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Female Servants in Early Modern England
Charmian Mansell
2024
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What was it like to be a woman in service in early modern England? More fundamentally, who were these women? Where did they come from? In what kinds of households did they work and what were they hired to do? How did their lives intersect with the local communities in which they lived? Female Servants in Early Modern England answers these questions by exploring over 1000 witness testimonies from English church courts which record the experiences of women in service between 1532 and 1649. Drawing a wide circle around the experiences of women in service, this book analyses their lives from demographic, geographical, economic, and social perspectives. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of evidence, Female Servants in Early Modern England challenges our understanding of service in several key ways. These women, it argues, were intrinsic to the economy, contributing their labour to a range of types of work. Despite being itinerant workers, they were nonetheless embedded in social networks and communities. Though service is seen as a rigid institution designed to regulate labour and youth, this book shows it to have been contingent, operating with a flexibility unsanctioned by law and policy makers but nonetheless accepted within early modern society.
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Keywords
- servants church courts witness testimony early modern women
- thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day
- thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MD 16th century, c 1500 to c 1599
- thema EDItEUR::3 Time period qualifiers::3M c 1500 onwards to present day::3MG 17th century, c 1600 to c 1699
- thema EDItEUR::K Economics, Finance, Business and Management::KC Economics::KCZ Economic history
- thema EDItEUR::L Law::LA Jurisprudence and general issues::LAZ Legal history
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHD European history
- thema EDItEUR::N History and Archaeology::NH History::NHT History: specific events and topics::NHTB Social and cultural history
- thema EDItEUR::W Lifestyle, Hobbies and Leisure::WQ Local and family history, nostalgia::WQH Local history
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