Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-03T19:16:13.641Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women's social life and common action in England from the fifteenth century to the eve of the civil war

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

R. A. Houlbrooke
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Articles
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , August 1986 , pp. 171 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1986

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

ENDNOTES

The first draft of this article was read at the January 1985 Conference of the Social History Society and I am grateful for a number of helpful comments made on that occasion.

1 Walter, J., ‘Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law: Maldon and the crisis of 1629’, in Brewer, J. and Styles, J., ed., An ungovernable people: The English and their law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (London, 1980), 47–84Google Scholar; Walter, J. and Wrightson, K., ‘Dearth and the social order in early modern England’, Past and Present 71 (1976), 22–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clark, P., ‘Popular protest and disturbance in Kent, 1558–1640’, Economic History Review, 2nd ser. 29 (1976), 365–82.Google Scholar

2 Illick, J. E., ‘Child-rearing in seventeenth-century England and America’, in de Mause, L., ed., The history of childhood (London, 1976), 306Google Scholar; Macfarlane, A., The family life of Ralph Josselin: A seventeenth-century clergyman (Cambridge, 1970), 85–6Google Scholar; Davis, N., ed., Paston letters of the fifteenth century (Oxford, 1971, 1976), I, 602Google Scholar; Meads, D. M., ed., Diary of Lady Margaret Hoby 1599–1605 (London, 1930), 117, 191, 195, 212, 218.Google Scholar

3 Smith, T., De republica anglorum. The maner of gouernement or policie of the realme of England (London, 1583), 12Google Scholar; Fuller, T., The holy state and the profane state, Walten, M. G., ed. (New York, 1938), n, 2Google Scholar; Fitzherbert, A. (really J.), The book of husbandry, 1534, Skeat, W. W., ed., English Dialect Society, xiii (1882), 97–8.Google Scholar

4 Clark, A., Working life of women in the seventeenth century (London, 1982), 51, 107–9.Google Scholar

5 Ibid., 60–7, 219–21; Roberts, M., ‘Sickles and scythes: Women's work and men's work at harvest time’, History Workshop Journal 7 (1979), 3–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kussmaul, A., Servants in husbandry in early modern England (Cambridge, 1981), 34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Everitt, A., ‘Farm labourers’ in Thirsk, J., ed., The agrarian history of England and Wales, iv, 1500–1640 (Cambridge, 1967), 432Google Scholar; Parry, E. A., ed., Letters from Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple 1652–54 (London and Manchester, 1903), 86–7Google Scholar; Berkshire Record Office, Reading D/A 2/c154, f. 164v (1594 reference to return of a group of maids from milking in West Hendred).

6 Rye, W. B., ed., England as seen by foreigners in the days of Elizabeth and James I (London, 1865), 72.Google Scholar

7 Halliwell, J. O., ed., Westward for smelts: An early collection of stories, Percy Society, LXXVIII (1848), 41Google Scholar; Macfarlane, , Family life of josselin: 85–6.Google Scholar

8 Thomas, Deloney, Thomas of Reading. Or, the sixe worthy yeomen of the west (London, 1612), sig. H3r–vGoogle Scholar

9 Wright, T., ed., Songs and carols, now first printed, from a manuscript of the fifteenth century, Percy Society, LXXIII (1847), 92–5Google Scholar. Cf. Chappell, W. and Ebsworth, J. W., eds., The Roxburghe ballads (London and Hertford, 1869–1899), i, 50, 95, 106, 152, 298.Google Scholar

10 Cawdrey, R., A godlie forme of hovseholde gouernment: for the ordering of private families, according to the direction of God's word (London, 1600), 95Google Scholar; Gataker, T., Marriage dvties briefely couched togither; ovt of Colossians, 3. 18, 19 (London, 1620), 22Google Scholar; Rogers, D., Matrimoniall honour: or the mutuall crowne and comfort of godly, loyall and chaste manage (London, 1642), 250–1, 277–8.Google Scholar

11 Halliwell, , Westward for smelts, 7, 63.Google Scholar

12 Judges, A. V., The Elizabethan underworld (London, 1930), 101–5.Google Scholar

13 Ingram, M., ‘Ridings, rough music and the “reform of popular culture” in early modern England’, Past and Present 105 (1984), 79–113, esp. 86–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Cox, J. C., Churchwardens' accounts from the fourteenth century to the close of the seventeenth century (London, 1913), 36–7, 39, 59, 167Google Scholar; Thomas, K. V., Religion and the decline of magic (London, 1971), 180Google Scholar; Somerset Record Office, Taunton D/D/Cd/71 (unfoliated), Bale als. Culliford c. Garvin, c. 1634; Halliwell, , Westward for smelts, 38.Google Scholar

