Skip to main content
Taylor & Francis Group Logo
Advanced Search

Click here to search books using title name,author name and keywords.

  • Login
  • Hi, User  
    • Your Account
    • Logout
Advanced Search

Click here to search books using title name,author name and keywords.

Breadcrumbs Section. Click here to navigate to respective pages.

Book

Jane Leade

Book

Jane Leade

DOI link for Jane Leade

Jane Leade book

Biography of a Seventeenth-Century Mystic

Jane Leade

DOI link for Jane Leade

Jane Leade book

Biography of a Seventeenth-Century Mystic
ByJulie Hirst
Edition 1st Edition
First Published 2005
eBook Published 1 October 2017
Pub. Location London
Imprint Routledge
DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315251622
Pages 172
eBook ISBN 9781315251622
Subjects Humanities
Share
Share

Get Citation

Hirst, J. (2005). Jane Leade: Biography of a Seventeenth-Century Mystic (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315251622

ABSTRACT

Jane Leade (1624-1704) is probably the most prolific woman writer and most important female religious leader in late seventeenth-century England, yet, she still remains relatively unknown. By exploring her life and works as a prophetess and mystic, this books opens a fascinating window into the world of a remarkable woman living in a remarkable age. Born in Norfolk into a gentry family, Jane Leade enjoyed a comfortable childhood, married a distant cousin, who was a merchant, and had four children. However, she found herself totally destitute in London when he died, his fortune having been lost abroad. As a widow, she proclaimed herself to be a `Bride of Christ', and eventually became a prolific author and a respected blind, elderly leader of a religious group of well-educated men and women, known as the Philadelphian Society. The structure of this book is informed by the chronological events that happened during her life and is complemented by examining some of the material she published, including her visions of the Virgin Wisdom, or Sophia. She started writing in 1670, but published prolifically in the 1680s and 1690s, and this material offers a fascinating glimpse into the mind of an extraordinary woman. Believing herself to be living in the `End Times' she expected Sophia would return with the second coming of Christ. The Philadelphian Society grew under her charge, until they were buffeted by mobs in London. Jane Leade died in her eighty-first year and is buried in the non-conformist cemetery, Bunhill Fields, in London. By contextualising her and drawing out the nature of her devotions this new book draws attention to her as a figure in her own right. Previous studies have tended to reduce her to one example within a certain tradition, but as this work clearly demonstrates she was in fact a much more complicated character who did not conform to any one particular tradition.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

chapter |12 pages

Introduction

chapter 1|10 pages

Norfolk's Child to 'Bride of Christ'

chapter 2|18 pages

John Pordage: A Spiritual Mate

chapter 3|16 pages

Searching for GO(L)D: Spiritual Alchemy

chapter 4|14 pages

Visions of Sophia

chapter 5|18 pages

Mystical Marriage

chapter 6|20 pages

The Philadelphians' Prophetess

chapter 7|16 pages

The Second Coming

chapter 8|12 pages

The Healing Angel

T&F logoTaylor & Francis Group logo
  • Policies
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Cookie Policy
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Cookie Policy
  • Journals
    • Taylor & Francis Online
    • CogentOA
    • Taylor & Francis Online
    • CogentOA
  • Corporate
    • Taylor & Francis Group
    • Taylor & Francis Group
    • Taylor & Francis Group
    • Taylor & Francis Group
  • Help & Contact
    • Students/Researchers
    • Librarians/Institutions
    • Students/Researchers
    • Librarians/Institutions
  • Connect with us

Connect with us

Registered in England & Wales No. 3099067
5 Howick Place | London | SW1P 1WG © 2021 Informa UK Limited