The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating the reign of Elizabeth I. In fact the Red Cross Knight, the chief hero of the poem, is designed to be the very image and model of Puritan virtue, and Una his betrothed ...