Here are very full abstracts, fully indexed, of wills proved in the courts of the Archdeacon of Suffolk in the early seventeenth century. Early wills make compulsive reading, and also supply invaluable information for social and economic historians, local historians and genealogists.
This edition brings out indications of the religious and political beliefs of the testator, and also evidence of personal relationships - `refractory' son, for instance -and commitments to learning and to apprenticeships. Household goods, often listed with an intensity of feeling, furnish the mind's eye with early Stuart interiors, and place-names reveal old customs and associations. Several bequests for education, religious instruction and the relief of the poor also illuminate the preoccupations of the local society of the period.