Contested enslavement: The Portuguese in Angola and the problem of debt, c. 1600-1800

The Portuguese were keen slave traders on the west central coast of Africa in the early modern period, but governors in Angola appear to have been increasingly unhappy about certain aspects of enslavement in relation to debt, and in particular that of children. Slavery for debt was uncommon in early modern Europe, where three arguments, drawn from Roman law, were usually cited by way of justification: birth; war; and self-sale. Cavazzi, an Italian Capuchin missionary travelling around Angola between 1654 and 1665, suggested several similarities between the legal justifications for slavery in Africa and Europe, but also pointed up a major difference: while in Angola in the early modern period enslavement could result from a number of instances of default, in Portugal at the same time-and in Europe more widely-debtors tended to find themselves imprisoned if they defaulted on a payment, rather than enslaved. This paper will consider the nature of debt enslavement in Angola in the early modern period, and how it impacted on the transatlantic slave trade

The early modern demographic dynamic : celibates and celibacy in seventeenth-century England

Chapter One begins by locating the rise in celibacy within the demographic context of Tudor and Stuart England. The most prominent feature of population change in the seventeenth century was the stagnation that occurred around 1650, following on as it did from a hundred years of almost uninterrupted national expansion. Though the significance of changes in nuptiality, here defined as patterns in the timing and incidence of marriage, had been a feature of demographic analysis since its inception in the 1660s, the spectre of increased mortality as a result of overpopulation, which was first articulated in the writings of Thomas Malthus at the very end of the eighteenth century, had entered into the history of population change in the nineteenth century and succeeded in capturing the academic high ground. Thus for many years shifts in mortality, largely as a result of variations in patterns of disease, were the dominant interpretative element in explanations of early modern population change. The problem was essentially one of measurement - there was a distinct lack of accurate information on fertility change - and even though the role of fertility was mooted in modem demographic texts from as early as the 1950s, it was not until the 1980s that robust estimates of shifts in fertility became available. Nevertheless the patience of the pro-fertility lobby was amply rewarded: the publication in 1981 of Wrigley and Schofield's first volume on population history revealed the general dominance of fertility movements in directing population change throughout the early modern period. 8 More significantly in terms of this project however, it revealed that the contraction of the population in the mid-seventeenth century could most realistically be interpreted in terms of a fall in the rate of marriage, revealing celibacy in the process as the demographic dynamic of the Tudor and Stuart periods. Chapter Two seeks to locate the rise in celibacy in its social context by highlighting the strength of the marriage discourse. In this chapter the discourse of marriage is revealed as a potent force, drawing its ideas and authority from a wide range of spheres of thought, including those of religion, medicine, law, gender and sexuality. By the seventeenth century, shifts in marriage theory, having their origins in the humanist movement of the early sixteenth century, had raised the profile of marriage above that of celibacy, for the benefit of the individual and also of society at large. In the social arena, marriage gained credibility on account of the fact that it provided units of productive and reproductive activity that were capable of securing inheritance, expanding the numbers of the church and state, and legitimising and controlling sexual desire. In the personal arena, marriage, for women in particular, came to represent the pinnacle of social achievement, since it was understood that entry into it served above all to fulfil their scriptural and biological destiny. To this end social customs and practices developed that detached married people of both sexes from their single counterparts, by linking personal identity, social status and full community participation to the institution of marriage. Moreover, in establishing marriage as a valuable and honourable estate of lifelong dimensions, the discourse encouraged the development of a theory of marital choice, which, if faithfully adopted, could provide the basis for a stable and permanent marital union. Despite demographic evidence of falling marriage rates, therefore, the institution itself appears to have retained a position of considerable power in the contemporary imagination.Nevertheless, as historical demographers have indicated, there was a rise in the proportion of those who did not marry during the course of the seventeenth century. Chapter Three then seeks to examine existing explanations of marital decline, and in addition offers a further analysis of the roots of change. Current interpretations, heavily influenced by the strength of the