Samuel Jeake (1652-1699) was a merchant and nonconformist of Rye in Sussex with an interest in astrology. This work includes the events of his life in detail but subjected them to astrological scrutiny, along with horoscopes. It throws light on the history both of astrology and on the topics: commercial, medical religious, and intellectual.
A scholarly edition of An Astrological Diary of the Seventeenth Century: Samuel Jeake of Rye, 1652-1699 by Michael Hunter and Annabel Gregory. The edition presents an authoritative text, together with an introduction, commentary notes, and scholarly apparatus.
This book is a survey of personal illness as described in various forms of early modern manuscript life-writing. How did people in the seventeenth century rationalise and record illness? Observing that medical explanations for illness were fewer than may be imagined, the author explores the social and religious frameworks by which illness was more commonly recorded and understood. The story that emerges is of illness written into personal manuscripts in prescriptive rather than original terms. This study uncovers the ways in which illness, so described, contributed to the self-patterning these texts were set up to perform.
This anthology brings together extracts from a wide variety of seventeenth-century sources to illustrate the ways in which the cultural notion of `women' was then constructed. historical circumstances of women's lives in the seventeenth century and the cultural notions of `woman' which prevailed then. What did women and men think women should be? Over 200 extracts from books, pamphlets, diaries and letters are arranged under three main headings: female nature, character and behaviour; female roles and affairs; and `feminisms.' Each chapter is introduced by N.H. Keeble who contextualises the extracts and draws out the main issues revised.
How did 17th-century families in England perceive their health care needs? What household resources were available for medical self-help? To what extent did households make up remedies based on medicinal recipes? Drawing on previously unpublished household papers ranging from recipes to accounts and letters, this original account shows how health and illness were managed on a day-to-day basis in a variety of 17th-century households. It reveals the extent of self-help used by families, explores their favourite remedies and analyses differences in approaches to medical matters. Anne Stobart illuminates cultures of health care amongst women and men, showing how 'kitchin physick' related to the business of medicine, which became increasingly commercial and professional in the 18th century.
Featuring detailed analyses of clothing culture in 17th-century provincial Sussex, this original study draws on previously unexploited sources to create an intimate and nuanced portrait of people and their clothes. An introductory chapter uses 17th-century literature to identify and explore contemporary ideas about clothing, the individual and society, as well as the relationship between London and the provinces and the causes and consequences of conspicuous clothing consumption. Subsequent chapters look at the production, distribution and acquisition of clothing in Sussex and the participation of consumers in these processes; the role of London as a centre of fashionable clothing consumption and the experience of wealthier consumers in shopping there; the clothing worn by individual men, women and older children of the 'middle' and 'better' sort and the extent to which they participated in contemporary, London-driven, fashion culture. A final chapter examines the clothing worn by the poor, including vagrants, parish paupers and the 'labouring' poor. With over 40 images Clothing in 17th-Century Provincial England offers a new window onto early modern experiences of clothing.
Astrology is a major feature of contemporary popular culture. Recent research indicates that 99% of adults in the modern west know their birth sign. In the modern west astrology thrives as part of our culture despite being a pre-Christian, pre-scientific world-view. Medieval and Renaissance Europe marked the high water mark for astrology. It was a subject of high theological speculation, was used to advise kings and popes, and to arrange any activity from the beginning of battles to the most auspicious time to have one's hair cut. Nicholas Campion examines the foundation of modern astrology in the medieval and Renaissance worlds. Spanning the period between the collapse of classical astrology in the fifth century and the rise of popular astrology on the web in the twentieth, Campion challenges the historical convention that astrology flourished only between the twelfth and seventeenth centuries. Concluding with a discussion of astrology's popularity and appeal in the twenty-first century, Campion asks whether it should be seen as an integral part of modernity or as an element of the post-modern world.
The family is a major area of scholarly research and public debate. Many studies have explored the English family in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on husbands and wives, parents and children. The Ties that Bind explores in depth the other key dimension: the place of brothers and sisters in family life, and in society. Moralists urged mutual love and support between siblings, but recognized that sibling rivalry was a common and potent force. The widespread practice of primogeniture made England distinctive. The eldest son inherited most of the estate and with it, a moral obligation to advance the welfare of his brothers and sisters. The Ties that Bind explores how this operated in practice, and shows how the resentment of younger brothers and sisters made sibling relationships a heated issue in this period, in family life, in print, and also on the stage.