Women, Work and Social Relations in Early Modern London
My primary research interests focus on women and gender in early modern Britain, and the
history of early modern London. My current major research project is a monograph which
expands on aspects of my Ph.D. Provisionally entitled Honest Whores: women, work and
social relations in early modern London the book will examine women’s roles as mothers,
housewives, mistresses, workers and neighbours in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
London. The book draws on various forms of evidence, including secular and ecclesiastical
court depositions, diaries, and a range of printed material such as ballads and jest-books. The
primary purpose of the project is to expand the boundaries of female honour by examining
actions and roles which earned women credit and helped them to construct positive
reputations in early modern London. To date I have published two articles on related themes,
and a third on female beauty is in progress, as well as a piece on locations of extramarital sex
in London which draws on the disciplinary records of London’s Bridewell Hospital.
In addition I have published on ideas about gender in early modern jest-books. Such texts
varied in size and price, but the jokes they contained circulated orally as well as in print and
appealed primarily, although not exclusively, to a youthful, unmarried male audience. I
published an article on misogyny in jest-books and intend to explore other themes related to
masculinity in such texts at a future date.
Publications
‘Women’s clothes and female honour in early modern London’, Continuity and Change, 26:1 (2011)
‘Women, ale and company in early modern London’ in Beat Kümin (ed.), Brewing cultures in early
modern towns [special edition of Brewery History, 135 (2010)]
‘Misogyny, jest-books and male youth culture in seventeenth-century England’, Gender and History,
21:2 (August 2009)