Les dissidentes baptistes à travers les livres d’Église du xviie siècle anglais

This article examines some early Baptist Church Books from the second half of the seventeenth century. They have been generally neglected by historians because the records they contain are often imperfect, and the nature of the information varies so much from one book to the next. After a general presentation of the pamphlet and satirical literature published against dissenting women, I show how this literature may be read in the light of the manuscript Church Books. In recent years, other kinds of evidence have encouraged historians towards a more optimistic view of women’s opportunities in the Baptist Churches. The Church Books present a much more sobering picture. When analysing the role women were playing in the congregations, or the rare instances when they were allowed to speak in public, it is possible to reveal a huge resistance from conservative ministers and elders towards female speaking. Even within the dissenting communities that are known to have welcomed women in their midst, female members did not entirely manage to circumvene the Biblical interdiction to speak in Churches