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.

Josselin was vicar of Earls Colne, Essex, from 1641 until his death in 1683, and this is the intimate record of his ministry and his private doubts and triumphs as a Christian that give the Diary its shape. As a prosperous farmer, he also noted details of harvests, accounts, the weather and farming methods, which pieces together a picture of yeoman farming at that time. As father and husband he felt impelled to record a series of observations on family life that seem unique for this period. Recognized as one of the great seventeenth-century diaries, ranging over topics from sin and disease, dreams and money to millenarianism and the Civil War, this richly rewarding document reveals Josselin as a sympathetic and entirely human figure, and provides fascinating insights into the thought-world of seventeenth-century life.

The diary of a prominent Boston jurist and merchant whose nurturing relationship with his family contradicted the Puritan stereotype.