The politics of address in early-modern England

Journal of Historical Sociology

Volumn 18, Issue 1-2, 2005, Pages 99-121

  Postles, Dave ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 19944417957     PISSN: 09521909     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6443.2005.00248.x     Document Type: Article

References (182)

1. E. R. Brinkworth, ed., The Archdeacon's Court. Liber Actorum, 1581 I (Oxfordshire Record Society xxiii, 1942), p. 12.
2. The approach here is stimulated by E. Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York, 1959);
3. Goffman, Behaviour in Public Places. Notes on the Social Organization of Gatherings (New York, 1963).
4. My apology for the influence of these sociological writings is below. My intention here is to examine empirical data about social interaction within their context. For that reason, I eschew the 'symbolic interactionism' of Mead and Blumer, but appreciate the relating of micro-sociology to macro-sociology presented in S. Stryker, Symbolic Interactionism. A Social Structural Version (Menlo Park, CA, 1980), that is inter-relating social interaction to social structure. On the other hand, there is much to be said for an approach which dissolves social structure and starts afresh from social relations, whether social network analysis or flgurational sociology.
5. For introductions to the former approach, J. Scott, Social Network Analysis. A Handbook (London, 1991) (sociology) and
6. P. Hage and F. Harary, Structural Models in Anthropology (Cambridge, 1983).
7. For flgurational sociology - predicated on social interdependence and group dynamic, S. Loyal and S. Quilley, eds, The Sociology of Norbert Elias (Cambridge, 2004).
8. From Goffman, I especially respect his notion of 'situational propriety' and the primary influence of the social process. Those who suspect Goffman of cynicism are referred again to A. Giddens, 'Erving Goffman as a systemic social theorist' in Giddens, Social Theory and Modern Sociology (Stanford, 1987), pp. 109-39,
9. a reference which I owe to W. I. Miller, Faking It (Cambridge, 2003), pp. 244-5, n. 9.
10. Throughout, I prefer self-presentation to the fashionable 'New Historicist' notion of self-fashioning, because I adhere to Goffman's (and Mead's) epistemology of the social process contributing to the formation and development of self. Without inferring any direct parallels or comparisons, my thinking has been much stimulated by S. J. Charlesworth, A Phenomenology of Working Class Experience (Cambridge, 2000).
11. also owe a great debt of gratitude to my Leicester colleague, Barbara Misztal, Informality. Social Theory and Contemporary Practice (London, 2000).
12. The context is discussed fully by H. King, 'Social status, localism and the middling sort of people in England, 1620-1750', Past and Present 166 (2000), pp. 66-99,
13. so the arguments are not recapitulated here; for the proposition of 'sorts' and 'degrees' of people, K. Wrightson, English Society 1580-1680 (revised edn, London, 2003), pp. 25-46 and
14. Wrightson, '"Sorts of people" in Tudor and Stuart England' in J. Barry and C. Brooks, eds, The Middling Sort of People. Culture, Society and Politics in England, 1550-1800 (Basingstoke, 1994), pp. 28-51.
15. For the language of sorts', for example, the charge to the constables for enforcing the Book of Orders in 1596 to sustain 'the poorer sort': V. Morgan, J. Key and B. Taylor, eds, The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey volume IV 1596-1602 (Norfolk Record Society lxiv, 2000), p. 10;
16. The names of such recusantes as be either married wives or of the meaner sorte whose estates wee finde to be meane & uncertayne' (1586): A. Hassell Smith and G. M. Baker, The Papers of Nathaniel Bacon of Stiffkey volume III 1586-1595 (Norfolk Record Society liii, 1987-8). p. 11;
17. The better sort of people beinge muche greived & offended that the ruder sorte would not be stayed nor by the magystrates restrayned ...' Norfolk Record Office NCR case 16 shelf c no. 5, fo. 279v. (assembly minute book, Norwich City Council, 1604); 'And that the poorer sorte of people and others may not be oppressed by an unequal proporcion ..." (Northampton assembly minutes about measures for the prevention of the dissemination of plague): Northamptonshire Record Office NBR 3/1, p. 599 (1605).
