Familists
The Familists ( Latin familia charitatis , love brotherhood, in England Family of Love ) were a religious group of mystical tendencies that emerged in Holland and England in the 16th and 17th centuries .
The founder of the Familists is Heinrich Niclaes (* around 1501 in Münster ), a student of David Joris . Niclaes worked in the most important cities in the Netherlands , then for 20 years in Emden ( East Frisia ) and temporarily also in England (where the familists' main focus was in East Anglia ) when Queen Elizabeth I had his writings burned in 1580.
The familists saw the essence of religion in love ; they were indifferent to ceremonies or beliefs. Pro forma they mostly belonged to the respective (Catholic or Anglican) state church. The familists disappeared around the middle of the 17th century.
Whether the English familists were absorbed in the Quakers or influenced their theology is disputed in research.
literature
- Alastair Hamilton: The Family of Love . Clarke, Cambridge 1981, ISBN 0-227-67845-1 .
- William Nigel Kerr: Henry Nicholas and the Familists . Dissertation, University of Edinburgh 1955.
- Christopher Marsh: An Introduction to the Family of Love in England . In: Elizabeth S. Leedham-Green: Religious Dissent in East Anglia . Antiquarian Society, Cambridge 1991, ISBN 0-9513596-1-4 , pp. 29-36.
- Nicholas Adrian Penrhys-Evans: The Family of Love in England, 1550-1650 . College Press, Canterbury 1971.