marriage discourse, have tended to direct attention towards a number of factors that were likely to discourage entry into marriage, the most common of which appear to have been economic: couples either lacked the financial resources required in the process of setting up and running a new household, or they were prevented from marrying by local officials who feared they would become a burden on the poor rate. Shifts in the sex ratio as a result of migration and emigration, largely occasioned by structural shifts in the economy or death from disease or war, are also a feature of the explanatory framework. But Chapter Three also considers the possibility that a greater number of individuals may have preferred to remain single, a factor that to date has received little historical attention. For there was a discernible broadening of the discussion on the relative merits of marriage versus celibacy in the later seventeenth century, both in the religious and the secular spheres, which, when taken alongside an increasing emphasis on the role of marital choice, may have had considerable implications in terms of individual action. Though later seventeenth century concern over falling marriage rates was articulated largely in terms of the increasing preference of men for the state of celibacy, such ideas were themselves a function of discursive understandings of womanhood in which female adult identity was formulated exclusively in terms of marriage and motherhood. Yet single women were equally likely to have provided the dynamic. The inability of historians to conceptualise a shift in female attitudes to celibacy arises in part from their uncritical approach to contemporary ideas about female adulthood, and in part from their belief that women's inferior economic status - at least for the majority of those below the level of the gentry - precluded any serious element of choice. The most novel feature to emerge from this project, therefore, has been the discovery that single women of middling status with access to liquid capital were heavily involved in the process of money-lending for profit. Whereas previous understandings of the labour market have marginalized the role of single women to the point at which economic independence was largely unattainable, the discovery that a considerable number may have had the capacity to maintain an independent existence requires that historians look again at female motivation.# Chapter Four shifts the focus of the dissertation to the sexual lives of early modern celibates. The marital discourse would have enjoyed little validity in the Tudor and Stuart periods had access to procreative intercourse outside of marriage been acceptable. The fact that both legitimate and illegitimate fertility fell in tandem with marriage rates, however, suggests that restrictions on all extra-marital procreative intercourse were successfully enforced. This chapter therefore examines the extent to which early modern celibates were able to indulge in procreative intercourse outside the bonds of matrimony, while also considering the relative role of the church, the state and the community in the maintenance of sexual continence. Though there has been much debate as to whether religion or economics constituted the more significant element in deterring undesirable sexual activity, the fact that it was the cultural setting in toto that conspired to suppress extra-marital sexual incontinence reveals once again the pervasiveness and strength of the marital discourse. However, this chapter is also concerned to problematise the historiographical image of celibate sexual activity. By interpreting marriage as a life-cycle phenomenon with procreative sex as its ultimate aim, historians have given primacy - whether wittingly or unwittingly - to the act of intercourse between man and a woman, and relegated a range of other sexual activities to a position of lower value. In contrast, this chapter argues not only for the presence of other forms of sexual gratification within Tudor and Stuart society, but suggests in addition that rather than view them as the precursor to full penetrative intercourse, they should be understood as satisfactory and fulfilling expressions of sexuality in their own right.The final chapter examines the role of the marriage discourse in directing the employment opportunities, social status and cultural identity of single people in seventeenth century England. Here the effects of the discourse, which sought to promote the inevitability of entry into marriage as a general truth, are revealed in a gendered approach to training and employment, differential levels of access of men and women to land and property, and a concept of personal and social identity that for women was linked almost exclusively to marriage as a lifecycle phenomenon. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extensive social and cultural ramifications of a rise in the proportion of lifelong celibate females, a situation that, regardless of its causes, required single women to reassess the image of themselves as wives and mothers and construct an alternative personal and social identity outside the standard marital paradigm

The early modern demographic dynamic : celibates and celibacy in seventeenth-century England

