ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the arguments and origin of the doctrine of contentment as a preface to a more comprehensive examination of the content and 'deep' structure of the new-form texts in the next. The vision of society which informs the doctrine of contentment is based on a 'common idea' which dates back at least to the Middle Ages: the concept of society as a social organism in which all power is located in the 'head' of the organism, the king. Only when contentment is diffused among all ranks of society, so that 'the poore man [is] as content as the rich man, the husbandman as the Gentleman, and the Subject as content as the King', will the threat of instability be lifted. The appearance of the doctrine of contentment in the series of sermons and short treatises published in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries may indicate no more than an on-going but non-specific fear of social instability.
