The construction of honour, reputation and status in late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century England

Transactions of the Royal Historical Society

Volumn 6, Issue , 1996, Pages 201-213

  Dabhoiwala, Faramerz ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 12944263431     PISSN: 00804401     EISSN: 14740648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3679236     Document Type: Review

References (92)

1. See e. g. Mervyn James, English Politics and the Concept of Honour 1485-1642, Past and Present Supplements, III (1978);
2. J. A. Sharpe, Defamation and Sexual Slander in Early Modern England: The Church Courts at York, Borthwick Papers, LVIII (York, [1980]);
3. Donna Andrew, 'The Code of Honour and its Critics: The Opposition to Duelling in England 1700-1850', Social History, V (1980), 409-34;
4. Jonathan Powis, Aristocracy (Oxford, 1984), ch. 1;
5. Anna Clare Bryson, 'Concepts of Civility in England, c. 1560-1685' (D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1984);
6. Fenela Ann Childs, 'Prescriptions for Manners in English Courtesy Literature, 1690-1760, and their Social Implications' (D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1984);
7. A. J. Fletcher, 'Honour, Reputation and Local Officeholding in Elizabethan and Stuart England', in Order and Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (Cambridge, 1985), 92-115;
8. Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570-1640 (Cambridge, 1987), esp. ch. 10;
9. V. G. Kiernan, The Duel in European History: Honour and the Reign of Aristocracy (Oxford, 1988), esp. chs. 4-10.
10. A useful bibliography of relevant literature in European languages is Annemieke Keunen, 'Bibliografie "Eer en belediging"', Volkskundig Bulletin, XVIII (1992), 432-4 0.
11. In addition to the works of Sharpe, Bryson, Childs and Ingram cited in the previous footnote, see e. g. Susan Dwyer Amussen, An Ordered Society: Gender and Class in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1988), ch. 4;
12. Anna Clark, 'Whores and Gossips: Sexual Reputation in London 1770-1825', in Current Issues in Women's History, ed. Arina Angerman et al. (1989), 231-48;
13. Laura Gowing, 'Women, Sex and Honour: The London Church Courts, 1572-1640' (Ph. D. thesis, University of London, 1993);
14. idem, 'Gender and the Language of Insult in Early Modern London', History Workshop Journal, no. 35 (1993), 1-21;
15. idem, 'Language, Power and the Law: Women's Slander Litigation in Early Modern London', in Women, Crime and the Courts in Early Modern England, ed. Jenny Kermode and Garthine Walker (1994), 26-47;
16. Tim Meldrum, 'A Women's Court in London: Defamation at the Bishop of London's Consistory Court, 1700-1745', London Journal, XIX (1994), 1-20.
17. Amongst the growing body of 'historicist' work on the literature of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that also addresses this issue, see notably Michael McKeon, The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740 (Baltimore, 1987), esp. 150-9, 255-65, 364-400;
18. Clare Brant, 'Speaking of Women: Scandal and the Law in the Mid-Eighteenth Century', in Women, Texts and Histories 1575-1760, ed. Clare Brant and Diane Purkiss (1992), 242-70.
19. For other patterns of thought that impinged upon notions of sexual honour, see Faramerz Dabhoiwala, 'Prostitution and Police in London, c. 1660- c. 1760' (D. Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1995), ch. 2.
20. The Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Robert Latham and William Matthews (II vols. , 1970-83).
21. hereafter Pepys, Diary, IV. 343, 357; V. 65, 269; VII. 329; VIII. 115;
22. cf Boswell's London Journal 1762-1763, ed. Frederick A. Pottle (New York, 1950), 59-60;
23. Bryson, 'Concepts of Civility', 364-5;
24. Jeremy Boulton, Neighbourhood and Society: A London Suburb in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 1987), 148-9;
25. Robert B. Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, c. 1660-1725 (Cambridge, 1991), 101.
26. See e. g. Pepys, Diary, II. 119; V. 30, 41, 263, 330; VII. 53, 173-4; VIII. 124, 307, 442.
27. Ingram, Church Courts, 297-8, 302-3;
28. Amussen, Ordered Society, 102, 104;
29. Craig Muldrew, 'Interpreting the Market: The Ethics of Credit and Community Relations in Early Modern England', Social History, XVIII (1993), 163-83, here esp. 179-81.
