The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a Seventeenth-Century Clergyman: An Essay in Historical Anthropology (Norton Library

by Alan Macfarlane

“The great merit of Macfarlane’s book is that it poses questions; it teaches historians to look very much more closely, and in new ways, at familiar evidence; it brings familiar relationships into the centre of scrutiny; and it offers, in a significant way, the unit of one man’s life, and of one man’s economic fortunes, as a focus of study.” ―E. P. Thompson, Midland History Ralph Josselin, vicar of Earls Colne in Essex from 1641 to his death in 1683, kept for almost forty years a remarkably detailed account of his life―his mental and emotional world as well as his activities. Few diaries from this period afford such a rounded picture of a family from so many aspects. Alan Macfarlane, a historian and lecturer in social anthropology at Cambridge University, explores through the diary Josselin’s life as a farmer, businessman, Puritan clergyman, neighbor, husband, and father, providing a unique view of seventeenth-century life from the inside.

Genres: Biography

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Alan Macfarlane was born in Shillong, India, in 1941 and educated at the Dragon School, Sedbergh School, Oxford and London Universities. He is the author of over twenty books, including The Origins of English Individualism (1978) and Letters to Lily: On How the World Works (2005). He has worked in England, Nepal, Japan and China as both an historian and anthropologist. He was elected to the British Academy in 1986 and is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and a Life Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.

Reviews

[Sean]

There is an initial chapter entitled "Diary-Keeping in Seventeenth Century England". There were three primary motives for keeping a diary: (1) economic, e.g., account books; (2) aid to memory ; (3) religious. Very few address the "economic, personal and political, and the religious". The author has identified only three in the time period: Rev. Oliver Heywood, Samuel Pepys, and Ralph Josselin.

[Jeff Crosby]

Great use of primary documents.

[Kathryn Baron]

College Textbook

[Gail]

Read for my Ordinary People class.