Baptism and Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern England

Baptism and Spiritual Kinship in Early Modern England

Author: Will Coster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-02

Total Pages: 204

ISBN-13: 1351955993

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Despite the importance of the subject to contemporaries, this is the first monograph to look at the institution of godparenthood in early modern English society. Utilising a wealth of hitherto largely neglected primary source data, this work explores godparenthood, using it as a framework to illuminate wider issues of spiritual kinship and theological change. It has become increasingly common for general studies of family and religious life in pre-industrial England to make reference to the spiritual kinship evident in the institution of godparenthood. However, although there have been a number of important studies of the impact of the institution in other periods, this is the first detailed monograph devoted to the subject in early modern England. This study is possible due to the survival, contrary to many expectations, of relatively large numbers of parish registers that recorded the identities of godparents in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By utilising this hitherto largely neglected data, in conjunction with evidence gleaned from over 20,000 Wills and numerous other biographical, legal and theological sources, Coster has been able to explore fully the institution of godparenthood and the role it played in society. This book takes the opportunity to study an institution which interacted with a range of social and cultural factors, and to assess the nature of these elements within early modern English society. It also allows the findings of such an investigation to be compared with the assumptions that have been made about the fortunes of the institution in the context of a changing European society. The recent historiography of religion in this period has focused attention on popular elements of religious practice, and stressed the conservatism of a society faced with dramatic theological and ritual change. In this context a study of godparenthood can make a contribution to understanding how religious change occurred and the ways in which popular religious practice was affected.


Family and Kinship in England, 1450-1800

Family and Kinship in England, 1450-1800

Author: Will Coster

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-10-23

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 1317879732

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While historians have made the history of family life a key area of scholarly study, the diversity of methods, sources, areas of interest and conclusions this has produced, have made it one of the most difficult for readers to approach.Family & Kinship in England 1450-1800 guides the reader through the changing relationships that made up the nature of family life. It gives a clear introduction to many of the intriguing areas of interest that this field of history has opened up, including childhood, youth, marriage, sexuality and death. The book provides: An understanding of how the family has developed from the late medieval period to the beginnings of industrialisation. A synthesis of the varied work of other historians, which helps to understand the often disjointed or contradictory research into this area. A glossary of technical terms used by historians to describe the family in the past. Contemporary documents and illustrations, allowing readers to familiarise themselves with the business of understanding people in the past. Written in an engaging and accessible manner, Family & Kinship in England 1450-1800 stimulates interest in a fascinating topic and allows readers to pursue their own interests in the history of family life in the past.


The Family in Early Modern England

The Family in Early Modern England

Author: Helen Berry

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-12-06

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 0521858763

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This text provides an assessment of the most important research published in the past three decades on the English family.


Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450-1640

Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450-1640

Author: Christine Peters

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-03-09

Total Pages: 206

ISBN-13: 0230212786

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Although in its infancy, the history of women in Wales and Scotland before and during the Reformation is now thriving. A longer tradition of historical studies has shed light on many areas of women's experience in England. Drawing on this historiography, Christine Peters examines the significance of contrasting social, economic and religious conditions in shaping the lives of women in Britain. Gender assumptions were broadly similar in England, Wales and Scotland, but female experience varied widely. Women in Early Modern Britain, 1450-1640 explores how this was influenced by various factors, including changes in clanship and inheritance, the employment of single women, the punishment of pregnant brides and scolds, the introduction of Protestantism, and the fusion of fairy beliefs with ideas of demonological witchcraft. Peters' text is the first comparative survey and analysis of the diversity of women's lives in Britain during the early modern period.


Devising, Dying and Dispute

Devising, Dying and Dispute

Author: Lloyd Bonfield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-04-22

Total Pages: 310

ISBN-13: 1317151690

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Seventeenth-century England was a country obsessed with property rights. For only those who owned property were considered to have a vested interest in the maintenance of law, order and social harmony. As such, establishing the ownership of 'things' was a constant concern for all people, and nowhere is this more evident than in the cases of disputed wills. Based on a wealth of surviving evidence from the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, the probate jurisdiction which probated wills of the more wealthy English property owners as well as some of those with a more modest quantity of property, this book investigates what litigation over the validity of wills reveals about the interplay between society and law. The volume investigates, catalogs, and systematizes the legal issues that were raised in will disputes in the Canterbury Court in the last half of the seventeenth century. However, this is not just a book about law and legal practice. The records from which it draws plunge us into deeply personal and often tragic situations, revealing how the last requests of the dead and dying were often ignored or misinterpreted by family, friends and creditors for their own benefit. By focusing on property law as reflected in cases of disputed wills, the book provides a glimpse at a much fuller spectrum of society than is often the case. Even people of relatively modest means were concerned to pass on their possessions, and their cases provide a snapshot of the type of objects owned and social relationships revealed by patterns of bequests. This too is true for women, who despite being denied full participation in many areas of civic life, are frequently encountered as key players in court cases over disputed wills. What emerges from this study is a picture of a society for which notions of law and private property were increasingly intertwined, yet in which courts were less concerned with formality than with ensuring that the intentions of will-makers were properly carried out.


The First Modern Society

The First Modern Society

Author: Lawrence Stone

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 1989-07-06

Total Pages: 692

ISBN-13: 9780521364843

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Intended to celebrate the 70th birthday of the distinguished historian, Lawrence Stone, these essays owe much to his influence. There are also four appreciations by friends and colleagues from Oxford and Princeton and a little-known autobiographical piece by Lawrence Stone himself.


Courtship and Constraint

Courtship and Constraint

Author: Diana O'Hara

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2002-10-04

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780719062513

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This book is the first major study of courtship in early modern England. Courtship was a vitally important process in early modern England. It was a period of private and public negotiation, often fraught with anxiety. If completed successfully it brought respectability, the privileges of marriage and adulthood, and a stable union between socially, economically, and emotionally compatible couples. Using Kent church court and probate material dating from the 15th to the end of the 16th century, the book blends historical and anthropological perspectives to suggest novel and exciting approaches to the making of marriage.


A Millennium of Family Change

A Millennium of Family Change

Author: Wally Seccombe

Publisher: Verso

Published: 1995-10-17

Total Pages: 350

ISBN-13: 9781859840528

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How do changes in family form relate to changes in society as a whole? In a work which combines theoretical rigour with historical scope, Wally Seccombe provides a powerful study of the changing structure of families from the Middle Ages to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Responding to feminist critiques of ‘sex-blind’ historical materialism, Seccombe argues that family forms must be seen to be at the heart of modes of production. He takes issue with the mainstream consensus in family history which argues that capitalism did not fundamentally alter the structure of the nuclear family, and makes a controversial intervention in the long-standing debate over European marriage patterns and their relation to industrialization. Drawing on an astonishing range of studies in family history, historical demography and economic history, A Millennium of Family Change provides an integrated overview of the long transition from feudalism to capitalism, illuminating the far-reaching changes in familial relations from peasant subsistence to the making of the modern working class.


The Ties That Bind

The Ties That Bind

Author: Bernard Capp

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-07-03

Total Pages: 357

ISBN-13: 0192556355

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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.