30. 2], s. v. 'character', ¶13; Corporation of London Record Office, GJR/M1, 1 June, 3 June (1752); GJR/M2, 16 Oct. , 3 May, 6 May (1761); GJR/M3, 10 May, 11 May (1762).
31. For typically subtle and illuminating juggling of these concepts, from one particularly influential perspective, see The Tatler, ed. Donald F. Bond (3 vols. , Oxford, 1987), e. g. I. 342-7 (no. 48, 30 July 1709), 531 (no. 78, 8 Oct. 1709); II. 73-7 (no. 92, 10 Nov. 1709), 140-4 (no. 105, 10 Dec. 1709);
32. The Spectator, ed. Donald F. Bond (5 vols. , Oxford, 1965), III. 463-6 (no. 390, 28 May 1712).
33. Cf. Spectator, I. 416-19 (no. 99, 23 June 1711).
34. Pepys, Diary, VIII. 120 (my emphasis);
35. [John Dunton], The Night-Walker: Or, Evening Rambles in Search after Lewd Women, with the Conferences Held with them, &c. To be Publish'd Monthly, 'till a Discovery be Made of all the Chief Prostitutes in England, from the Pensionary Miss, down to the Common Strumpet, 2 vols. of 4 issues each (1696-7).
36. hereafter Night-Walker, vol. /issue], vol. I, issue 1, sig. [A4r].
37. the nature of this source is elucidated in Dabhoiwala, 'Prostitution and Police', appendix B).
38. Cf. The Life and Errors of John Dunton Late Citizen of London; Written by Himself in Solitude (1705), 371, 393, 398;
39. and for the notion that the unchastity of a man was- as John Milton put it- 'much more deflowering and dishonourable' than that of a woman, see Edward Le Comte, Milton and Sex (New York, 1978), 18.
40. Jeremy Collier, 'Of Whoredom', in idem, Essays upon Several Moral Subjects (3 parts, 1705), III. 113-55, quotations from III. 121, 123, 134.
41. Cf. [Richard Allestree], The Whole Duty of Man, Laid Down in a Plain and Familiar Way for the Use of All, but especially the Meanest Reader (1658), in [idem], The Works of the Learned and Pious Author of the Whole Duty of Man (2 vols. , Oxford, 1684), I. 121;
42. Tatler, I. 400-3 (no. 58, 23 Aug. 1709);
43. Keith Thomas, 'The Double Standard', Journal of the History of Ideas, XX (1959), 195-216, here 203-5;
44. Andrew, 'Code of Honour and its Critics', 416-17.
45. Joan Kent, 'Attitudes of Members of the House of Commons to the Regulation of "Personal Conduct" in Late Elizabethan and Early Stuart England', Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, XLVI (1973), 41-71;
46. Keith Edwin Wrightson, 'The Puritan Reformation of Manners, with Special Reference to the Counties of Lancashire and Essex, 1640-1660' (Ph. D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1974);
47. Keith Thomas, 'The Puritans and Adultery: The Act of 1650 Reconsidered', in Puritans and Revolutionaries: Essays in Seventeenth-Century History Presented to Christopher Hill, ed. Donald Pennington and Keith Thomas (Oxford, 1978), 257-82;
48. Martin Ingram, 'Reformation of Manners in Early Modern England', in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steven Hindle (forthcoming, 1996).
