Daily Life in Early Modern Society

| Discussion topics | Documents | Reading |

Discussion topics and Essay questions

a) Rural society
· Were the changes in agrarian society in this period to the advantage of landowners or of peasants?
· Were social relations in the countryside characterised by conflict or co-operation?
· In which ways did peasants 'matter' in early modern Europe?

b) Urban society
· How were early modern towns governed?
· Why did some towns flourish in this period while others stagnated?
· In which ways was 'urban life' fundamentally different from 'rural life' in this period?

c) Material Culture
· To what extent was early modern Europe a 'consumer society'?
· How did the material culture of social groups differ?

Documents

**NOTE: Some eresources are accessible only on-campus or via off-campus proxies or the athens service**

Rural Society

·Pieter Aertsen, Peasants by the Hearth (1560s)
·David Kellners, Berg und Saltz wercks Buch (1702)
·Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Wedding (c.1568)
·Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Peasant Dance (1568)
· Map of the scale of the Peasants' War (1525)

Urban Society

·Pieter Aertsen, Market Scene I
·Pieter Aertsen, Market Scene II (c.1550)
·Albrecht Dürer, The Wire-drawing Mill (c. 1489)
·Albrecht Dürer, Willow Mill (c.1496-98)
·Basle map
·'Historic Cities': digital maps (e.g. Amsterdam) and documents

Material Culture

·Men and women's work clothing
·Minature religious triptych (1726-50)
·Artificial hand (16th century)
·Portrait bust of Philibert of Savoy (1501)
·16th century Welsh mug
·Verge watch (1718-1750)

Secondary literature:

a) Rural Society

W. Abel, Agricultural Fluctuations in Europe (1980), esp. part II
T. Aston & C. Philpen (eds), The Brenner Debate: Agrarian class structure and economic development in pre-industrial Europe (1986)
R. Blickle, ‘From subsistence to property’, Central European History 25 (1992)
M. Bush, ‘Tenant right and the peasantries of Europe under the old regime’, in his Social Orders and Social Classes in Europe since 1500 (1992)
“ (ed.), Serfdom and Slavery (1996), esp. chs 13, 15
D. Cressy, Birth, marriage, and death: ritual, religion, and the life-cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (1999)
W. Hagen, Ordinary Prussians: Brandenburg junkers and villagers, 1500-1840 (2002)
T. Harris, The politics of the excluded, c. 1500-1850 (2001)
C. Jones, ‘Vital signs in rural France’ in his: Great Nation (2002)
H. Kamen, ‘Social and Economic Consequences of the Thirty Years War’, P&P (1968)
“ , European Society, chaps. 4, 6
P. Kriedte, Peasants, Landlords & Merchant Capitalists 1500-1800 (1983)
T. Robisheaux, ‘Peasant unrest and the moral economy in the German southwest 1560-1620’, ARG 78 (1987)
W. Rösener, Peasants in the Middle Ages (1992)
A. Rowlands, ‘Conditions of Life for the Masses’, in Cameron (ed.), Early Modern Europe (1999)
T. Ruiz, Spanish Society 1400-1600 (2001)
T. Scott, ‘Peasant revolts in early modern Germany’, HJ 28 (1985)
“ (ed.), The Peasantries of Europe (1998)
L. Vardi, ‘Imagining the harvest in early modern Europe’, AHR 101 (1996)
P. Withington, Society in Early Modern England (2010)

b) Urban Society

W. Beik, Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France: The Culture of Retribution (1997)
P. Benedict, 'Faith, fortune and social structure in 17thC Montpellier', P&P 152 (1996)
P. Benedict (ed.), Cities and Social Change in Early Modern France (1989)
P. Clark & P. Slack (eds), Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700 (1972)
P. Clark & P. Slack, English Towns in Transition 1500-1700 (1976)
A. Cowan, ‘Urban Elites in Early Modern Europe: An Endangered Species?’, BIHR 64 (1991)
“ , Urban Europe, 1500-1700 (1998)
“ (ed.), Mediterranean Urban Culture, 1400-1700 (2000)
A. Cunningham & O. Grell (eds.), Health care and poor relief in Protestant Europe, 1500-1700 (1997)
J. Ellis, ‘A steady state? Urban society in early modern Europe’, Journal of Urban History 24 (1998) SLC
J. De Vries, European Urbanization, 1500-1800 (1984)
“ ; A. Grafton,‘Renaissance cities’, Renaissance Quarterly 42 (1989)
R. Finlay, ‘Debate: Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities’, P&P 92 (1981)
C.R. Friedrichs, The Early Modern City, 1450-1750 (1995)
“ , Urban Politics in Early Modern Europe (2000)
M. Hunt, The middling sort:commerce, gender, and the family in England, 1680-1780 (1996)
K. Lynch, Individuals, Families, and Communities in Europe: The Urban Foundations of W. Europe (2003)
R. Mackenney, The City-State, 1500-1700: Republican Liberty in an Age of Princely Power (1989)
D. Nicholas, Urban Europe 1100-1700 (2003)
A. Sharlin, ‘Natural Decrease in Early Modern Cities: A Reconsideration’, P&P 79 (1978)
E.A. Wrigley, ‘Urban growth in early modern Europe’, Scottish Economic and Social History 12 (1992) SLC

c) Material Culture

S.A.M. Adshead, Material Culture in Europe and China, 1400-1800 (1997)
M. Ajmar-Wollheim & F. Dennis (eds), At Home in Renaissance Italy (2006)
M. Berg & H. Clifford (eds), Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe, 1650-1850 (1999)
F. Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 (1974)
N. Cooper, ‘Rank, Manners and Display: The Gentlemanly House, 1500-1750’ TRHS, 12 (2002), 291-310
J. E. Crowley, ‘The Sensibility of Comfort’, AHR, 104 (1999), 749-82
J. De Vries, The Industrious Revolution: Consumer Behavior and the Household Economy, 1650 to the Present (2008)
N. Harte, ‘The Economics of Clothing in the Late Seventeenth Century’, Textile History, 12 (1991), 277-96
B. Lemire & G. Riello, ‘East and West: Textiles and Fashion in Eurasia in the Early Modern Period’, Journal of Social History, 41 (2008), 887-916
L. Levy Peck, Consuming Splendor: Society and Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (2005)
K. MacHardy, 'Noble identity in early modern Habsburg Austria', P&P 163 (1999)
N. McKendrick, J. Brewer & J. H. Plumb, The Birth of a Consumer Society: the Commercialisation of Eighteenth Century England (1982)
K. B. Neuschel, ‘Noble Households in the Sixteenth Century: Material Settings and Human Communities’, French Historical Studies, 15 (1988)
D. Roche, A History of Everyday Things: The Birth of Consumption in France, 1600-1800 (2000)
R. Sarti, Europe at Home: Family and Material Culture, 1500-1800 (2002)
S. Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age (1987)
C. Shammas, ‘The Domestic Environment in Early Modern England and America’, Journal of Social History, 14 (1980), 3-24