15 Cross, C., ‘“Great reasoners in scripture”; the activities of women Lollards 1380–1530’, in Baker, D., ed., Mediaeval women, Studies in Church History, Subsidia 1 (1978), 359–80Google Scholar; Pratt, J., ed., The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe (London, 1877), viii, 556–7Google Scholar; Thomas, K. V., ‘Women and the Civil War Sects’, Past and Present, 13 (1958), 42–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Houlbrooke, R. A., Church courts and the people during the English Reformation, 1520–1570 (Oxford, 1979), 45–6.Google Scholar

17 Elvey, E. M., ed., The courts of the archdeaconry of Buckingham 1483–1523, Buckinghamshire Record Society, xix (1975), 313.Google Scholar

18 Helmholz, R. H., Marriage litigation in medieval England (London, 1974), 88–90.Google Scholar

19 Houlbrooke, , Church courts and the people, 77Google Scholar; Norwich, Norfolk and Norwich Record Office, Norwich Archdeaconry Inquisitions 1550, at beginning of Walsingham deanery section; Burne, S. A. H., ed., The Staffordshire quarter sessions rolls, i: 1581–1589, William Salt Archaeological Society, Collections for a History of Staffordshire, liii (1931), 340, 341Google Scholar; Bates, E. H., ed., Quarter sessions records for the county of Somerset, i: James I, 1607–1625, Somerset Record Society, xxiii (1907), 18, 50, 148.Google Scholar

20 For juries of matrons see Cockburn, J. S., ed., Calendar of assize records. Home circuit indictments, Elizabeth I and James I: introduction (London, 1985), 121–3.Google Scholar

21 Hardy, W. J., ed., Hertford county records i: notes and extracts from the sessions rolls, 1581–1698 (Hertford, 1905), 35–6.Google Scholar

22 Clark, , Working life of women, 122–3, 138–9.Google Scholar

23 Higgins, P., ‘The reactions of women, with special reference to women petitioners’, in Manning, B., ed., Politics, religion and the English civil war (London, 1973), 179–222Google Scholar; Riley, H. T., ed., Annales monasterii S. Albani…(A.D. 1421–1440), quious praefigitur chronicon rerum gestarum in monasterio S. Albani…(A.D. 1422–1431), Rolls Series, xxviii (1870–1871), i, 20Google Scholar; Vickers, K. H., Humphrey Duke of Gloucester: A biography (London, 1907), 203.Google Scholar

24 Hilton, R. H., The English peasantry in the later middle ages (Oxford, 1975), 109.Google Scholar

25 Davis, Paston letters, n, 48.

26 Public Record Office, London (hereafter PRO) SP 1/47/83; Brewer, J., Gairdner, J. and Brodie, R., ed., Letters and papers, foreign and domestic, of the reign of Henry VIII, 1509–47, v, 526.Google Scholar

27 Collinson, P., The Elizabethan puritan movement (London, 1967), 82, 93Google Scholar; Gairdner, J., ed., Three fifteenth-century chronicles, with historical memoranda by John Stowe, the antiquary, and contemporary notes of occurrences written by him in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, Camden Society, new ser. xxviii (1880), 139, 140Google Scholar; one renegade minister was physically attacked by a group of wives.

28 Walter and Wrightson, ‘Dearth and the social order’; Clark, , ‘Popular protest and disturbance in Kent’; Sharp, B., In contempt of all authority: Rural artisans and riot in the west of England, 1558–1660 (Berkeley, 1980)Google Scholar; Lindley, K., Fenland riots and the English Revolution (London, 1982).Google Scholar

29 Hudson, W. and Tingey, J. C., ed., The records of the city of Norwich (Norwich, 1906–1910), ii, 163–5Google Scholar; reference to a 1528 rising of Norwich women in order to prevent the exportation of grain can be found in Blomefield, F. and Parkin, C., An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk, 2nd edn. (London, 1805–1810), iii, 198Google Scholar.