49. Thomas Bray to James Blair, 3 Apr. 1700, University of Maryland Archives, Thomas Bray Collection, Case 10, fos. 220r-2r. For further illustration of how libertine and 'reasoned' assumptions about sexual conduct infiltrated clerical circles towards the end of the seventeenth and over the first half of the eighteenth centuries, cf. 'A Young Clergyman' [i. e. Daniel Maclauchlan], An Essay upon Improving and Adding to the Strength of Great-Britain and Ireland, by Fornication; Justifying the Same from Scripture and Reason (1735),
50. whose authorship and context is elucidated by Norah Smith, 'Sexual Mores and Attitudes in Enlightenment Scotland', in Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century Britain, ed. Paul-Gabriel Boucé (Manchester, 1982), 47-73, here 61, 71-2 n. 68.
51. See e. g. Journaal van Constantijn Huygens, den zoon, van 21 October 1688 tot 2 Sept. 1636, Werken van het Historisch Genootschap, new ser. , XXIII and XXV (Utrecht, 1876-7),
52. supplemented by F. Boersma, 'Het ongelukkige lot van een dagboekschrijver: Herwaardering voor Constantijn Huygens jr. , secretaris van Willem III', Groniek, no. 101 (1988), 29-53.
53. and references given there; David Hayton, 'Moral Reform and Country Politics in the Late Seventeenth-Century House of Commons', Past and Present, no. 128 (1990), 48-91, here 63, 90.
54. In fact, as Lawrence Stone has uncovered, he continued to engage in sexual intrigue: Uncertain Unions: Marriage in England 1660-1753 (Oxford, 1992), 57-8, 64-5.
55. Cf. , e. g. , Night-Walker, I/1,
56. sigs A2r-Br, and An Account of the Societies for Reformation of Manners in London and Westminster, and other Parts of the Kingdom (1699), 93-7,
57. with Spectator, II. 216-19 (no. 182, 28 Sept. 1711); IV. 370-71 (no. 525, 1 Nov. 1712), 382-4 (no. 528, 5 Nov. 1712).
58. For the continued association between sexual debauchery and male 'honour' at the middle of the eighteenth century, see e. g. Denison Cumberland, A Sermon Preached before . . . The Magdalen-House Charity, on Thursday the 5th of April, 1764 (1764), 15.
59. [Allestree], Whole Duty, I. 87;
60. See e. g. [Richard Allestree], The Ladies Calling (1673), in [idem], Works, II. 10;
61. Richard Baxter, A Christian Directory: Or, a Summ of Practical Theologie, and Cases of Conscience (2 parts, 1673), I. 402-3;
62. Night-Walker, I/1, pp. 13, 16; I/2, pp. 1, 10-13, 25-6; I/4, pp. 3, 12, 23; II/2, sig. [A4v];
63. 'Andrew Moreton' [i. e. Daniel Defoe], Every-Body's Business, is No-Body's Business; or Private Abuses, Publick Grievances: Exemplified in the Pride, Insolence, and Exorbitant Wages of our Women-Servants, Footmen, &c. (1725), 17-18;
64. Saunders Welch, A Proposal to Render Effectual a Plan to Remove the Nuisance of Common Prostitutes from the Streets of this Metropolis (1758), 4-5.
65. For a typical example of the complex of social, economic and moral factors that could be adduced at law in estimation of a woman's 'credit', see Public Record Office, London, KB 9/919, certiorari 5 (Trinity 1671), which encapsulates proceedings in both ecclesiastical and secular courts. Parallel findings emerge from research by Dinah Winch into slander litigation in later seventeenth-century Sussex and Cheshire; I am most grateful to her for allowing me to read some of her work in progress.
66. The centrality of sexual conduct to acceptable female behaviour was a commonplace of defamation cases brought by women at the church courts; but to a large degree this was simply because most other types of slander were actionable only in secular courts, notably at Quarter Sessions. Although the nature of sessions records makes it very difficult to recover the wording or even to quantify the incidence of non-sexual slanders, about 7 per cent of all recognisances returned to Quarter Sessions in Middlesex and Westminster between 1660 and 1725 were issued explicitly for defamation- a total of well over a hundred cases a year, many more than were brought before the equivalent ecclesiastical court. In addition, the sessions dealt with a huge number of cases of assault involving women, many of which undoubtedly involved verbal abuse. Unfortunately, however, recognisances seldom record the precise form of words in either type of case. For figures, see Shoemaker, Prosecution and Punishment, 50 (Table 3. 3), 316 n. 16;
