The diversity of social capital in English communities, 1300-1640 (with a glance at modern Nigeria)

Journal of Interdisciplinary History

Volumn 29, Issue 3, 1999, Pages 459-490

  McIntosh, Marjorie K ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 33749104052     PISSN: 00221953     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1162/002219598551788     Document Type: Review

References (101)

1. The working definition of social capital in this essay follows Robert D. Putnam's emphasis on features like the "trust, norms, and networks" produced by social organization in Making Democracy Work: Civil Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, 1993), 167.
2. Although urbanization was increasing by the latter part of this period, England remained an overwhelmingly rural country into the eighteenth century. Only thirty-two towns had populations of more than 3,000 or so, and only London contained more than 25,000 between 1300 and 1700, although there were thousands of villages (by c. 1600, England and Wales contained c. 9,000 parishes, each of which normally served one village or smaller town), and c. 715 communities had markets. See McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior in England, 1370-1600 (Cambridge, 1998), 25.
3. For competition and individualism, see, for example, McIntosh, idem. Autonomy and Community: The Royal Manor of Havering, 1200-1500 (Cambridge, 1986);
4. for the same combination in northern Italy and among the Igbo in Nigeria, see Putnam, Making Democracy Work,
5. Simon Ottenberg, "Ibo Receptivity to Change," in William R. Bascom and Melville J. Herskovits (eds.), Continuity and Change in African Cultures (Chicago, 1959), 130-143. All three settings were characterized by large amounts of social capital.
6. For this paragraph and the two following, see McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior, esp. 34-41, 54-107.
7. See, for example, Beat A. Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish, c. 1400-1560 (Brookfield, Vt., 1996);
8. Richard M. Wunderli, London Church Courts and Society on the Eve of the Reformation (Cambridge, Mass., 1981);
9. Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1370-1640 (Cambridge, 1987);
10. for a local example, McIntosh, A Community Transformed, 219-257.
11. See, for example, Barbara A. Hanawalt, "Keepers of the Lights: Late Medieval Parish Gilds," Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, XIV (1984), 21-37;
12. Ben R. McRee, "Religious Gilds and Regulation of Behavior in Late Medieval Towns," in Joel Rosenthal and Colin Richmond (eds.), People, Politics and Community in the Later Middle Ages (Gloucester, 1987), 108-122;
13. Katherine L. French, "'To Free Them from Binding': Women in the Late Medieval English Parish," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XXVII (1997), 387-412;
14. Joanna Mattingly, "The Medieval Parish Guilds of Cornwall," Journal of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, X (1989), 290-329;
15. David Wiles, The Early Plays of Robin Hood (Cambridge, 1981).
16. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior, 134-135;
17. McIntosh, idem, "Local Responses to the Poor in Late Medieval and Tudor England," Continuity and Change, III (1988), 209-245.
18. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior, 23-45, 127-136, 186-208.
19. See McIntosh, "Response," in the symposium about McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior, in Journal of British Studies, XXXVII (1998), 291-305, which includes a fuller discussion of the development of a national state.
20. Robert Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, 1994), 84,
21. citing the sociologist Donald Warren without specific reference, and 85, citing Martin Dinges, "Self-Help, Assistance, and the Poor in Early Modern France," paper presented at the conference, "International Perspectives on Self-Help," Lancaster, England, July 1991.
22. Newer analyses of social capital include Putnam's opening comments at the conference, "Patterns of Social Capital: "Stability and Change in Comparative Perspective," Harvard University, December 4, 1997,
23. and Peter A. Hall, "Social Capital in Britain," paper presented at the Bertelsmann Stiftung workshop on social capital, Berlin, June, 1997. Some scholars, including many Africanists, feel that because history and literary criticism employ different types of evidence and have developed distinct methods of analysis, historians ought not use fiction or drama as a source of information about the past. I am persuaded, however, that we profit by trying to break down the separation between scholarly fields. In using literary evidence, I am not arguing that it accurately represents "reality" but rather that it can provide a valuable reflection of attitudes and tensions present within a given culture.