18. The implications of the excellent A. Wood, ' "Poore men woll speke one daye": plebeian languages of deference and defiance in England c.1520-1640' in T. Harris, ed., The Politics of the Excluded, c.1500-1850 (London, 2001), pp. 67-98, should, however, not be ignored.
19. S. Hindle, The political culture of the middling sort in English rural communities' in Harris, Politics of the Excluded, pp. 125-52.
20. The wider implications of naming are now beautifully conceptualized by A. Cohen, Self Consciousness. An Alternative Anthropology of Identity (London, 1994), pp. 71-9.
21. Tildesley, Penkridge Parish Registers, p. 144.
22. Tildesley, Penkridge Parish Registers, p. 132.
23. M. Pelling, 'Old age, poverty, and disability in early modern Norwich: work, remarriage, and other expedients' in Pelling and R. M. Smith, eds, Life, Death and the Elderly. Historical Perspectives (London, 1991), pp. 74-101;
24. A. Shepard, The Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003), pp. 214-45.
25. The most recent, and compelling, exposition of the experience of old age is S. Ottaway, The Decline of Life. Old Age in Eighteenth-century England (Cambridge, 2004).
26. Cambridge University Library Ely Diocesan Records D/2/2 fo, 25r.
27. The Registers of the Parish Church of Blackburn (Lanes. P. R. Soc. 41, 1911), p. 136.
28. Registers of the Parish Church of Blackburn, p. 186 (1630).
29. W. Preston and J. Rowe, eds, A Transcript of the Early Registers of the Parish of Guiseley (Bradford, 1913).
30. H. Brierley, ed., The Registers of the Parish Church of Chipping (Lanes. P. R. Soc. 14, 1903), p. 93.
31. W. Rowley, T. Dekker and J. Ford, The Witch of Edmonton ed. P. Corbin and D. Sedge (Manchester, 1999), pp. 38-49.
32. H. Brierley, ed., The Parish Registers of Garstang Church I (Lanes. P. R. Soc. 63, 1925), pp. 148-9, 153, 155-6, 160-5, 174-5, 177-8, 181, 183-4, 188-9, 193, 197-8, 202, 204.
33. Headlam, Parish Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, pp. 155-6, 161-2, 171-2, 174, 193, 208, 220, 228.
34. S. G. Doree, The Parish Registers and Tithing Book of Thomas Hassall of Amwell (Hertfordshire Record Society 5, 1989), p. 95.
35. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 92.
36. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 181.
37. Records of Maidstone (Maidstone, 1926), p. 66 - and he continued with other information.
38. E. H. Bates, ed., Quarter Sessions Records I (Somerset Record Society xxiii, 1907), p. 6 (63).
39. A. Sabin, ed., The Registers of the Church of St Augustine the Less, Bristol (Bristol & Glos. Archaeological Society Record Series III, 1956), p. 75 (1639).
40. G. P. Crawfurd, ed., The Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, Berkshire II (Reading, 1842), pp. 107-9 (1617-23).
41. W. C. Renshaw, ed., The Parish Registers of Cuckfield, Sussex, 1598-1699 (Sussex Record Society xiii, 1911), pp. 130-44.
