Abstract
The conundrum of exactly what made a man, or constituted manhood, during the early modern period is something which historians and literary scholars have been puzzling over for the last 15 to 20 years. Much of the current scholarship has focused on relationships between men and women, pointing towards the necessity of marriage, family formation and economic independence in achieving manhood in early modern England.1 As a result, the significance of patriarchy in determining the prescripts of men’s familial and social roles, responsibilities and behaviour has become a prominent feature in studies of early modern manhood. The extent to which manhood was grounded in patriarchal ideology, or was available through many, varied and often contradictory means, is a question that is becoming increasingly pivotal within this burgeoning debate.2 In strictly prescriptive terms, manhood was identified as being that married, economically independent householder upon whom patriarchy insisted.3 Pursuing this line of thinking is not an attempt to posit the idea that manhood and patriarchy were synonymous, or that those men who did not achieve such social standing, for whatever reason, were somehow a breed of lesser or non-men. It is an attempt, however, to suggest that those men who did not achieve normative or full manhood could exert their manliness in other ways.4
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Notes
An important exception to this is the work undertaken by Alexandra Shepard; see Shepard, Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003).
For the terms ‘normative’ and ‘patriarchal’ see Susan Amussen, ‘“The part of a Christian man”: the cultural politics of manhood in early modern England’, in Susan Amussen and Mark Kishlansky (eds), Political Culture and Cultural Politics in Early Modern Europe (Manchester, 1995), pp. 213–33, especially pp. 216–17; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, pp. 11–12.
Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, especially pp. 6, 11, 16, 248–53; Shepard, ‘From anxious patriarchs to refined gentlemen? Manhood in Britain, circa 1500–1700’, Journal of British Studies 44:2 (2005), 281–95, especially 290–92. The analytical framework in which Shepard’s work is situated builds on the model outlined by the sociologist Robert Connell; see Connell, Masculinities (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), especially chapter 3.
Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, especially chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7; see also Shepard, ‘Manhood, credit and patriarchy in early modern England’, Past and Present 167 (2000), 75–106.
Anthony Fletcher, Gender, Sex and Subordination 1500–1800 (New Haven, 1995); Amussen, ‘The part of a christian man’, pp. 213–33; Elizabeth Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage (Harlow: Longman, 1999); Bernard Capp, ‘The double standard revisited: Plebeian women and male sexual reputation in early modern England’, Past and Present 162 (1999), 70–100; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood; Mark Breitenburg, Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1996); Lyndal Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern Europe (London, 1994).
See, for example, Fletcher, ‘Manhood, the male body, courtship and the household in early modern England’, History 84 (1999), 419–36; Foyster, ‘Boys will be boys? manhood and aggression, 1660–1800’, in Hitchcock and Cohen (eds), English Masculinities 1660–1800, pp. 151–66; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, especially chapters 2, 8.
Philippe Aries, Centuries of Childhood (London, 1962); Lloyd de Mause, ‘The evolution of childhood’, in Lloyd de Mause (ed.), The History of Childhood (New York, 1974), pp. 1–73; Lawrence Stone, The Family, Sex and Marriage in England, 1500–1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1977).
Linda Pollock, Forgotten Children: Parent-Child Relationships from 1500 to 1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); Ralph Houlbrooke, The English Family 1450–1700 (London, 1984); Ralph Houlbrooke (ed.), English Family Life, 1576–1716: An Anthology From Diaries (New York, 1988); Keith Wrightson, English Society 1580–1680 (London, 2002 edn). See also Alan Macfarlane, ‘The family, sex and marriage in England, 1500–1800 — Lawrence Stone — review’, History and Theory 18:1 (1979), 103–26. For a discussion on the history of childhood in Germany, see Carmen Luke, Pedagogy, Printing and Protestantism: the Discourse on Childhood (Albany, 1989). One text that could also be added here is John Sommerville, The Rise and Fall of Childhood (London, 1983). For a historiographical overview of the history of childhood, see Hugh Cunningham, ‘Histories of childhood’, American Historical Review 103:4 (1998), 1195–1208.
Will Fisher, ‘The renaissance beard: masculinity in early modern England’, Renaissance Quarterly 54:1 (2001), 175–79; see also Steve Brown, ‘The boyhood of Shakespeare’s heroines: notes on gender ambiguity in the sixteenth century’, Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900 30:2 (1990), 243–63.
Foyster, Manhood in Early Modern England, p. 39; Foyster, ‘Silent witnesses? Children and the breakdown of domestic and social order in early modern England’, in Anthony Fletcher and Stephen Hussey (eds), Childhood in Question: Children, Parents and the State (Manchester, 1999), pp. 57–73.
Edward Herbert, The Life of Edward, First Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Written by Himself, ed. J.M. Shuttleworth (London, 1976), p. 1.
A. Mackley (ed.), John Buxton Norfolk Gentleman and Architect: Letters to His Son 1719–20, Norfolk Record Society, LXIX (2005), J. Buxton to R. Buxton, 18 March 1728, cited in Henry French and Mark Rothery, ‘“Upon your entry into the world”: Masculine Values and the Threshold of adulthood among landed elite in England 1680–1800’, Social History 33:4 (2008), 414.
For conduct literature directed at parents, see, for example, Bartholomew Batty, The Christian Mans Closet: Wherein is Contained a Large Discourse of the Godly Training Up of Children (London, 1581, trans. William Lowth); Richard Greenham, A Godly Exhortation, and Fruitfull Admonition to Vertuous Parents and Modest Masters (London, 1584); Anon, The Office of Christian Parents. Examples of conduct literature directed at children include Henry Jessy, A Catechisme for Babes, Or, Little Ones (London, 1652); George Fox, A Catechisme for Children (2nd edn, London, 1657); Anon, School of Learning: Or, a Guide for Children (London, 1668); S.T., The Child’s Book and the Youth’s Book; Hart, School of Grace; James Kirkwood, Advice to Children (2nd edn, London, 1693).
