SOCIAL STATUS AND CLASSICISM IN THE VISUAL AND MATERIAL CULTURE OF THE SWEET BANQUET IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

2018 ◽  
Vol 61 (4) ◽  
pp. 913-942 ◽  
Author(s):  
LOUISE STEWART
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Effective Means ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
High Status ◽  
Wealthy Country ◽  
Country Houses ◽  
Sweet Foods ◽  
Main Meal ◽  
Visual Cultures

AbstractAround 1520, at the court of Henry VIII of England, a new meal type emerged. Called the ‘banquet’, this took place after the main meal, in a distinct space, and consisted of sweet foods, spiced wine, and sculptural sugarwork. Originally developing at court, the sweet banquet was quickly embraced by the nobility and gentry. This article investigates the adoption of this dining practice in the wealthy country houses of early modern England and the reasons for its popularity in this specific context. It draws on state papers, published works, and household accounts to establish the ways in which the banquet was utilized and understood by early modern elites. This evidence makes it clear that a high-status person would have expected to be entertained with a sweet banquet at any important social occasion involving their peers. An examination of the visual and material cultures associated with the banquet establishes that it was a highly effective means by which to express class status at a time of anxiety regarding social mobility. As an appropriation of the ancient symposium, it provided opportunities to engage with the intellectual and visual cultures of the classical world and the Renaissance.

scholarly journals England and the Catholic Reformation: The Peripheries Strike Back

2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-285
Author(s):  
James E. Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Position Paper ◽  
Protestant Reformation ◽  
Catholic Reformation ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
Early Modern English

AbstractAlthough the Protestant Reformation has traditionally been the focus of research on early modern England, the last two decades have witnessed a rapid increase in scholarship on the experience of the country’s Catholics. Questions surrounding the implementation of the Catholic Reformation in England have been central since the topic’s inception as a subject of academic interest, and the field has more recently captured the attention of, amongst others, literary scholars, musicologists and those working on visual and material culture. This article is a position paper that argues early modern English Catholicism, though not doing away with all continuities from before the country’s definitive break with Rome, was fully engaged with the global Catholic Reformation, both being influenced by it, but also impacting its progression. Whether through reading and writing, or more physical expressions of mission and reform, English Catholicism was a vital part of the wider Catholic Reformation.

Jewels for Gentlewomen: Religious Books as Artefacts in Late Medieval and Early Modern England

2004 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 123-142 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Walsham
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Religious Books ◽  
History Of ◽  
Prayer Books

Historians tend to approach books primarily as vehicles for ideas, sources for the thought of the individuals and groups who wrote and read the words on the pages inside. They rarely pause to consider their significance as physical artefacts and items of material culture. This paper brings the format, appearance, and practical function of Bibles, prayer books, and other small devotional works to the very centre of our attention. It suggests that close scrutiny of the diminutive size and artistically crafted covers of some of the copies that survive yields fresh insights into the shape and texture of piety in late medieval and early modern England. The following investigation is heavily indebted to the findings of researchers in the specialized field of the history of bookbinding, a field once light-heartedly described as ‘a humble auxiliary discipline … not entirely useless and undoubtedly innocuous’. Yet, as we shall see, situated against the backdrop of developments in Tudor and Stuart embroidery and jewellery, domestic furnishing and female fashion, decorated bookbindings provide us with a unique and interesting reflection of the values and preoccupations of pre- and post-Reformation society.

Sweet and Clean?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan North
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Social History ◽  
Medical Literature ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Past ◽  
Contagious Diseases ◽  
Accurate Picture ◽  
Old Bailey

Sweet and Clean? Bodies and Clothes in Early Modern England challenges the widely held beliefs on bathing and cleanliness in the past. For over 30 years, the work of the French historian, George Vigarello, has been hugely influential on early modern European social history, describing an aversion to water and bathing, and the use of linen underwear as the sole cleaning agent for the body. However, these concepts do not apply to early modern England. Sweet and Clean? analyses etiquette and medical literature revealing repeated recommendations to wash or bathe in order to clean the skin. Clean linen was essential for propriety but advice from medical experts was contradictory. Many doctors were convinced that it prevented the spread of contagious diseases, but others recommended flannel for undergarments, and a few thought changing a fever patient’s linens was dangerous. The methodology of material culture helps determine if and how this advice was practised. Evidence from inventories, household accounts and manuals, and surviving linen garments tracks underwear through its life-cycle of production, making, wearing, laundering, and final recycling. Although the material culture of washing bodies is much sparser, other sources, such as the Old Bailey records, paint a more accurate picture of cleanliness in early modern England than has been previously described. The contrasting analyses of linen and bodies reveal what histories material culture best serves. Finally, what of the diseases—plague, smallpox, and typhus—that cleanliness of body and clothes were thought to prevent? Did following early modern medical advice protect people from these illnesses?

‘The needle may convert more than the pen’: women and the work of conversion in early modern England

Conversions ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claire Canavan ◽  
Helen Smith
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Personal Transformation ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Decorative Arts ◽  
Queer Phenomenology

This chapter opens by establishing women's centrality to the religious life of the household and community, and, in particular, their work as model converts and proselytisers. It argues that women’s devotion was neither inherently private nor inherently concerned with questions of selfhood or personal transformation. Drawing on the Queer Phenomenology of Sara Ahmed, the chapter suggests the extent to which conversion functions as a re-orientation and change in direction. The second half of the chapter takes women’s biblical needlework as a case study in material culture as an instrument of orientation. Considering a group of manuscript poems alongside the evidence of inventories and surviving stitchcraft, the authors argue for the evangelical and devotional effects of women’s decorative arts, and suggest that scriptural and religious themes were not simply emblematic but intended to work upon and transform the viewer. For early modern readers and viewers, the needle was a doubly efficacious tool, able to prick not only fabric but the consciences of those who wielded it or meditated upon its products.

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