This post introduces a new podcast series by many-headed monster blogger Dr Mark Hailwood. You can access the podcasts via the Historical Association website here, and/or read on for some background on how they came about. If you have any comments on the episodes please add them at the bottom of this post.
Mark Hailwood
This simple question sits at the heart of pretty much all of the research I have undertaken as a historian. I have always been interested in the world of ‘ordinary’ women and men before modernity, and in how their world became this one. But it isn’t necessarily an easy question to answer. Working class rural dwellers in the past have left few written accounts of their everyday experiences, which has been enough to put off most historians from trying to recover their history.
There are though sources we can use, with a bit (well, a lot) of patience and some careful analysis. The most valuable of these, to my mind, are witness statements – or ‘depositions’ – from court cases, which relatively humble men and women were asked to give surprisingly often: early modern England was, as historians now know, a remarkably litigious society. And by combing through vast numbers of these surviving testimonies it is possible to discover a great deal about the day-to-day doings of seventeenth-century villagers – something I’ve blogged about before here, and here.
Typically my research on these sources has been concerned with specific topics – about the role of alcohol in preindustrial society, or about the differences between women’s and men’s working lives – but I am currently trying to draw these strands together to develop a more rounded picture of everyday life 400 years ago. Thanks to funding from the British Academy, I have spent the past year reflecting on, and re-reading some of, the tens of thousands of depositions I have consulted over the years, to draw out some of the most important themes that they reveal.
But that has not been an easy task either. Everyday life is a vast topic, and it is not possible to focus on everything these depositions might tell us. So, for this project, I thought I would concentrate on those aspects of seventeenth-century daily life that might surprise us the most, and challenge what we tend to assume about the period.
To start with, then, I needed to get a sense of what people today – especially those who are not specialist historians of early modern England – tend to think about rural life in the past. Through a workshop with residents of my home town in a local pub, and an online survey of members of the Historical Association and various other local history societies, I was able to build a picture of what was expected – and therefore what might be more surprising.
I used these survey answers as the basis for a series of podcasts, produced in association with the Historical Association, where I examine some of the most widely held beliefs about life four centuries ago against the depositional evidence. I’ve already given the game away here, but the results are not always what we might expect.
These podcasts are available now from the Historical Association website! You need to register with an email address to access them, but they are free – you do not need to become a member of the HA (though doing so opens up lots of other great History podcasts to you). There are four episodes, each one between 10 and 15 minutes long.
If you have any thoughts on any of the episodes, or any follow up questions, I would love to hear them – they will be helpful in shaping my research as it continues. Please add your comments at the bottom of this post and I will reply there.
And this is only one part of what is an ongoing project. I will be giving some public talks in the autumn and winter, and am currently working on a book of my findings, so watch this space…
the many-headed monster 
Really enjoyed all 4 episodes thanks. The first thing that comes into my head when considering a villager’s life 400 years ago is health. Given the amount of physical activity required to live and work, being fit and well would have been crucial. Those who did make it to old age would have had all the same health issues we have today, and more besides. This would make people much more dependent on other family members if they had them, or the wider community.
Thanks Nicola! You are right health would have been extremely important. There is a great blog by Dr Jennifer Evans that looks at the many ways 17th century people tried to stay healthy and treat ailments etc: https://earlymodernmedicine.com/
It was also the case that by the 1600s England had a system of ‘poor laws’, which meant that those who were unable to work through old age or disability might receive some financial support from their neighbours through a form of local taxation. So this support didn’t just fall to family members.
Hi Mark,
very interesting and insightful, thank you. I was an original survey respondent, and it has certainly challenged some of my long-held assumptions as a keen historian / family historian. Two questions if I may ;
Episode 1 longevity : have you derived any statistical analysis for average lifespan, once infant mortality & adolescent deaths are excluded from the calculation. Plenty of anecdotal references to aged individuals of course, but were they perhaps outliers ? It would be good to understand what was the average age of adult death at that time ?
Episode 3 migration : do you have a view on the extent of inter-village work related migration ? Not necessarily to adjacent parishes, but further afield. I have a suspicion that, underlying one of my ancestors moves, of c.12 miles, was either a job opportunity arising from a market day hiring, or perhaps ‘re-deployment’ to another farm within the same manor. Many Devon manors were non-contiguous and a work-move may have been imposed. So, have you undertaken any manorial record research to further underpin your court record researches (on any aspect of day-to-day life) ?
All in all, thanks for a fascinating insight into ordinary people’s lives at that time.
Thanks for these great questions Richard.
The life expectancy for someone who reached the age of 21 was another 30ish years, so the average age of death for those who reached adulthood was in the early 50s. That means that the examples of people in their 80s that I discuss in the podcasts are certainly older than average, but they are not totally exceptional, as that average in the 50s includes people dying in their 20s, 30s, 40s, as well as people much older.
Work would certainly have been one of the main reasons for migration between rural villages. Some recent work by Dr Charmian Mansell has shown that female servants were one of the most mobile groups, often moving more than 10 miles (so not just to adjacent parishes) to find a position in service. (Charmian’s book is available for free! See Chapter 4: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/female-servants-in-early-modern-england-9780197267585?cc=gb&lang=en&).
I am not going to make much use of manor records for my book, as I have plenty of depositions to be going on with, and it can be difficult to trace specific individuals across them (as I’m sure you know!) What I am planning to do is dig down into my depositions to look at the reasons people moved between villages – and work was often a cause.