ABSTRACT
The seventeenth century can be called the most corporate of centuries. It was the moment at which the corporate form was fully worked out. It was a period of experimentation, when a whole range of governmental, financial and associational models were discussed in theory and tried in practice. Corporations had power and influence to rival their modern incarnations, even if it was not quite so legally and culturally consolidated. The establishment of permanent joint stocks, and a growing cultural familiarity with this manifestation of the corporate form, helped to reassure investors and the general public alike of the stability and value of corporate activity. The early modern integration of corporate trade into national identity can be seen, too, in the production of commercially aware epic poetry. The link between the corporation and the spiritual was well established by the time Milton was composing his epic.
