Adam Fox

The experience of authority in early modern England

Preface - List of Figures - List of Maps - The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England K. Wrightson - Reformation of Manners in Early Modern England M. Ingram - Custom, Memory and the Authority of Writing A. Fox - Separate Domains: Women and Authority in Early Modern England B. Capp - Masterless Young People in Norwich, 1560-1645 P. Griffiths - Disruption in the Well-Ordered Household: Age, Authority and Possessed Young People J.A. Sharpe - The Keeping of the Public Peace S. Hindle - Custom, Identity and Resistance: English Free Miners and Their Law, c. 1550-1800 A. Wood - Employment and Authority: Masters and Men in Eighteenth Century Manufacturing J. Rule - Notes on Contributors - Index

Rumour, news and popular political opinion in Elizabethan and early Stuart England

This essay explores the circulation of rumour and news among those at the lower levels of society in late sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. It does so through an analysis of the court records in which people were indicted for spreading false reports or speaking seditious words and which are now preserved in assize files or amid the state papers. These sources reveal the networks of communication by which information was disseminated nationwide and shed light upon the relationship between oral, manuscript and printed media. They show how wild stories could be whipped up in the act of transmission and were fuelled by the political insecurities of this period. At the same time a more sophisticated awareness of current affairs is evident in some illicit conversations which suggest that even humble people were participating in the arguments which anticipated the Civil War.

Rethinking social history : English society 1570-1920 and its interpretation

A critical portrait of social history, Adrian Wilson the enclosure of English social history, Keith Wrightson living on the stage of the world - the concept of privacy among the elite of early modern England, Linda Pollock from Colyton to Waterloo - mortality, politics and economics in historical demography, John Landers a social history of plausibility - country, city and calculation in Augustan Britain, Simon Schaffer towards a post-Marxist social history - Thompson, Clark and beyond, Patrick Curry the crime wave - recent writing on crime and criminal justice in 18th century England, Joanna Innes and John Styles rough usage - prostitution, law and the social historian, Philippa Levine foundations of an integrated historiography, Adrian wilson.

The local origins of modern society : Gloucestershire 1500-1800

Through a series of sharply focused studies spanning three centuries, David Rollison explores the rise of capitalist manufacturing in the English countryside and the revolution in consciousness that accompanied it. Combining the empiricism of English historiography with the rationalism of Annales, and drawing on ideas from a wide range of disciplines, he argues that the explosive implications of the rise of rural industry created new social formations and altered the communal, cultural and social contexts of peoples lives. Using localized case studies of families and individuals the book starts with significant detail and moves out to build up a subtle and innovative view of English cultural identities in the early modern period.

Remembering the Past in Early Modern England: Oral and Written Tradition.

For students of the interaction between oral and written forms of communication the early modern period provides an important case study. England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was far from being an oral society; and yet it was not a completely literate one either. On the one hand, old vernacular traditions had long been infused and supplemented, or corrupted and destroyed, by the written word; on die other hand, only a certain part of the population could read and write or ever relied on the products of literacy. Indeed, as Keidi Thomas has suggested, ‘it is the interaction between contrasting forms of culture, literate and illiterate, oral and written, which gives this period its particular fascination’.

PRINTED QUESTIONNAIRES, RESEARCH NETWORKS, AND THE DISCOVERY OF THE BRITISH ISLES, 1650–1800

This article examines the circulation of printed questionnaires as a research strategy among those investigating the constituent parts of the British Isles between the mid-seventeenth and late eighteenth centuries. It traces the origins and development of published ‘heads’ or ‘articles of enquiry’ as a means of acquiring information on antiquities, geography, and natural history and pieces together the research networks through which this methodology was shared and elaborated. The learned societies, ecclesiastical infrastructure, and periodical publications of the day are shown to have been instrumental in promoting this practice and in forging links between scholars and the ‘learned and ingenious’ in the parishes to whom such ‘queries’ were addressed. It is argued that these questionnaires were an important and insufficiently appreciated aspect of regional studies during the period. Though the responses to them are shown to have been highly variable, both in quantity and quality, it is suggested that they helped to establish what has become an important technique of data collection in modern academic inquiry.

Sir William Petty, Ireland, and the Making of a Political Economist, 1653-87

This paper offers a reassessment of the origins and derivation of many of Sir William Pettys economic ideas, based on an analysis of his unpublished papers. Pettys archive makes clear what a large part Ireland played in his writings, and it is suggested that this preoccupation is essential to an appreciation of him as an economist. It also demonstrates the point that Petty was not principally a theorist but rather a practical political economist whose schemes for the enrichment of the kings dominions were inspired by the underdevelopment which he experienced at first hand in Ireland.

Custom, Memory and the Authority of Writing

Writing is a source of power: it is both a symbol and an agent of authority. As a technology of communication, it has the ability to revolutionise the transmission of information; as a means to objectify ideas, it has the capacity to transform mental process; and as an act of record, it has the potential to assume iconic significance.

Jockey and Jenny: English Broadside Ballads and the Invention of Scottishness

abstract: This essay examines the images of Scots portrayed in English broadside ballads of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. On the one hand, ballads on political themes most often portrayed the “blue caps” of Scotland as traitors and rebels. On the other hand, the wooing ballads of the period promoted an idealized “north country” as backdrop to the amorous adventures of “Jockey” and “Jenny.” Adam Fox argues that the “Scotch” tunes composed for songbooks, plays, and broadsides in London during the late seventeenth century came to be adopted by the popular press in Scotland as it developed over the following generations. As a result, melodies of English provenance were naturalized north of the border and entered the repertoire of “Caledonian airs” that were to become such a defining feature of Scottish culture in the Georgian age.

Vernacular Culture and Popular Customs in Early Modern England: Evidence from Thomas Machell's Westmorland

ABSTRACT This article is based on an examination of the manuscript collections made by the clergyman-antiquary Thomas Machell (1647–98) from Westmorland. It argues that the six volumes of Machells notebooks have been largely overlooked as a valuable source for the social life and popular culture of the north-west of England in the late seventeenth century. Analysis of Machells writings, however, reveals him to be an original and sympathetic recorder of the beliefs and prejudices, customs and practices, of his neighbours. It is suggested that he shares much in common with John Aubrey as an important, and sometimes unique, commentator on vernacular traditions, childrens games and calendar rituals.