Religious Climate

Religion is a key theme in Year of Wonders. The villagers’ spiritual leader,Michael Mompellion is a minister with the Church of England. Charles II has been restored to the throne, and the Puritans are no longer welcome in England.

English Restoration

Charles II

Although the Puritans have been stripped of power in England, many of the strict Puritan tenets and attitudes lingered on in the minds of the villagers. It is seventeenth-century England and religion has a fierce hold over the ignorant village townsfolk.

Puritans

Intertwined with the Puritan attitudes of the time, was the fear and mistrust of single or widowed women who used herbs and other natural remedies to heal the sick. The prevailing attitude, born of superstition, was that these women were witches who were working in consort with the devil. When the plague strikes the village, a mob of villagers, crazed by grief and fear, turn on the two women healers in the village, Mem Gowdie and her niece Anys, blaming them for bringing the plague into their lives.

Witches