67. Meldrum, 'A Woman's Court in London.
68. For examples, see Greater London Record Office, WJ/SR/1602, recognisance 85 (Oct. 1681).
69. WJ/SR/2632, recognisance 189 (Apr. 1735); MJ/SR/2016, recognisances 105, 109 (Sept. 1703)
70. and MJ/SR/2409, recognisance 251 (Aug. 1723), whose slander combined sexual and non-sexual slurs: '"bitch, whore, common whore, cheating all people in ye weight of her butter", with other vile and opprobrious language'- how typical this was is now impossible to ascertain.
71. See e. g. Pepys, Diary, I. 48; II. 179; III. 32; IV. 341; VIII. 71, 212.
72. [Allestree], Ladies Calling, II. 1.
73. Peter Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance: Culture and Society in the Provincial Town, 1660-1760 (Oxford, 1989), 226-7, 237-41; and above, n. 4.
74. See e. g. Pepys, Diary, IV. 181 and n. 3; VIII. 423; IX. 220;
75. Lodewijk van der Saan, 'Verscheyde Concepten en Invallen, Aengaende mijne Verbeeteringe te Soecken', Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden, MS BPL 1325, fo. 42v (c. 1696).
76. [Daniel Defoe], Some Considerations upon Street-Walkers. With a Proposal for Lessening the Present Number of them [1726], 4.
77. By mid-century, it had become something of a moralist commonplace that honest women aped the fashions of prostitutes: see e. g. Henry Fielding, The Covent-Garden Journal and A Plan of the Universal Register-Office, ed. Bertrand A. Goldgar (Oxford, 1988), 312;
78. Reflections Arising from the Immorality of the Present Age: In which some Self-Evident Facts are Pointed at, which Seem to Call for a more Immediate Redress, than any other Article in our Policy (1756), 52-8;
79. John Conder, A Sermon Preached before the Society for the Reformation of Manners (1763), 27.
80. For the last two incidents, see Pepys, Diary, III. 68; VIII. 331.
81. Memoirs of the Life of Barbara, Dutchess of Cleveland, Divorc'd Wife of Handsome Fielding (1709), 2 (my emphasis).
82. and cf. , for later decades, Clark, 'Whores and Gossips'.
83. Night-Walker, II/4, sig. [A4r];
84. Tatler, I. 346-7 (no. 48, 30 July 1709).
85. Cf. A Congratulatory Epistle from a Reformed Rake, to John F- g, Esq; upon the New Scheme of Reclaiming Prostitutes [1758], 11-12.
86. 2: first recorded usage 1749. Derivations such as 'demi-reputable', 'demi-reputation', 'demi-monde' and the like are all nineteenth-century coinages. Cf. also Fielding, Covent-Garden Journal, 312.
87. [Jonas Hanway], A Plan for Establishing a Charity-House, or Charity-Houses, for the Reception of Repenting Prostitutes. To be Called the Magdalen Charity (1758), 16 (italics in original).
88. for an introduction to the more general historiography of this topic see e. g. John Brewer, 'This, That and the Other: Public, Social and Private in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries', in Shifting the Boundaries: Transformation of the Languages of Public and Private in the Eighteenth Century, ed. Dario Castiglione and Lesley Sharpe (Exeter, 1995), 1-21.
89. See e. g. Martin Ingram, 'Ridings, Rough Music and the "Reform of Popular Culture" in Early Modern England', Past and Present, no. 105 (1984), 79-113;
90. Adam Fox, 'Ballads, Libels and Popular Ridicule in Jacobean England', Past and Present, no. 145 (1994), 47-83;
91. Richard Cust, 'Honour and Officeholding in Early Stuart England: The Case of Beaumont v. Hastings', Past and Present, no. 149 (1994), 57-94;
92. Felicity Heal, 'Reputation and Honour in Court and Country: Lady Elizabeth Russell and Sir Thomas Hoby', in this volume.