24. See, for example, Alan Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin (London, 1970);
25. David Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death: Ritual, Religion and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England (Oxford, 1997), esp. 55-79, 197-229;
26. Gail McMurray Gibson, "Blessing from Sun and Moon: Churching as Women's Theater," in Hanawalt and David Wallace (eds.), Bodies and Disciplines (Minneapolis, 1996), 139-154.
27. See, for example, Arthur Brandeis (ed.), Jacob's Well: An English Treatise on the Cleansing of Man's Conscience (London, 1900), I;
28. D. M, Grisdale (ed.), Three Middle English Sermons from the Worcester Chapter Manuscript F.10 (Leeds, 1939);
29. McIntosh, "Finding Language for Misconduct: Jurors in Fifteenth-Century Local Courts," in Hanawalt and Wallace (eds.), Bodies and Disciplines, 87-122;
30. Fred N. Robinson (ed.), The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer (Boston, 1957; 2d ed.), "The Wife of Bath's Prologue," 11. 525-550, p. 81.
31. Play III, "Noah's Flood," in Robert M. Lumiansky and David Mills (eds.), The Chester Mystery Cycle (London, 1974), ll. 200-246, pp. 50-53.
32. See, for example, "How the Good Wijf Taughte Hir Doughtir," in Frederick J. Furnivall (ed.), Early English Meals and Manners: The Babees Book (London, 1868);
33. Tauno F. Mustanoja (ed.), The Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, The Good Wyfe Wold a Pylgremage, The Thewis of Gud Women (Helsinki, 1948) (the quotations from the latter come from a 1597 version, the language of which is more familiar to modern readers [210-216]).
34. See Macfarlane, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin; M. St. Clare Byrne (ed.), The Lisle Letters (Chicago, 1981), 6v.;
35. McIntosh, Community Transformed, 86;
36. Sylvia Bugbee, "Women's Social Universe in Sixteenth-Century England: Evidence from Wills," paper delivered at the Western Conference on British Studies, Fort Worth, Tex., October 1997.
37. See, for example, David Underdown, "The Taming of the Scold: The Enforcement of Patriarchal Authority in Early Modern England," in Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (eds.), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1985), 116-136;
38. Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, 1500-1800 (New Haven, 1995);
39. Laura Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in Early Modern London (Oxford, 1996);
40. Laura K. Deal, "Whores and Witches: The Language of Female Misbehavior in Early Modern England, 1560-1650," Ph.D. diss. (Univ. of Colorado, 1996);
41. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior, esp. 186-208;
42. McIntosh, idem, "Response."
43. McIntosh, Idem, "Local Responses to the Poor";
44. Felicity Heal, Hospitality in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1990);
45. Tim Wales, "Poverty, Poor Relief and the Life-Cycle: Some Evidence from Seventeenth-Century Norfolk," in Richard M. Smith (ed.), Land, Kinship and Life-Cycle (Cambridge, 1984), 351-404.
46. Marianne Hester, "The Dynamics of Male Domination Using the Witch Craze in 16th-and 17th-Century England as a Case Study," Women's Studies International Forum, XIII (1990), 9-19;
47. Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971);
48. Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England (London, 1970);
49. Clive Holmes, "Women: Witnesses and Witches," Past & Present, 140 (1993), 45-78;
50. James A. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550-1750 (London, 1996).
51. Mustanoja (ed.), The Good Wife Taught Her Daughter, 159 (spelling modernized).
52. Jennifer McNabb, "The Use of Social Capital by Women of the Upper Ranks of Early Modern England," paper presented at the Western Conference on British Studies, Fort Worth, Tex., October 1997;
