The Journal and Accounts of the Elizabethan Puritan Merchant William Leonard, 1581–1593

The Elizabethan merchant William Leonard kept an account book from 1581 to 1593, also using it to document life events. It is an early surviving Puritan journal and demonstrates tropes used by later self-writers. His entries illustrate the intersection of his religious beliefs and commercial attitudes. Leonard viewed his trade through a sometimes anti-commercial lens, as did the Puritan divines William Fulke, George Gifford, and John Dod, whom he was related to, or knew. His estate failed for many reasons but he saw the failure as due to his sinfulness, making him an anxious merchant. This unease would have been inimical to entrepreneurial trade.