Search results
The household was the centre and hub of the lady’s life and activities, and can be regarded as a community in its own right. Households varied considerably in size according to the lady’s status and responsibilities. Wives of the higher nobility generally had their own mini-household, as in the case of Elizabeth countess of Hereford, and they took charge of the whole
Introduction This chapter takes up the challenge of thinking differently. The break is made by changing the lens through which we view the economy and defining a new object of foundational liveability . This involves shifting the focus from individuals to households because most of us live
. Alongside a demographically driven investigation of the family, there has existed research into the peasant family which has owed more, in its origins, methods and approaches, to sociology and anthropology. 1 Since much relevant work on gender has also emerged in relation of consideration of family, household and social structure and has often been set within the same research parameters, we will also discuss, in the second half of this chapter, historical work on gender and, especially, the condition and role of women in peasant society. We will though begin by
4 The holy household In working-class, early twentieth-century Dublin, Elaine Crowley’s mother conserved resources by purchasing used furniture. She did not hesitate, however, to buy a new framed picture of ‘Our Lady of Good Counsel’, placing it on the most prominent spot on the wall.1 Another working-class Dublin woman remembered that her mother blessed the house each evening with holy water, which she applied with a feather.2 ‘Like every Catholic house in Ireland’, wrote Maura Murphy, who was a child in the 1930s, we had a holy water font by the back door near
3 The Jewish household: Jewish masters and Christian servants There are more Inquisitorial processi against Jews for hiring Christian servants than for any other breach of ecclesiastical regulations. It was an offence that alarmed Inquisitors, implying intimate contact between a Jewish master and a subordinate Christian behind closed doors, in the private space of a Jewish household, and as such representing an unknown level of promiscuity. When Christian servants entered Jewish households they became exposed to the Jewish family’s daily routine and the real
On Sunday, 12 August 1543, Genevan officials began a household ‘examination of the poor’. 1 Over the course of the next six days, civic officials entered and examined more than one hundred and fifty households, apparently with two goals: first, to regulate the provision of social welfare by determining if a household could be struck
5 Households and institutionalisation Every child has a madman on their street: The only trouble about our madman is that he’s our father1 The certification of relatives into nineteenth-century Irish asylums occurred in the context of high levels of distress and anxiety for patients and families. As demonstrated in the previous chapter, violence and abusive behaviour perpetrated by, and on, the mentally ill, in addition to suicidal behaviour formed the backdrop to most asylum certifications. However, mental distress did not always result in admission to a
1970s makes households poorer and shows that high income households are well placed to claim the lion’s share of any increase in the size of the wages fund. Meanwhile, meaningless averages of per capita gross value added (GVA) misrepresent the mosaic complexity of segregated places and lead to quagmire technocratic policies of ‘closing the GVA gap’ which
Homes are collections of objects amassed over time, some in daily use while others sit on shelves undisturbed for years. The eighteenth century is often characterised as a period of proliferation and diversification of the material world. Household inventories – lists of objects organised room by room – first gave historians the insight they sought
154 7 Field knowledge in gentry households: ‘pears on a willow’?1 Nadine Kuipers If you cutt thystels xv dayes or viii dayes before mydsomer for every one thistle theare shal come up twoe or three. (Walter of Henley, translated by William Lambarde)2 It seems reasonable to assume that agricultural know-how was at the forefront of the medieval landowner’s mind, and that this information was noted down for personal reference or posterity. Nevertheless, few texts survive that treat the inner workings of medieval husbandry and agriculture. Ruth Dean’s Anglo