53. Byrne (ed.), Lisle Letters, I-II;
54. Arthur Searle (ed.), Barrington Family Letters, 1628-1632 (London, 1983).
55. Barbara Harris, "Women and Politics in Early Tudor England," Historical Journal, XXXIII (1990), 259-281.
56. James S. Coleman, Foundations of Social Theory (Cambridge, Mass., 1990), esp. 300-321;
57. Putnam, Making Democracy Work, esp. 163-185.
58. Pierre Bourdieu (trans. Richard Nice), Outline of a Theory of Practice (Cambridge, 1977).
59. This discussion does not operate from the veiled imperialist assumption that England had already advanced to modern forms by 1640 whereas Africa retained simpler, or backward, patterns well into the twentieth century. Fruitful crosscultural comparisons do not entail reductionist notions of necessary institutional progression or rigid patterns of development. This account must be regarded as preliminary, based upon initial work on a new research project. Another example of informal networks comes from the rural communities of early New England, where people entered into unstructured, but cumulatively extensive, reciprocal relations with each other, involving social as well as economic credit. See, for example, Daniel Vickers, "Competency and Competition: Economic Culture in Early America," William and Mary Quarterly, XLVII (1990), 3-20;
60. Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, A Midwife's Tale (New York, 1990).
61. See, for example, Niara Sudarkasa, Where Women Work: A Study of Yoruba Women in the Marketplace and in the Home (Ann Arbor, 1973);
62. Simi Afonja, "Changing Modes of Production and the Sexual Division of Labor among the Yoruba," Signs, VII (1981), 299-313;
63. Toyin Falola, "Gender, Business, and Space Control: Yoruba Market Women and Power," in Bessie House-Midamba and Felix K. Ekechi (eds.), African Market Women and Economic Power (Westport, 1995), 23-40;
64. Margaret M. Green, Ibo Village Affairs (New York, 1964; orig. pub. 1947);
65. Susan M. Martin, Palm Oil and Protest, An Economic History of the Ngwa Region, South-Eastern Nigeria, 1800-1980 (Cambridge, 1988);
66. Ekechi, "Gender and Economic Power: The Case of Igbo Market Women of Eastern Nigeria," in House-Midamba and idem (eds.), African Market Women, 41-57;
67. Judith Van Allen, "'Aba Rjots' or Igbo 'Women's War'? Ideology, Stratification, and the Invisibility of Women," in Nancy J. Hafkin and Edna G. Bay (eds.), Women in Africa (Stanford, 1976), 59-85.
68. Although the description in this article applies broadly to both Yoruba and Igbo communities, women traders have generally been more prominent and independent in the former than in the latter. The high level of Yoruba urbanization contributed to larger and more specialized markets and to increased middle-distance trade. Further, Yoruba women were expected to contribute to the family's income and control their own resources. Women also continued to play important roles in traditional religion and culture, expressed in a range of rituals and linguistic genres. The custom or legacy of polygyny, which remained much stronger among the Yoruba than among the Igbo, facilitated the movement of older wives into the trading world. See, for example, Emmanuel D. Babatunde, "Ketu Myths and the Status of Women, "Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford, XIV (1983), 301-306;
