ABSTRACT
In the early modern period, the level of emotional investment in the processes of probate was no less than might be expected of legal mechanisms for valuing personal capital and for negotiating the relationships of kin and colleagues through that capital. Beginning in 1529, personal capital in England was subjected to strict regulation. It was mandated that a probate inventory be registered for any man or independent woman dying in possession of goods worth more than five pound. The 1529 statute legislating inventories established a vast, purportedly comprehensive archive of information about early moderns and their material lives, information that can generally be cross-referenced to each individual's geographic location, age at death, and status or occupation. This archive has been exploited with increasing consequence as computerization of the records has transformed them into a database thoroughly accommodating of quantitative analysis.
