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- Title
Faith at Sea: Exploring Maritime Religiosity in the Eighteenth Century.
- Authors
Maga, Christopher P.
- Abstract
This essay examines the extent to which Anglo-American maritime labourers maintained religious worldviews. Fishermen, naval seamen and merchant mariners are typically portrayed in modern historical scholarship as irreligious and even profane. To be sure, there were unorthodox folklores associated with these maritime cultures: sailors did drink to excess and fornicate with women of ill repute. Yet to conceive of these people as strictly impious is to oversimplify the complexity of human nature; the same men could and did adhere to both folklore and organized religious ideas. The same men were profane one day and pious the next. I rely primarily on the autobiographical records of John Cremer (1700-1774), Ashley Bowen (1728-1814), Christopher Prince (1751-1832) and John Nicol (1755-1825). These records are imperfect, but they represent the best available first-hand accounts of maritime religiosity in the eighteenth century. At least three definable characteristics of formal land-based religious beliefs can be discerned in these sailors' lives. They maintained a providential worldview. In addition, they remained aware that certain aspects of sea culture were sinful. Finally, they retained a strong antipathy towards Roman Catholics. Through this investigation, I demonstrate the ways in which sailors' religious values represent an ideological link between sea and shore that has gone overlooked by maritime historians.
- Subjects
RELIGIOUS life of sailors; BRITISH Americans; CREMER, John; BOWEN, Ashley; PRINCE, Christopher; NICOL, John
- Publication
International Journal of Maritime History, 2007, Vol 19, Issue 1, p87
- ISSN
0843-8714
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/084387140701900106