Chapter One begins by locating the rise in celibacy within the demographic context of Tudor and Stuart England. The most prominent feature of population change in the seventeenth century was the stagnation that occurred around 1650, following on as it did from a hundred years of almost uninterrupted national expansion. Though the significance of changes in nuptiality, here defined as patterns in the timing and incidence of marriage, had been a feature of demographic analysis since its inception in the 1660s, the spectre of increased mortality as a result of overpopulation, which was first articulated in the writings of Thomas Malthus at the very end of the eighteenth century, had entered into the history of population change in the nineteenth century and succeeded in capturing the academic high ground. Thus for many years shifts in mortality, largely as a result of variations in patterns of disease, were the dominant interpretative element in explanations of early modern population change. The problem was essentially one of measurement - there was a distinct lack of accurate information on fertility change - and even though the role of fertility was mooted in modem demographic texts from as early as the 1950s, it was not until the 1980s that robust estimates of shifts in fertility became available. Nevertheless the patience of the pro-fertility lobby was amply rewarded: the publication in 1981 of Wrigley and Schofield's first volume on population history revealed the general dominance of fertility movements in directing population change throughout the early modern period. 8 More significantly in terms of this project however, it revealed that the contraction of the population in the mid-seventeenth century could most realistically be interpreted in terms of a fall in the rate of marriage, revealing celibacy in the process as the demographic dynamic of the Tudor and Stuart periods. Chapter Two seeks to locate the rise in celibacy in its social context by highlighting the strength of the marriage discourse. In this chapter the discourse of marriage is revealed as a potent force, drawing its ideas and authority from a wide range of spheres of thought, including those of religion, medicine, law, gender and sexuality. By the seventeenth century, shifts in marriage theory, having their origins in the humanist movement of the early sixteenth century, had raised the profile of marriage above that of celibacy, for the benefit of the individual and also of society at large. In the social arena, marriage gained credibility on account of the fact that it provided units of productive and reproductive activity that were capable of securing inheritance, expanding the numbers of the church and state, and legitimising and controlling sexual desire. In the personal arena, marriage, for women in particular, came to represent the pinnacle of social achievement, since it was understood that entry into it served above all to fulfil their scriptural and biological destiny. To this end social customs and practices developed that detached married people of both sexes from their single counterparts, by linking personal identity, social status and full community participation to the institution of marriage. Moreover, in establishing marriage as a valuable and honourable estate of lifelong dimensions, the discourse encouraged the development of a theory of marital choice, which, if faithfully adopted, could provide the basis for a stable and permanent marital union. Despite demographic evidence of falling marriage rates, therefore, the institution itself appears to have retained a position of considerable power in the contemporary imagination. Nevertheless, as historical demographers have indicated, there was a rise in the proportion of those who did not marry during the course of the seventeenth century. Chapter Three then seeks to examine existing explanations of marital decline, and in addition offers a further analysis of the roots of change. Current interpretations, heavily influenced by the strength of the marriage discourse, have tended to direct attention towards a number of factors that were likely to discourage entry into marriage, the most common of which appear to have been economic: couples either lacked the financial resources required in the process of setting up and running a new household, or they were prevented from marrying by local officials who feared they would become a burden on the poor rate. Shifts in the sex ratio as a result of migration and emigration, largely occasioned by structural shifts in the economy or death from disease or war, are also a feature of the explanatory framework. But Chapter Three also considers the possibility that a greater number of individuals may have preferred to remain single, a factor that to date has received little historical attention. For there was a discernible broadening of the discussion on the relative merits of marriage versus celibacy in the later seventeenth century, both in the religious and the secular spheres, which, when taken alongside an increasing emphasis on the role of marital choice, may have had considerable implications in terms of individual action. Though later seventeenth century concern over falling marriage rates was articulated largely in terms of the increasing preference of men for the state of celibacy, such ideas were themselves a function of discursive understandings of womanhood in which female adult identity was formulated exclusively in terms of marriage and motherhood. Yet single women were equally likely to have provided the dynamic. The inability of historians to conceptualise a shift in female attitudes to celibacy arises in part from their uncritical approach to contemporary ideas about female adulthood, and in part from their belief that women's inferior economic status - at least for the majority of those below the level of the gentry - precluded any serious element of choice. The most novel feature to emerge from this project, therefore, has been the discovery that single women of middling status with access to liquid capital were heavily involved in the process of money-lending for profit. Whereas previous understandings of the labour market have marginalized the role of single women to the point at which economic independence was largely unattainable, the discovery that a considerable number may have had the capacity to maintain an independent existence requires that historians look again at female motivation.# Chapter Four shifts the focus of the dissertation to the sexual lives of early modern celibates. The marital discourse would have enjoyed little validity in the Tudor and Stuart periods had access to procreative intercourse outside of marriage been acceptable. The fact that both legitimate and illegitimate fertility fell in tandem with marriage rates, however, suggests that restrictions on all extra-marital procreative intercourse were successfully enforced. This chapter therefore examines the extent to which early modern celibates were able to indulge in procreative intercourse outside the bonds of matrimony, while also considering the relative role of the church, the state and the community in the maintenance of sexual continence. Though there has been much debate as to whether religion or economics constituted the more significant element in deterring undesirable sexual activity, the fact that it was the cultural setting in toto that conspired to suppress extra-marital sexual incontinence reveals once again the pervasiveness and strength of the marital discourse. However, this chapter is also concerned to problematise the historiographical image of celibate sexual activity. By interpreting marriage as a life-cycle phenomenon with procreative sex as its ultimate aim, historians have given primacy - whether wittingly or unwittingly - to the act of intercourse between man and a woman, and relegated a range of other sexual activities to a position of lower value. In contrast, this chapter argues not only for the presence of other forms of sexual gratification within Tudor and Stuart society, but suggests in addition that rather than view them as the precursor to full penetrative intercourse, they should be understood as satisfactory and fulfilling expressions of sexuality in their own right. The final chapter examines the role of the marriage discourse in directing the employment opportunities, social status and cultural identity of single people in seventeenth century England. Here the effects of the discourse, which sought to promote the inevitability of entry into marriage as a general truth, are revealed in a gendered approach to training and employment, differential levels of access of men and women to land and property, and a concept of personal and social identity that for women was linked almost exclusively to marriage as a lifecycle phenomenon. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the extensive social and cultural ramifications of a rise in the proportion of lifelong celibate females, a situation that, regardless of its causes, required single women to reassess the image of themselves as wives and mothers and construct an alternative personal and social identity outside the standard marital paradigm

