Women in English Society 1500-1800

256 Pages·2005·9.017 MB·English

by  MARY PRIOR

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Women in English Society 1500–1800
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Women in English Society 1500–
1800
Edited by
MARY PRIOR
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nl London and New York
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First published in 1985 by Methuen & Co. Ltd Reprinted 1986
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005.
“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis
or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to
http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.”
The collection © 1985 Routledge
Individual chapters © 1985 the authors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or
by any electronic, mecha or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission
7 in writing from the publis
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2 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
y Women in English society 1500–1800. 1. Women—Great Britain—Social conditions I. Prior,
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u Mary 305.4(cid:2)20941 HQ1593
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0 Library of Congress Cataloguing in Publication Data
9 Main entry under title:
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: Women in English society, 1500–1800 Bibliography: p. Includes index. Contents: Marital
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0 fertility and lactation, 1570–1720/Dorot —The remarrying widow/Barbara J.Todd—Women and
at the economy/Mary Prior—[etc.] 1. Women—England—History—16th century—Addresses,
] lectures. 2. Women—England—History—17th century—Ac essays, lectures. 3. Women—
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ri England—History—18th century Addresses, essays, lectures. I. Prior, Mary. HQ1599.E5W64
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t 1985 305.4(cid:2)0942 84–20547
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f ISBN 0-203-98534-6 Master e-book ISBN
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v ISBN 0-415-07901-2 (Print Edition)
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Contents
List of plates vi
List of contributors viii
Acknowledgements ix
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1 List of abbreviations xi
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y Preface xiii
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4 Foreword xiv
0 Joan Thirsk
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at 1 Marital fertility and lactation 1570–1720 1
a] Dorothy McLaren
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or 2 The remarrying widow: a stereotype reconsidered 25
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c Barbara J.Todd
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3 Women and the urban economy: Oxford 1500–1800 53
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o Mary Prior
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t 4 Reviled and crucified marriages: the position of Tudor bishops’ wives 89
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rs Mary Prior
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v 5 Recusant women 1560–1640 112
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U Marie B.Rowlands
y [ 6 Stuart women’s diaries and occasional memoirs 136
b Sara Heller Mendelson
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e 7 Women’s published writings 1600–1700 158
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a Patricia Crawford
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o Index 210
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Plates
(between pages 112 and 113)

1 The Accomplish’t Ladys Delight by Hannah Wolley, 1675, showing
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1 women making medicines, preserving, beautifying themselves and
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2 cooking
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4 J 2 ‘The house of rest’ from P.Gringore, Castell of Labore, English edn,
0 Wynken de Worde, 1510?, plate recut
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7: 3 Haymaking, from The Roxburghe Ballads
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a] 4 The wet-nurse and her charge: frontispiece to Children’s Diseases,
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or Both Outward and Inward by J.S.[J.Starsmare], 1664
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f 5 Portrait of Lady Mary Verney by Van Dyck
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it 6 Trade card of a silkman who had married and taken over his wife’s
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e business
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7 Brass rubbing of Dame Joan Bradshawe and her husbands, 1598:
y [ Noke, Oxfordshire
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w 9 Portrait of Mrs Bridgman (later Mrs Mathew), sister of the founder of
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10 Machine-cut by Mrs Harrington, 1760

11 Mary Ward learns of the religious life at the house of her cousins

12 Tomb of Bishop Bentham in the parish church at Eccleshall, Staffs,

showing the bishop and family at prayer
13 Tomb of Archbishop Sandys in Southwell Minster, Notts, showing

