First published 1998. First paperback edition 2002.
This important new study describes how English people defined and attempted to control misbehavior during the later medieval and early modern periods. Professor Mclntosh argues against the suggestion that social regulation was a distinctive feature of the decades around 1600, resulting from Puritanism. Instead, through an examination of public court proceedings from 255 villages and small towns distributed throughout England, she demonstrates that concern with wrongdoing mounted gradually between 1370 and 1600. In an attempt to maintain harmonious relations, preserve order, and lessen the social damage of poverty, local leaders prosecuted people who slandered or quarreled with their neighbors, engaged in sexual misdeeds, operated unruly alehouses, or refused to work. Professor Mclntosh also explores who the offenders were as well as the factors that led to misbehavior and shaped responses to it. More generally, her findings shed light on the transition from medieval to early modern patterns and open up little-known sources and new research methods. This novel study will be of interest to medievalists and early modernists, with interests ranging from social and economic history to legal and religious history.
Author(s): Marjorie Keniston McIntosh
Series: Cambridge Studies in Population, Economy and Society in Past Time 34
Edition: 1
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2002
Language: English
Pages: XVIII+292
List of illustrations page xi
List of tables and lists xiii
Acknowledgements xv
List of abbreviations xviii
Introduction 1
The debate over social regulation 1
The approach and arguments of this study 6
The past and present 16
Part I. The history of social regulation
1. The forms of control 23
Mechanisms of social regulation 24
The lesser public courts 34
2. Methodological underpinnings 46
3. Social regulation in England's smaller communities 54
The Disharmony cluster 56
The Disorder cluster 68
The Poverty cluster 81
A special case: gaming 96
4. Social concern in other contexts 108
Legal settings 109
Almshouse regulations and Chancery petitions 116
Part II. Factors that influenced social regulation
5. Some political considerations 127
National vs. local responses 129
"Political" activity at the community level 134
6. Social ecology I: "broad response" and "no response" communities 137
Method and evidence 138
Integration and discussion of the data 155
7. Social ecology II: analysis by type of offences reported 170
Method and evidence 170
Integration and discussion of the data 172
8. Ideological/religious influences 186
The fundamental social concerns 187
Fifteenth-century ideas about social wrongdoing 195
Conceptions of a Christian society in the sixteenth century 200
The social costs of aggressive regulation 206
Conclusion: social regulation and the transition from medieval to early modern England 209
Appendices 215
Bibliography 265
Index 279
