Introduction

Summary

This book is a study of domestic life in early modern England. More specifically, its chief focus is a detailed account of the daily life of largely non-elite households of the market town of Thame in Oxfordshire through the seventeenth century, drawn from the evidence of probate inventories. But in addition the work examines the manner in which domestic life operated within and was influenced by the wider local and national culture, and also seeks to address the wider consideration of the significance of domestic life in the historical narrative and the manner in which the totality of domestic culture might best be theorised, interpreted and analysed.

The Historiography of Domesticity

The home place is central to the experience and identity of the individual and of the domestic group, and thus arguably should enjoy a significant place within historical inquiry. As Fernand Braudel has argued, the discernible developments of the past were constructed on the myriad of events which constituted daily life, an understanding of which becomes essential to a true reading of the historical totality. The larger historical narrative is thus significantly founded on the mundane events of everyday life, and everyday life itself influenced by external events and circumstances. This being so, it might be assumed that the home has featured significantly in historical inquiry and literature. Whilst this is the case for some elements of domestic life (and this is especially true of the early modern period, when the household was seen as the fundamental building block of civil society), the non-elite home itself and the operation of domestic life have not until recently featured as significant foci of the historical narrative. This may well be because domestic life consists of such a wide range of manifestations – as physical structure of the dwelling and its furnishings and ornamentation, as a social group and the setting for social discourse, and as a place of production and consumption – that as a totality it does not lend itself to neat accommodation within any one strand of historical inquiry. The use of a particular form of evidence – documentary and textual, pictorial, architectural or artefactual – demands a distinct methodology and thus has a tendency to prescribe the extent of an inquiry.