Autobiographical Acts in Seventeenth-Century English Petitioning

Among the seventeenth-century non-elite, anonymous (or almost anonymous) individuals across England organized their experiences into petition narratives presented at various local Quarter Sessions. This article explores these narrative texts as sources of autobiographical acts. It contends that petitions for redress were sites of autobiographical telling that allow investigation into how non-elite people told their life stories in early modern England. It examines how, in the context of a petition for relief, individuals engaged in strategic acts of autobiographical disclosure for redress, which also had implications for the restoration of their dignity and even their identity.