LIFE IN THE TIME OF THE STUARTS 99 



The spread of an aggressive form of Puritanism 

 which took place during this century destroyed the 

 boisterous good-nature of Elizabethan 

 Puritanism times, and broke up once for all much of 

 J e dBO the social life of the villages. Bull and 



bear baiting and other cruel sports were 

 very properly stopped ; but the Puritans went further : 

 maypoles were pulled down and old-fashioned village 

 revels were suppressed, for dancing and acting were 

 sin. Singing was supposed to be limited to psalm- 

 singing, and the celebration of Christmas and other 

 festivals was treated as superstition. Up to this time, 

 Sunday, church once attended, had been a day devoted 

 to every sort of amusement. But government inter- 

 vened, a statute, in 1623, J forbade Sunday amusements, 

 and later all persons were expressly forbidden under 

 penalties to be present on * the Lord's Day ' at 

 any wrestling, shooting, bowling, ringing of bells 

 for pleasure, masques, wakes, church ales, dancing 

 and other pastimes. The character of Sunday com- 

 pletely altered. Saints' days also ceased to be holidays, 

 and to quote Markham, it was considered lawful 'to 

 be well occupied on holy days.' The ideas which 

 impelled this decay of social life, the encroachment 

 on holidays and the introduction of Sabbatarianism, 

 the greatest change perhaps in the country life of those 

 times, can be well understood by a study of Bunyan's 

 1 Pilgrim's Progress.' Bunyan was a man of the people 

 and he understood the people. The gist of his teaching 

 is clear enough. Put aside the things of the flesh, 

 and consider only things of the spirit. But who is 

 to be 'the Interpreter,' who shall say whether music, 

 song and dancing, that give joy to life, are or are 

 1 See Appendix, p. 176. 