‘Work in countryside, cities and towns’

This chapter focuses on Western Europe, which, as an area, probably had the greatest number of commonalities throughout the period under review. Perhaps as significantly for women, early-modern Europe witnessed a huge expansion in provision for, and regulation of, the poor, as demographic growth and the migration to urban areas that accompanied it raised heightened concerns about social cohesion. Perhaps the most enduring theme in the historiography of women’s work in early-modern Europe concerns the long-standing debates over the relative importance of continuity versus change. Three significant interconnected socio-economic developments were to form the backdrop to the shifts in women’s work in early-modern Europe: population growth; urbanisation; and shifts in the direction and volume of trade. Across much of Europe, the impact of population growth was to increase the size of towns by encouraging rural–urban migration and since mortality in urban areas was considerably higher than in the countryside

Spinsters with land in early modern England: inheritance, possession and use

This chapter offers an analysis of the land that was held by spinsters in England from the mid-sixteenth to the end of the seventeenth century. Although our knowledge of landholding by women is increasing, there is little published work on the amount of land held by those who did not marry, even though their number, as a proportion of the population, was expanding for much of the early modern period. At the same time, and because the bulk of women (at least 75 per cent) still did marry, this analysis aims to shed new light on the relationship between women and land during that period. Research so far suggests that patterns of change varied between areas and according to social and marital status. Barbara Harris claimed that even though legal devices had been developed to circumvent primogeniture and the restrictions of male tail in the late medieval period, between 1450 and 1550 ‘much less than 20 per cent of the land that belonged to the aristocracy descended to female heirs’. Eileen Spring's provocative study of the downward slide of the heiress-at-law between 1300 and 1800 was also largely built upon evidence from aristocratic and gentry families, although she argued that her findings applied more broadly.For ‘ordinary’ English families the picture appears to have been only slightly better. In the village of Brigstock in Northamptonshire in the early fourteenth century, Judith Bennett found that for every four sons who conveyed or received lands, only one daughter did so. That few single women had large amounts of land can be explained by reference to the fact that daughters tended to inherit only in default of surviving sons, and then property was generally shared between all surviving daughters; inter-vivos transfers also favoured sons. At Orwell in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spufford too noted that it was uncommon for women to inherit, although possibilities did exist: they could do so in the absence of a son, or ‘at the whim of an eccentric father, or even grandmother’. What Spufford's work does suggest, however, is that women's ability to access land had increased in some areas by the end of the early modern period. In Willingham and Chippenham very few women's names appear as possessors of land in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries