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The Puritan movement of 16th and 17th century [[England]] was a movement of people seeking "purity" of [[worship]] and [[doctrine]]. Those who sought further reform of [[liturgy]] and [[theology]] away from that of the [[Roman Catholic Church]] and those who justified separation from the [[Church of England]] following the Elizabethan Religious Settlement are commonly called "Puritans" by historians and critics.

Puritanism seems to have risen out of discontent with the Elizabethan Religious Settlement, which was felt by the more radical Protestants to be giving in to "Popery" (i.e., the [[Roman Catholic Church]]). While Protestant movements in Europe were driven by issues of [[theology]] and had broken radically with Catholic models of church organization, the English Reformation had brought the Church under control of the monarchy while leaving many of its religious practices intact. In the eyes of the Puritans, doctrine had been made unacceptably subservient to politics. Persecuted under [[Mary I]] of [[England]] ("Bloody Mary"), Protestants like [[Thomas Cartwright]], [[Walter Travers]], and [[Andrew Melville]] had gone into exile as Puritans in Europe, where they came into close contact with the magisterial reformers in Calvinist [[Geneva]] and Lutheran [[Germany]]. These contacts shaped their position towards Elizabeth's religious via media (middle way).

Some modern Presbyterian denominations are descended, at least in part, from the Puritans. Likewise, Congregational Churches also trace their lineage back to the Puritans. One example is the Congregational Christian Churches (CCC) denomination in the United States (which merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church in 1957 to form the United Church of Christ) is the direct descendant of New England Puritan congregations.

The central tenet of Puritanism was [[God]]'s supreme authority over human affairs, particularly in the [[church]], and especially as expressed in the [[Bible]]. This view led them to seek both individual and corporate conformance to the teaching of the Bible, and it led them to pursue both moral purity down to the smallest detail as well as ecclesiastical purity to the highest level.

In addition to promoting lay education, it was important to the Puritans to have knowledgeable, educated pastors, who could read the Bible in its original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, as well as ancient and modern church tradition and scholarly works, which were most commonly written in Latin, and so most of their divines undertook rigorous studies at the University of Oxford or the University of Cambridge before seeking ordination. Diversions for the educated included discussing the Bible and its practical applications as well as reading the classics such as Cicero, Virgil, and Ovid. They also encouraged the composition of poetry that was of a religious nature, though they eschewed religious-erotic poetry except for the Song of Solomon, which they considered magnificent poetry, without error, regulative for their sexual pleasure, and, especially, as an allegory of Christ and the Church.

In modern usage, the word puritan is often used as an informal pejorative for someone who has strict views on sexual morality, disapproves of recreation, and wishes to impose these beliefs on others. None of these qualities were unique to Puritanism or universally characteristic of the Puritans themselves, whose moral views and ascetic tendencies were no more extreme than many other Protestant reformers of their time, and who were relatively tolerant of other faiths — at least in England. The popular image is slightly more accurate as a description of Puritans in colonial America, who were among the most radical Puritans and whose social experiment took the form of a Calvinist theocracy.

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