Jocelin, Elizabeth

Elizabeth Jocelin (née Brooke) (1596–1622) is best known for her posthumously published The Mothers Legacie, to her vnborne Childe (1624). Much of Jocelin’s biography, including information on her impressive early education, is drawn from the work and from the approbation of the text written by Thomas Goad, a key actor in the printed publication of Jocelin’s book. The text focuses on advice for her child, on living a virtuous life, and for her husband, on raising their child. Jocelin wrote The Mothers Legacie out of an ultimately accurate premonition of her death in, or resulting from, childbirth. The text offers insight into an early modern woman’s marriage and domestic life, understanding of her role as a mother, and religious and spiritual convictions. The text also serves as an example of early modern women using gendered expectations to find authorizing forces for their writing and of the limitations imposed by working within those expectations.