Whose body? A study of attitudes towards the dead body in early modern Paris

This chapter examines attitudes towards the dead body, as exemplified by arrangements for funerals and burials, in Paris between around 1550 and 1670. It seeks to establish, not so much what people said should happen to the bodies of the dead, but what happened in practice - the care, or lack of it, which the living accorded to the corpses of their contemporaries and predecessors - and to use this to further our understanding of the mentality of early modern urban dwellers. It is part of a wider enquiry, to explore the attitudes of the living to the dead in Paris and London, and to consider the ways in which this can illuminate the nature of these two metropolitan societies, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Looking at the treatment of the corpse can also take discussion of the body, and the ways in which it is apprehended and understood, a stage further than the predominant focus on the living; dead bodies were as variably constructed, as liable to objectification (even commodification), as exposed to contest and competition over meaning as living ones. This particular study highlights the issues of control and ownership, among the complexity of reactions to the materiality of bodies, and offers an insight into power relations in a wider social and spatial environment

Sons, apprentices and successors in late medieval and early modern London: the transmission of skills and work opportunities

Book synopsis: The existence and changing of generations in family life, business and politics was a central feature of towns as well as rural societies in earlier times. Even so, it remains understudied by urban historians of the pre-modern period. This book aims to fill some of this gap, containing twelve studies of generations in late medieval and early modern European towns, ranging from the Mediterranean to the Nordic countries, with a time-span from the fourteenth to the early nineteenth century. Dealing with topics like succession and inheritance, family consciousness, as well as relations and conflicts within and between generations, the articles demonstrate the importance and potential of generational studies on pre-modern towns. The book will appeal to anyone who takes an interest in urban social and cultural history, legal and family history in medieval and early modern times

Controlling a complex metropolis, 1650-1750: politics, parishes and powers

The period from 1650 to 1750 was not characterised by major institutional innovation in the government of London, let alone revolutionary structural change. The contrast between the centralised and well-organised government of the City and the atomised and somewhat improvised governmental institutions of the rest of the metropolis was as striking in 1750 as it was in 1650. However, the nature of government changed. The power relations between national and local government shifted, as did the scope and competence of administrative activity. Many of the characteristic features of London's governance as it is today emerged or became significant within this period. This paper focuses on three main developments in London's government. The overarching one is the politicisation of the process of choosing or identifying the governors of London, and the increased significance in national party-politics of the stance of London's governors. Underpinning this is the financial revolution and the invention of 'the City' as we understand the term. Thirdly, local government in the rest of London, while still fairly ad hoc in its institutions, began to respond to heightened expectations of the quality of life in the metropolis, but encountered a number of new problems, notably that of accountability

Cheapside: commerce and commemoration

The broad street of Cheapside, Vanessa Harding shows, was a central location in the lives and minds of early modern Londoners. In a crowded city it was a significant open space where public events could be staged and important issues communicated to a wide audience. The everyday reality of shop and market trading — where qualities and values were scrutinized and false dealing punished - enhanced its association with truth and patency. Normally dominated by the authorities, it was on occasion captured by oppositional groups, though their activities tended to reinforce Cheapside's identity as a place of publicity and validation

Burial of the plague dead in early modern London

Book synopsis: The essays included here reflect the diversity of approaches discussed at the symposium and those currently being adopted in studying the relationship between disease and society. The collection, which both sets out the findings of on-going research projects and tries to outline some of the central methodological and historical concerns for future investigations, will be of value for the established scholar and the student embarking on new research into the history of epidemic disease

Monastic records and the Dissolution: a Tudor revolution in the archives?

Administrative reform in the 1530s amounted, in Professor Geoffrey Elton’s words, to a ‘Tudor revolution in government’. The Dissolution of the monasteries and the confiscation of their assets played a major part in this. The need to value, survey, document and exploit the monastic estates transformed government record-keeping, necessitating the creation of new offices – such as the Court of Augmentations - and the adoption of new practices and an expanded bureaucracy. The paper traces the response of the bureaucrats to the challenges to record-management resulting from the Dissolution, and the subsequent history of the monasteries’ records of landholding, a task complicated by the activities of later government archivists

Reading plague in Seventeeth-century London

Interest in plague and mortality in seventeenth-century London was fed by the weekly and yearly Bills of Mortality, and by the composite or commemorative plague bills issued in epidemic years. Some surviving examples are annotated, suggesting keen engagement with the content. This paper shows that some of the weekly bills and probably some of the composite bills now in Guildhall Library, London, were owned and annotated by the city law-officer and bibliophile, Richard Smyth (1590-1675). This links up with Smyth’s personal experience of plague, his other reading and writing on the subject, and his general reading practices, to illuminate one man’s response to a fearful and recurrent feature of London life. Keywords: London, plague, Bills of Mortality, 166