Early Life
He was born at Bristow Park, near Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire. Joseph Hall came of a large family, being one of twelve children born to John Hall, agent in Ashby-de-la-Zouch for Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. Hall's mother, Winifred Bambridge, was a Calvinist close to Anthony Gilby. Her son later compared her to St Monica:
- "What day did she pass without a large task of private devotion? whence she would still come forth, with a countenance of undissembled mortification. Never any lips have read to me such feeling lectures of piety; neither have I known any soul that more accurately practised them than her own."
Joseph Hall received his early education at the local Ashby Grammar School, founded by his father's patron the Earl, and was later sent (1589) to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where Anthony Gilby's son Nathaniel was a Fellow and advocated this course. The college was Puritan in tone, and Hall was undoubtedly under Calvinist influence in his youth. After some early setbacks (his father found it difficult to pay for a university education and nearly recalled him after the first two years), Hall's academic career was a great success. He was chosen for two years in succession to read the public lecture on rhetoric in the schools and in 1595 became fellow of his college.
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