30 Horrocks, J. W., ed., The assembly books of Southampton i, 1602–8, Southampton Record Society Publications xix (1917), 61–3.Google Scholar

31 Walter, , ‘Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law’, 48–9, 53, 64–77. One of those condemned was reprieved.Google Scholar

32 Judges, , Elizabethan underworld: 146–8.Google Scholar

33 See for example Tail, J., ed., Lancashire quarter sessions records i: Quarter sessions rolls, 1590–1606, Chetham Society, new ser., LXXVII (1917), 207Google Scholar; Jeaffreson, J. C., ed., Middlesex county records i, Middlesex County Record Society i (1886), 98–9, 187Google Scholar; Cockburn, J. S., ed., Calendar of assize records. Hertfordshire indictments, James I (London, 1975), 151.Google Scholar

34 Dyer, C., Lords and peasants in a changing society: The estates of the bishopric of Worcester, 680–1540 (Cambridge, 1980), 161Google Scholar; PRO STAC 2/21/136, 2/26/138.

35 PRO STAC 3/4/87.

36 PRO STAC 5/A2/34, 5/A14/10. The bill of complaint is missing. Alforde may have been renewing a boundary neglected during long periods when the lords of Hitcham had been minors. See Page, W., ed., Victoria county history of Buckinghamshire (London, 1905–1928), iii, 232.Google Scholar

37 PRO STAC 5/A2/18, 5/A29/20; Gardiner, S. R., ed., Reports of cases in the courts of Star Chamber and High Commission, Camden Society, new ser. xxxix (1886), 59–65.Google Scholar

38 PRO STAC 8/32/10.

39 McCall, H. B., ed., Yorkshire Star Chamber proceedings, ii, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series, XLV (1911), 90–1Google Scholar; PRO STAC 2/17/277, 4/3/16.

40 Whiting, R., ‘“Abominable Idols”: Images and image-breaking under Henry VIII’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 33 (1982), 40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brewer, Gairdner and Brodie, , Letters and papers: x, 109–10Google Scholar; Emmison, F. G., Elizabethan life: Disorder (Chelmsford, 1970), 106–7.Google Scholar

41 Burne, , Staffs, quarter sessions rolls, 1581–1589: 271Google Scholar; Tait, , Lanes, quarter sessions rolls, 1590–1606: 156, 268Google Scholar; Ellis, H., ed., The Chronicles of Fabyan (London, 1811), 598–9.Google Scholar

42 Davis, N. Z., Society and culture in early modern France (Stanford, 1975), 146.Google Scholar

43 Wiener, C. Z., ‘Is a spinster an unmarried woman?’, The American Journal of Legal History 20 (1976), 27–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; PRO STAC 2/17/277.

44 Marowe's dictum reads as follows in the original Law French: ‘Si plusours femmez ou enfauntz south lans de discression assemble par eux mesme pur loure propre cause, ceo nest riott. Mes si ascun autre person cause de assembler tile persones de faire tile Riott, en cest cas serra dit vne Riott.’ See Putnam, B. H., Early treatises on the practice of the justices of the peace in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History vii (Oxford, 1924), 115–40, 340 (I am indebted to Dr Mary Prior for guiding me to this book)Google Scholar. Cf. Lambarde, W., Eirenarcha: or the office of the justices of peace (London, 1617), 180Google Scholar. Eirenarcha was first published in 1581.

45 Hawarde, J., Les reportes del cases in camera stellata, 1593, 1609, Baildon, W. P., ed., (London, 1894), 104, 247Google Scholar; cf. Gardiner, , Reports of cases: 64.Google Scholar

46 Brewer, Gairdner and Brodie, , Letters and papers, v, 530.Google Scholar

47 PRO STAC 5/A2/34, 5/A14/10, 5/A29/20, 5/A29/24, 8/42/11, 8/223/7.

48 PRO STAC 2/26/138, 3/4/87, 5/A2/18, 5/A2/34, 5/A14/10, 5/A29/20, 8/32/10, 8/42/11; Brewer, Gairdner and Brodie, , Letters and Papers, x, 109–10.Google Scholar

49 PRO STAC 5/A2/34, 5/A14/10.

50 PRO STAC 5/A14/10.

51 Walter, ‘Grain riots and popular attitudes to the law:’ esp. 72; Hudson, and Tingey, , Records of Norwich, ii, 164.Google Scholar

52 For two contrasting views of disturbances of different types, see James, M. E.,‘Obedience and dissent in Henrician England: the Lincolnshire rebellion 1536’, Past and Present xlviii (1970), 3–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sharp, , In contempt of all authority: 126–7, 133.Google Scholar

53 PRO STAC 5/A29/20, answers of Erne Baite; my italics.