ABSTRACT
One of the difficulties of attempting to investigate any social phenomenon in the past is the need to negotiate between the particular and the general. In this process, the connection between intensive local research and the crucial national context often becomes obscured. This problem is acute in the study of godparenthood in early modern England, where the sources are diverse and diffuse, and thus need to be placed in both national and local perspectives. This study also depends heavily on a type of source that has been previously overlooked by a number of historians interested in this field of enquiry. The very existence of this material has considerable implications for an understanding of early modern spiritual kinship, implications which need to be explored in some detail.
