Communities in Early Modern England

Networks, place, rhetoric

Edited by Alexandra Shepard, Philip Withington

Publication date:

21 December 2000

Length of book:

288 pages

Publisher

Manchester University Press

Dimensions:

234x156mm

ISBN-13: 9780719054778

BOOK DESCRIPTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

This volume attempts to rediscover the richness of community in the early modern world - through bringing together a range of fascinating material on the wealth of interactions that operated in the public sphere. Divided into three parts the book looks at:
the importance of place – ranging from the Parish, to communities of crime, to the place of political culture,
Community and Networks – how individuals were bound into communities by religious, professional and social networks
the value of rhetoric in generating community – from the King’s English to the use of ‘public’ as a rhetorical community. Explores the many ways in which people utilised communication, space, and symbols to constitute communities in early modern England. Highly interdisciplinary - incorporating literary material, history, religion, medical, political and cultural histories together, will be of interest to specialists, students and anyone concerned with the meaning and practice of community, past and present.

List of tables and illustrations
List of contributors
Preface
List of abbreviations
1. P. J. Withington and Alexandra Shepard – Introduction: communities in early modern England
Part One: Networks
2. Jason Scott-Warren – Reconstructing manuscript networks: the textual transactions of Sir Stepehn Powle
3. Margaret Pelling – Defensive tactics: networking by female medical practitioners in early modern London
4. Margaret Sena – William Blundell and the networks of Catholic dissent in post-Reformation England
5. Ian Archer – Social networks in Restoration London: the evidence from Samuel Pepys’ diary
Part Two: Place
6. Steven Hindle – A sense of place? Becoming and belonging in the rural parish, 1550-1650
7. Paul Griffiths – Overlapping circles: imagining criminal communities in London, 1545-1645
8. P. J. Withington – Citizens, community and political culture in Restoration England
9. Craig Muldrew – From a ‘light cloak’ to the ‘iron cage’: an essay on historical changes in the relationship between community and individualism
Part Three: Rhetoric
10. Cathy Shrank – Rhetorical constructions of a national community: the role of the King’s English in mid-Tudor writing
11. Geoff Baldwin – The ‘public’ as a rhetorical community in early modern England
12. Alexandra Shepard – Contesting communities?: ‘town’ and ‘gown’ in Cambridge, c.1560-1640
13. Natasha Glaisyer – Readers, correspondents and communities: John Houghton’s ‘A collection for improvement of husbandrry and trade’ (1692-1703)
Bibliography