regardless of the significance of the topic to contemporaries, this is often the 1st monograph to examine the establishment of godparenthood in early glossy English society. making use of a wealth of hitherto mostly missed fundamental resource info, this paintings explores godparenthood, utilizing it as a framework to light up wider problems with religious kinship and theological switch. It has turn into more and more universal for common reviews of relations and non secular existence in pre-industrial England to make connection with the religious kinship obtrusive within the establishment of godparenthood. even though, even supposing there were a few very important experiences of the effect of the establishment in different sessions, this is often the 1st specified monograph dedicated to the topic in early sleek England. This learn is feasible because of the survival, opposite to many expectancies, of fairly huge numbers of parish registers that recorded the identities of godparents within the 16th and 17th centuries. via utilizing this hitherto principally missed information, at the side of proof gleaned from over 20,000 Wills and various different biographical, felony and theological resources, Coster has been in a position to discover absolutely the establishment of godparenthood and the function it performed in society. This booklet takes the chance to review an establishment which interacted with various social and cultural elements, and to evaluate the character of those parts inside of early sleek English society. It additionally permits the findings of such an research to be in comparison with the assumptions which were made concerning the fortunes of the establishment within the context of a altering ecu society. the new historiography of faith during this interval has concentrated cognizance on well known components of non secular perform, and under pressure the conservatism of a society confronted with dramatic theological and formality swap. during this context a examine of godparenthood could make a contribution to realizing how spiritual switch happened and the ways that renowned non secular perform used to be affected.