42. Renshaw, Parish Registers of Cuckfield, pp. 135, 136, 139, 141.
43. H. D. Roberts, ed., The Parish Registers of Brighton, 1558-1701 (Cambridge, 1932), p. 183.
44. The Registers of Bishop Middleham (Durham & Northumberland Parish Registers Society 13, 1906), p. 144.
45. E. Axon, ed., The Registers of the Cathedral Church of Manchester (Lancs. P.R. Soc. 31, 1908), p. 321.
46. W. J. Stavert, ed., The Parish Registers of Skipton-in-Craven (Skipton, 1894-6), p. 33.
47. The Registers of the Parish Church of Blackburn, p. 174.
48. J. W. Penfold, The Parish Registers of Haslemere (Surrey Parish Record Society 8, 1910), p. 70.
49. Tamworth Parish Registers I (Staffs. P. R. Soc., 1917), pp. 42, 126.
50. Headlam, Parish Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, p. 34.
51. J. H. Bettey, ed., Calendar of the Correspondence of the Smyth Family of Ashton Court, 1548-1642 (Bristol Record Society 35, 1982), p. 56 (114)
52. W. L. Sachse, ed., Minutes of the Norwich Court of Mayoralty 1632-1635 (Norfolk Record Society xxxvi, 1967), p. 14.
53. Sachse, Minutes of the Norwich Court of Mayoralty, p. 28.
54. Sachse, Minutes of the Norwich Court of Mayoralty, p. 53.
55. J. Webb, ed., The Town Finances of Elizabethan Ipswich (Suffolk Record Society xxxviii, 1996), pp. 40-1, 44, 52, 59.
56. Webb, Town Finances, pp. 42, 43, 50, 54, 55, 56, 59, 61, 81, 88.
57. J. A. Twemlow, ed., Liverpool Town Books volume I (London, 1918), p. 266.
58. D. Postles, Translating the self: the alias, alas', presented at the Leicester-Pisa colloquium at the University of Leicester in 2003.
59. The concern here is with how 'ordinary' people acquired aliases, not those considered deviant. For the elusive aliases of those engaged in illicit activities: W. Le Hardy, Calendar to the Sessions Records (Middlesex Sessions Records new series II, 1936), pp. 159 ('Welch Tom', 1614), 304 (Tuquoque', 1615).
60. C. M. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions Rolls 1471-1625 (Surtees Society cxcix, 1991), p. 40.
61. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 55.
62. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 71.
63. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, pp. 91, 96.
64. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 96.
65. Stavert, Parish Registers of Skipton, pp. 151, 160, 161, 163, 164.
66. Brierley, Parish Registers of Garstang Church I, p. 69.
67. Brierley, Parish Registers of Garstang Church I, p. 182.
68. The Register of Selattyn, p. 92.
69. The Registers of St Mary's, Shrewsbury (Shropshire P. R. Soc., 1911), pp. 62, 66.
70. H. J. Moule, ed., Descriptive catalogue of the Charters, Minute Books and other Documents of the Borough of Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (Weymouth, 1883), p. 71.
71. Gray & Blethyn-Jones, Registers of St Mary Dymock, p. 83.
72. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 98.
73. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 105.
74. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 112.
75. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 140.
76. For character and the criminal law, C. Herrup, The Common Peace. Participation and the Criminal Law in Seventeenth-century England (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 86-91.
77. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 144.
78. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 69.
79. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 88.
80. Fraser, Durham Quarter Sessions, p. 150 (1605);
81. Manchester, p. 135.
82. E. Axon, ed., Manchester Sessions (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire xlii, 1901), pp. 33, 36.
83. Twemlow, Liverpool Town Books volume 1, p. 241.
84. S. Doree, ed., The Early Churchwardens' Accounts of Bishop's Stortford 1431-1558 (Hertfordshire Record Society 10, 1994), pp. 42, 78, 86.
85. Headlam, Parish Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, p. 68.
86. For this moniker, Beier, Masterless Men, pp. 115-16.
87. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 116
88. J. Abercrombie, ed., The Registers of Warcop (Cumb. & Westm. P. R. Soc., 1914), p. 58.
89. J. F. Pound, ed., The Norwich Census of the Poor 1570 (Norfolk Record Society xl, 1971), p. 51.
90. Records of Maidstone, p. 64 (1607);
91. see also blind William - William Marten - buried in 1652 at Rowley Regis: P. W. L. Adams, ed., Rowley Regis Parish Register I (Staffs. P. R. Soc., 1912) which also contains interments of John Russell called Swash, Joan Hadley called Jumping Jone, and William Meanely called Clogg: pp. 89, 105, 109 (1646-53).
92. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 122.
93. E. R. C. Brinkworth and R. K. Gilks, eds, The 'Bawdy Court' of Banbury. The Act Book of the Peculiar Court of Banbury, 1625-1638 (Banbury Historical Society 26, 1997), pp. 165, 168.
94. The imagination might run riotously over Iddy Preston of late called Mrs Lovinge: Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, p. 101 (1603).
