The idea of covenant was at the heart of early New England society. In this important book David Weir explores the origins and development of covenant thought in America by analyzing the civil and church documents generated and signed by seventeenth-century New Englanders.

Unmatched in its breadth of study, this volume takes into account "all" of the surviving covenants in "all" of the New England colonies. This comprehensive survey of seventeenth-century covenants leads to a more complex picture of early New England commitments than portrayed in famous civil covenants like the Mayflower...