This book is an analysis of the society of a parish in seventeenth-century London. In spirit and approach the work owes much to the sociological, anthropological and historical techniques used so effectively by Keith Wrightson and David Levine in their pioneering study of the Essex village of Terling. By using and adapting their approach to a district of seventeenth-century London I hope I have been able to make a significant contribution to the social and economic history of London and to shed some light on the similarities and differences between rural and metropolitan society in early modern England.

Since I started my historical research in 1978 I have built up numerous intellectual debts. Like all academics I have drawn inspiration, strength and references from my colleagues working in the same general area.

Firstly I owe a great debt to Keith Wrightson whose social history seminars in St Andrews kindled my interest in British social history. In particular, too, I am conscious of a great debt to the supervisor of my Ph.D research, Brian Outhwaite, whose perceptive comments on innumerable drafts and timely words of encouragement when my energies flagged were all very much appreciated. I owe much too, to the kind and constructive criticisms made by Paul Slack and Valerie Pearl who examined my Ph.D thesis in 1983. Subsequently Roger Schofield has been a tolerant and perceptive editor and has done much to help in the metamorphosis of caterpillar thesis to butterfly book.