A uniquely valuable insight into Elizabethan and Jacobean culture in early modern London.

The ecclesiastical court system oversaw a wide range of cases in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. The depositions recorded contain vivid pictures, full of details of contemporary practices and attitudes, class relations, economic conditions, the social and spiritual roles the church played, contemporary attitudes, social relations and events, legal knowledge and understanding, patterns of geographic mobility, ages at marriage, inheritance practices, patterns of behaviour, relationships within the community, household relationships, gender definitions, relationships between the sexes, and daily life in early modern London.