Nicholas Ferrar :: essays research papers fc

Nicholas Ferrar was assumed to be born in 1592. I fox found that his most probable birth date was in February of 1593. This is due to the usual calendar confusion England was not at that time using the sore calendar adopted in October 1582. It was 1593 according to our modern calendar, but at the time the new year in England began on the following March 25th.Nicholas Ferrar was angiotensin converting enzyme of the more interesting figures in English history. His family was quite wealthy and were heavily involved in the Virginia Company, which had a Royal Charter for the plantation of Virginia. People same(p) Sir Walter Raleigh were often visitors to the family home in London. Ferrars niece was named Virginia, the first known use of this name. Ferrar studied at Cambridge and would have gone further with his studies but the damp beam of the fens was bad for his health and he traveled to Europe, spending time in the warmer climate of Italy.On his return to England he found his fam ily had fared badly. His brother rear had become over extended financially and the Virginia Company was in danger of loosing its charter. Nicholas dedicated himself to saving the family fortune and was successful. He served for a short time as Member of Parliament, where he tried to promote the cause for the Virginia Company. His efforts were in vain for the company lost their charter anyway.Nicholas is given credit for founding a Christian community called the English Protestant Nunnery at Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, England. After Ferrar was ordained as a deacon, he retired and started his little community. Ferrar was given help and place upright with his semi-religious community by John Collet, as well as Collets wife and fourteen children. They devoted themselves to a life of prayer, fasting and munificence (Matthew 62,5,16). The community was founded in 1626, when Nicholas was 34 years old. Banning together, they restored an abandoned church that was being used as a b arn. Being of wealthy decent, Ferrar purchased the manor of Little Gidding, a village which had been discarded since the Black Death (a major outbreak of the bubonic plague in the 14th century), a few miles glowering the Great North Road, and probably recommended by John Williams, Bishop of Lincoln whose palace was in the nearby village of Buckden. About thirty people along with bloody shame Ferrar (Ferrars mother) moved into the manor house.