ABSTRACT
Religion was of central importance in the lives of women in England in the early modern period. Women's religious experiences were different from men's. Women found spiritual satisfaction from their beliefs and a meaning for life. Women's religious lives and experiences were affected by their different social levels. Women at upper and middling social levels had more time to concentrate on devotion. Women's opportunities for participation during the Civil Wars and Interregnum were unequalled at any other time during the early modern period, including during the Reformation. A woman's own family background, whether godly or not, could influence her, as could the specific religious faith, Catholic or Protestant, to which that family subscribed. Women's participation at many levels during the revolutionary decades affected the history of the sects and the course of events during the mid-seventeenth century. Justified by Christian teachings, the women petitioners refused to accept the view that the secular political sphere was an exclusively male domain.
