Microhistory in early modern London: John Bedford (1601–1667)

Abstract

This article represents an exercise in microhistory applied to early modern London. Deploying prosopographical methods, it reconstructs the life history of one John Bedford (1601–1667) from his birth in Huntingdon to his death in the West End of London. Much of his adult life was spent in the London parish of St Dionis Backchurch, with an interlude in the Irish town of Londonderry. Bedford fled from Ulster at the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion in 1641. His unusually detailed will provides the bedrock of this narrative, and his reconstructed life sheds important light on ties between London and Ulster, on debt and credit relations and on the methodological strengths and limitations of community studies that focus on a specific place.