69. Henry and Margaret Drewal, Gelede: Art and Female Power among the Yoruba (Bloomington, 1983);
70. Sara Berry, Fathers Work for Their Sons (Berkeley, 1985);
71. Karin Barber, I Could Speak until Tomorrow: Oriki, Women and the Past in Yoruba Towns (Washington, D.C., 1991);
72. Andrew Apter, Black Critics and Kings: The Hermeneutics of Power in Yoruba Society (Chicago, 1992).
73. See, for example, Nina E. Mba, Nigerian Women Mobilized (Berkeley, 1982);
74. Felicia Ekejuba, "Omu Okwei, the Merchant Queen of Ossamari," Nigeria Magazine, XC (1996), 213-220;
75. Buchi Emecheta, The Slave Girl (New York, 1977).
76. See, for example, Oladipo Yemitan, Madame Tinubu: Merchant and King-Maker (Ibadan, 1987);
77. Bolanle Awe, "The Iyalode in the Traditional Yoruba Political System," in Alice Schlegel (ed.), Sexual Stratification: A Cross-Cultural View (New York, 1977), 144-160;
78. Bolanle Awe, "Iyalode Efunsetan Aniwura (Owner of Gold)," in idem (ed.), Nigerian Women in Historical Perspective (Ibadan, 1992), 55-71;
79. Kamene Okonjo, "The Dual-Sex Political System in Operation: Igbo Women and Community Politics in Midwestern Nigeria," in Hafkin and Bay (eds.), Women in Africa, 45-58;
80. Harry Gailey, The Road to Aba (New York, 1970);
81. Van Allen, "'Aba Riots' or Igbo 'Women's War'?"; Chikwenye Okonjo Ogunyemi, Africa Wo/man Palava: The Nigerian Novel by Women (Chicago, 1996), 48-55;
82. Cheryl Johnson, "Madam Alimota Pelewura and the Lagos Market Women," Tarikh, VII (1981), 1-10.
83. See, for example, Martin, "Slaves, Igbo Women and Palm Oil in the Nineteenth Century," in Robin Law (ed.), From Slave Trade to 'Legitimate' Commerce (Cambridge, 1995), 172-195;
84. Kristin Mann, Marrying Well: Marriage, Status, and Social Change among the Educated Elite in Colonial Lagos (Cambridge, 1985);
85. Kristin Mann, idem, "Women, Landed Property, and the Accumulation of Wealth in Early Colonial Lagos," Signs, XVI (1991), 682-706;
86. Judith Byfield, "Innovation and Conflict: Cloth Dyers and the Interwar Depression in Abeokuta, Nigeria," Journal of African History, XXXVIII (1997), 77-99;
87. Van Allen, "'Sitting on a Man': Colonialism and the Lost Political Institutions of Igbo Women," Canadian Journal of African Studies, VI (1972), 165-181;
88. Ifi Amadiume, Male Daughters, Female Husbands: Gender and Sex in an African Society (London, 1987);
89. Martin, Palm Oil and Protest; Ogunyemi, Africa Wo/man Palava, esp. 49.
90. Women could participate, for example, in a voluntary credit/savings association known as an esusu, in which each member made small but regular money payments and the full sum gathered was then given back to the participants on a rotational basis. (William Bascom, "The Esusu: A Credit Institution of the Yoruba," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXII [1952], 63-69;
91. Falola, "Money and Informal Credit Institutions in Colonial Western Nigeria," in Jane I. Guyer [ed.], Money Matters: Instability, Values and Social Payments in the Modern History of West African Communities [Portsmouth, N.H., 1995], 162-187;
92. Anthony J. Nwabughogu, "The Esusu: An Institution for Capital Formation among the Ngwa Igbo: Its Origin and Development to 1951," Africa, LIV [1984], 46-58.) My focus here upon women is not intended to suggest that Nigerian men did not have similar kinds of interactions or that social capital was generated only by women.
93. Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood (New York, 1979), esp. 121.
94. Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood Ibid., 52.
95. Emecheta, The Joys of Motherhood Ibid., 219.
96. T. Obinkaram Echewa, I Saw the Sky Catch Fire (New York, 1992), 123-160;
97. Flora Nwapa, Efuru (London, 1966), which served as an acknowledged model for Emecheta's The Joys of Motherhood.
98. See also B. Hallen and J. O. Sodipo, Knowledge, Belief and Witchcraft (London, 1986), which highlights the need to recognize the differences between witchcraft in early modern England and modern Africa.
99. Apter, "Atinga Revisited: Yoruba Witchcraft and the Cocoa Economy, 1950-51," in Jean and John Comaroff (eds.), Modernity and its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Postcolonial Africa (Chicago, 1993), 111-128.
100. The issue of how women transferred wealth and power to their daughters had different valences in matrilineal Igbo communities: Philip Nsugbe, Ohaffia: A Matrilineal Ibo People (Oxford, 1974).
101. Ropo Sekoni, "Yoruba Market Dynamics and the Aesthetics of Negotiation in Female Precolonial Narrative Tradition," Research in African Literature, XXV (1994), 33-46.