Power of Petitioning

In seventeenth-century England, petitioning was ubiquitous. It was one of the only acceptable ways to address the authorities when seeking redress, mercy or advancement. As a result, it was a crucial mode of communication between the ‘rulers’ and the ‘ruled’. People at all levels of society – from noblemen to paupers – used petitions to make their voices heard.

Some were mere begging letters scrawled on scraps of paper; others were carefully crafted radical demands signed by thousands and sent to the highest powers in the land. Whatever form they took, they provide a vital source for illuminating the concerns of supposedly ‘powerless’ people and offer a unique means to map the structures of authority that framed early modern society.

The Power of Petitioning in Seventeenth Century England is a small but growing site that plans to transcribe and publish the texts of more than 2,000 seventeenth-century petitions as well as a series of guides and other resources.  The site also has a blog on which they report progress, share links to online resources and share details of the lives of people in the seventeenth century.