95. For personal naming at this time, S. Smith-Bannister, Names and Naming Patterns in England 1538-1700 (Oxford, 1997).
96. Morgan et al., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon IV, p. 11.
97. Brierley, Registers of the Parish Church of Chipping, pp. 82-93.
98. Registers of St Mary's, Shrewsbury, pp. 24-6, 28-9, 32-5, 37-8, 53.
99. Headlam, Parish Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, pp. 8, 11, 25-7, 29, 32-3, 37-8, 40-3.
100. For the use of forms of address rather than names to separate off familiarity and respect - but in an entirely different context - Cohen, Self Consciousness, pp. 74-5;
101. for social distance, I. Thomas, Meaning in Interaction. An Introduction to Pragmatics (Harlow, 1995), pp. 128-30.
102. Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, II, pp. 98 et ff.
103. C. W. Foster, ed., The Parish Registers of Gainsborough (Lincoln Record Society 6, 1916), pp. 151-2, 154, 164-5, 172, 176-7, 181-2, 204-5, 208, 212, 214, 216, 225-6, 229, 232.
104. C. W. Foster, ed., The Parish Registers of Grantham (Lincoln Record Society P. R. Section 4, 1916).
105. J. C. C. Smith, ed., The Parish Registers of Richmond (Surrey P. R. Soc. 50, 1903), pp. 161-96.
106. D. M. Nolan, W. J. Watkinson and P. Riden, eds, Chesterfield Parish Register 1601-35 (Derbyshire Record Society xv, 1990).
107. D. Shorrocks, ed., Bishop Still's Visitation 1594 (Somerset Record Society 84, 1998), pp. 98-9.
108. Morgan et al., Papers of Nathaniel Bacon IV, p. 174.
109. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 84.
110. W. H. Stevenson, ed., Records of the Borough of Nottingham W (Nottingham, 1889), p. 221.
111. Foster, Parish Registers of Gainsborough, pp. 152, 155, 161, 163.
112. Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, Berkshire II, pp. 95, 97, 103-4, 106-7.
113. Penfold, Parish Registers of Haslemere, p. 83.
114. Mother Steere had been buried there in 1587: p. 66.
115. W. Holland and J. J. Raven, eds, Cratfield. A Transcript of the Accounts of the Parish from A.D. 1490 to A.D. 1642 (London, n.d.), pp. 104, 123 (1578, 1596).
116. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, pp. 127, 130.
117. W. H. Turner, ed., Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford (Oxford, 1880), p. 105.
118. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, p. 152.
119. Another Mother, Mother Swaine, died in Cratfield in 1599: p. 128.
120. A. Finn, ed., Records of Lydd (no place of publication, 1911), p. 363.
121. A. Palmer, ed., Tudor Churchwardens' Accounts (Hertfordshire Record Society 1, 1985), pp. 112, 116, 119, 124, 160.
122. Mother Gray was alternatively described as Widow Gray and Goodwife Gray, revealing overlapping categories: pp. 147, 158, 159, 162.
123. W. Rye, Depositions Taken before the Mayor and Aldermen of Norwich 1549-1567 (Norwich, 1905), p. 85.
124. F. Collins, The Registers of St Michael le Belfry, York (Yorks. P. R. Soc. 1, 1899), pp. 21, 25.
125. Bettey, Correspondence of the Smyth Family, p. 113 (248).
126. The Witch of Edmonton (Corbin and Sedge), p. 61, Act 2, scene 1.
127. Pound, Norwich Census of the Poor, p. 34.
128. C. W. Foster, ed., The Parish Registers of St Margaret in the Close of Lincoln, 1538-1837 (Lincoln Record Society P. R. Section 2, 1915), p. 58.
129. J. E. Foster, Churchwardens' Accounts of St Mary the Great, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905), pp. 340-1.
130. For honour of both men and women inter-relatedly, Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, pp. 186-213.
131. Gainsborough PRs, p. 156.
132. Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, pp. 97, 106.
133. G. W. Marshall, ed., The Registers of Worksop (Guildford, 1894), p. 109.
134. Smith, Parish Registers of Richmond, pp. 161-2.
135. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, p. 105.
136. Finn, Records of Lydd, p. 354.
137. Registers of St Mary's, Shrewsbury, pp. 31, 33, 49, 55.
138. Headlam, Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, p. 53.
139. Headlam, Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, pp. 29, 33, 49, 55 - and further examples of the relationship at pp. 56-7, 63, 71, 81.