Mrs Sandys and family at prayer

14 Tomb of Bishop Hough, Worcester Cathedral

15 Mary Ward praying for the conversion of England, Christmas 1626

16 A page from the diary of Sarah Savage, written on the day of her

wedding
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0 17 Memorial portrait of Sir Thomas Aston, his wife and son, by John
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y Souch of Chester
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0 18 Self-portrait of Lady Anne Killigrew, the frontispiece to her Poems,
9 1686
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t 19 Title page of The Restitution of Prophecy: that Buried Talent to be
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] revived, by the Lady Eleanor Douglas, 1651
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ct 20 ‘The London Quaker’
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Contributors
PATRICIA CRAWFORD is a lecturer in History, University of Western Australia. Her
publications include Denzil Holles 1598–1680 (Whitfield Prize, 1980), ‘Attitudes to
Menstruation in Seventeenth-century England’ (Past and Present, May 1981). In 1983
she edited Exploring Women’s Past: Essays in Social History (Sisters Publishing Ltd,
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1 Carlton South, Victoria 3053, Australia; reprinted by Allen & Unwin, 1985). Her
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2 chapter, ‘From the Woman’s View: Pre-Industrial England, 1500–1750’, provides a
y useful overview of the period as background in a book mainly concerned with women
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u in Australian history.
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4 DOROTHY McLAREN teaches local history part-time for the Bristol University Extra-
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9 Mural Department. She has explored aspects of lactation and fertility in a series of
5 papers in Medical History.
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0 SARA HELLER MENDELSON was until recently a postgraduate student at Wolfson
at College, Oxford, and now lives in Hamilton, Ontario. She has written ‘The Weightiest
] Business: Marriage in an Upper Gentry Family in Seventeenth-Century England’
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r (Past and Present, November 1979). She has a book on Aphra Behn, Mary Rich,
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ct Countess of Warwick and Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, forthcoming.
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V MARY PRIOR teaches local history and women in history part-time for the Oxford
f University Department of External Studies, and is the author of Fisher Row: Oxford
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y Fishermen, Bargemen and Canal Boatmen 1500–1900.
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si MARIE B.ROWLANDS is Principal Lecturer in History, Newman College,
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e Birmingham. Her publications include Masters and Men in the West Midland
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ni Metalware Trades before the Industrial Revolution, and articles in Recusant History.
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She edited the Catholic Registers of Staffordshire for the Staffordshire Parish Register
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y Society.
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d JOAN THIRSK has just retired from a readership in Economic History at Oxford. She is
e an honorary fellow of St Hilda’s College, and general editor of The Agricultural
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a History of England and Wales. Her numerous publications include her 1975 Ford
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nl Lectures, Economic Policy and Projects: the Development of a Consumer Society in
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Early Modern England.
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D BARBARA J.TODD teaches history in the Simon Fraser University Women’s Studies
Program.
Acknowledgements
PATRICIA CRAWFORD
I wish to acknowledge the financial assistance of the University of Western Australia and
the Australian Research Grants Scheme. Many people have helped me in a number of
libraries, especially Malcolm Thomas at the Friends’ Library and Mike Crump at the
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1 British Library. Richard Bell carried out the computer analysis. Among the many friends
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2 who have read and commented upon this chapter, I am especially grateful to Mary Prior,
y Sara Mendelson and Carolyn Polizzotto.
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4 DOROTHY MCLAREN
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9 I am indebted to the SSRC and the Wellcome Trust for grants towards the original family
5 reconstitution of Minehead; to Jane Evans, Division of Genetics, University of Manitoba,
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0 Winnipeg, for help and advice, especially with statistical analysis; to Mary Siraut,
at assistant editor of the Victoria County History of Somerset, for many references,
a] especially to the Trevelyan and Willoughby families; to Valerie Fildes at the Wellcome
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r Institute for the History of Medicine; to the staff of the Somerset Record Office,
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ct especially Steve Hobbs; and to the staff of the Gloucestershire and Hertfordshire Record
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V Offices. Any errors of interpretation from the statistics and references are entirely my
of own. The editor of Medical History gave permission to reprint figures for Caversham,
y Mapledurham and Chesham, for which I am grateful.
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e SARA HELLER MENDELSON
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ni I would like to thank Patricia Crawford, Alan Mendelson, Mary Prior and Keith Thomas
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for helpful comments on previous drafts of this article, and Michael MacDonald for his
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y generosity in sharing sources.
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de MARY PRIOR
oa Chapter 3: My thanks are due to Patricia Crawford, Barbara Todd, Sara Mendelson,
nl Miranda Chaytor, Joan Thirsk and Mavis Oddie for their comments and encouragement.
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Chapter 4: My thanks are due to the Oxford University Women’s Studies Committee
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D which, through one of their Small Grants, enabled me to make initial soundings. Felicity
Heal, Tony Kenny, Sara Mendelson and Joan Thirsk made helpful comments; and Janet
Cooper photographed monuments to bishops’ wives.
BARBARA J.TODD
I would like to thank St Hilda’s College, Oxford for a grant from the Elizabeth Levett
Memorial Fund.
The editor and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to
reproduce illustrations in the plates section:
The Curators of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for plates 1, 2, 4, 6 (John Johnson Coll.,
Trade Cards VIII, Haberdashers), 9 (Manning 4°40), 19 and 20 (J.J.Coll., Trades I, Cries
of London, ser. I, 27); The Mary Evans Picture Library for plate 3; The Oxford
University Archaeological Society for plate 7; The President, St John’s College, Oxford,
for plate 9; The Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Augsburg, West Germany, for
plates 11 and 15; Chester City Record Office for plate 16; The City Art Gallery,
Manchester, for plate 17; and the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand,
for plate 18. Plate 5 appears by kind permission of Sir Ralph Verney, Bt; photograph:
Courtauld Institute of Art. Plate 8 appears by courtesy of the Earl of Shelburne.
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