140. Registers of St Mary, Shrewsbury, pp. 49, 55 (1614).
141. Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, pp. 98, 100.
142. Crawfurd, Registers of the Parish of St Mary, Reading, pp. 105, 106, 107.
143. Headlam, Registers of St Oswald's, Durham, pp. 77, 81.
144. Turner, Selections from the Records of the City of Oxford, pp. 189-90.
145. Records of the Borough of Notttingham volume 4 (Nottingham, 1889), pp. 202-10 correlated with pp. 419-20.
146. Hassell Smith and Baker, Papers of Nathaniel Bacon 111, p. 311.
147. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 116.
148. Doree, Parish Registers and Tithing Book, p. 79.
149. Collins, Registers of St Michael le Belfry, pp. 84-170
150. The Witch of Edmonton Act 1 scene 2 (Corbin and Sedge, pp. 38-9).
151. A. Nott and J. Hasler, eds, Wells Convocation Acts Books 1589-1665. Part I: 1589-1629 (Somerset Record Society 90, 2004), p. 167.
152. Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum ed. M. Dewar (Cambridge, 1982).
153. But note, however, in the burial registers for Richmond (Surrey) were included twelve females styled as Goodwife, although only two men considered as Goodman: Smith, Parish Registers of Richmond, pp. 161-96 -for example, pp. 161, 163.
154. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, p. 101.
155. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, p. 60.
156. Holland and Raven, Cratfield, pp. 123, 125-7.
157. J. F. Stocks et al., eds. Market Harborough Parish Records (London, 1926), pp. 54, 59.
158. Stocks, Market Harborough Parish Records, pp. 63, 78.
159. Stocks, Market Harborough Parish Records, p. 64.
160. Note also the payments to Goodwife Cutler, Goodman Alsop's man, Goodman Wright, and Goodman Home: pp. 53, 63-4, 83.
161. Finn, Records of Lydd, pp. 341, 343, 367.
162. Finn, Records of Lydd, p. 361.
163. Finn, Records of Lydd, p. 343.
164. Foster, Churchwardens' Accounts of... Cambridge, pp. 337-41.
165. Hassell Smith and Baker, Papers of Nathaniel Bacon III, p. 138.
166. C. Jackson, ed., Newbury Kendrick Workhouse Records, 1627-1641 (Berkshire Record Society 8, 2004), passim.
167. Moule, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 65.
168. W. Rye, ed., The Norwich Rate Book (London, 1903).
169. Rye, Norwich Rate Book, p. 16.
170. J. E. Foster, ed., Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary the Great, Cambridge, from 1504 to 1635 (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1905)
171. Foster, Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Mary the Great, pp. 363-96: a purposive sample of continuous accounts.
172. H. R. Plomer, ed., The Churchwardens' Accounts of St Nicholas, Strood. (Kent Records Society 5, 1915), pp. xiv, 6, 19, 46-7, 51.
173. Plomer, Churchwardens' Accounts of... Strood, pp. xiv, 27-9.
174. Plomer, Churchwardens' Accounts of... Strood, p. 31.
175. Plomer, Churchwardens' Accounts of... Strood, pp. 83-4.
176. F. Basant, ed., The Parish Registers of Boston volume 1 (Lincoln Record Society P. R. Section 1, 1914), pp. x, 127, 131, 132, 134, 135.
177. J. C. C. Smith, The Parish Registers of Richmond volume 1 (Surrey P. R. Society 50, 1903), pp. 161-7.
178. Shorrocks, Bishop Still's Visitation, p. 142.
179. King, 'Social status, localism and the middling sort'.
180. Hitherto I have deliberately avoided the term 'community' because of its ambiguities, despite A. Shepard and P. Withington, eds, Communities in Early Modern England. Networks, Place, Rhetoric (Manchester, 2000), for contemporary perceptions,
181. and G. Crow and G. Allan, Community Life. An Introduction to Local Social Relations (London, 1994 and later editions) for sociological revisionism,
182. but see now also V. Amrit, ed., Realizing Community. Concepts, Social Relations and Sentiments (London, 2002), for the re-combination of the social (action, reciprocity) to the imagined (emotional; solidarity).