Martyn Bennett, ‘Gender and education in the early modern period’, Defining Gender, 1450–1910 (London, 2003).
As Anna Bryson has noted, courtesy texts, which took a pedagogic form and which were specifically directed at schoolboys, were not the invention of the seventeenth century. Those penned by Erasmus and Seagar in the sixteenth century remained influential into the seventeenth century. Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility: Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Modern England (Oxford, 1998), especially chapters 1, 2.
John Gother, Instructions for Children (London, 1698).
John Hart, The School of Grace; or, A Book of Good Nurture for the Admonition and Instruction of Youth and Age in the Fear of the Lord (19th edn, London, 1688).
Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 260–62; Wrightson, English Society, pp. 32–4.
Thomas Willis, Vestibulum Lingue Latine: A Dictionarie for Children (London, 1651), quotation from frontispiece.
Elizabeth Jocelyn, The Mother’s Legacie to Her Unborne Childe (London, 1625), sig. B5.
Jennifer Jordan, ‘Becoming a Man: Prescriptions of Manhood and Manliness in Early Modern England’ (Unpublished doctoral thesis, Nottingham Trent University, 2007); Jordan, ‘Boyhood and manliness in early modern England’, Parergon (under consideration).
See, for example, Laura Gowing, Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven, 2003), p. 193.
Margaret Spufford, ‘The cost of apparel in seventeenth-century England, and the accuracy of Gregory King’, Economic History Review 53:4 (2000), 677–705, especially 681.
Margaret Spufford, The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1984), p. 123.
Beverly Lemire, ‘Consumerism in preindustrial and early industrial England: the trade in secondhand clothes’, Journal of British Studies 27:1 (1988), 1–24, quotation on 3. For those of a lesser moral fibre — or those with no other choice — the trade in stolen clothes may also have provided opportunity to purchase cheaper, or else barter an exchange for clothing; see Beverly Lemire, ‘The theft of clothes and popular consumerism in early modern England’, Journal of Social History 24:2 (1990), 255–76.
R. Schofield and E.A. Wrigley, ‘Infant and child mortality in England in the late Tudor and early Stuart period’, in C. Webster (ed.), Health, Medicine and Mortality in the Sixteenth Century (Cambridge, 1979), cited in Wrightson, English Society, p. 105.
Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: Explored Further (London, 2001 edn), p. 112.
Laslett’s work suggests that the birth rate fell during the mid to late seventeenth century, and attributes this to higher levels of out-migration, mainly to North America; see Laslett, The World We Have Lost, chapter 5, especially p. 108; E.A. Wrigley and R. Schofield, The Population History of England, 1541–1871: a Reconstruction (London, 1981), pp. 217–18.
See, for example, Henry Massingberd, The Counsell and Admonition of Henry Massingberd Esq.; to His Children (London, 1656); Archibald Argyle, Instructions to a Son by Archibald, Late Marquis of Argyle (London, 1661); Matthew Hales, The Father’s New-Years-Gift to His Son: Containing Divers Useful and Necessary Directions How to Order Himself Both in Respect to this Life and that Which is to Come (London, 1685).
Anon, The Father’s Legacy: Or Counsels to his Children in Three Parts (London, 1678), sig. B3.
Natascha Würzbach, The Rise of the English Street Ballad, 1550–1650 (Cambridge, 1990).
Bennett, ‘Gender and education in the early modern period’; further examples of such include Dorothy Leigh, The Mother’s Blessing: or, the Godly Counsaile of a Gentlewoman, Not Long Deceased, Left Behind For Her Children (London, 1629); Elizabeth Jocelyn, The Mother’s Legacy to Her Unborne Childe (3rd edn, London, 1625).
Thomas Vincent, The Good Work Begun in the Day of Grace, with the Addition of a Cautionary Letter, Sent Unto Some Youths by an Unknown Author (London, 1673); Samuel Peck, The Best Way to Mend the World, and to Prevent the Growth of Popery: by Perswading the Rising Generation to an Elderly and Serious Practice of Piety (London, 1680); Henry Hesketh, The Importance of Religion to Young Persons Represented in a Sermon (London, 1683); Christopher Ness, A Spiritual Legacy: Being a Pattern of Piety for all Young Persons Practice (London, 1684); A. Tompkins, A Few Words of Counsel and Advice to all the Sons and Daughters of Men; More Especially to the Children of Believers (London, 1687); Samuel Pomfret, A Sermon Preach’d to Young People (London, 1698); Anon, Serious Advice and Directions to all, Especially to Young People, How They May Hear and Read the Word of God (Edinburgh, 1700).
See, for example, Francis Hawkins, Youths Behaviour, Or Decency in Conversation Amongst Men (London, 1646), which discusses such issues as good conversation, how to properly address others, table manners and walking; John Dunton, The Knowledge of the World: Or the Art of Well Educating Youth, Through the Various Conditions of Life (London, 1694), which is primarily concerned with the importance of education and on choosing a tutor.
Edward Burton, The Father’s Legacy: Or Burton’s Collections (London, 1649), p. 32.
Anon, A Word in Season, Or An Essay to Promote Good-Husbandry in Hard and Difficult Times: Being, in Part, Advice From a Gentleman to His Son a Tradesmen in London (London, 1697); cf. William Cecil, The Counsell of a Father to His Sonne, in Ten Severall Precepts (London, 1611), cited in Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, p. 35.
Houlbrooke, English Family Life, pp. 156–60. (Henry Newcome (1627–1695) 1657–1665; passages referred to 8 August 1658, 23 October 1661, 4 February 1662, 7 February 1662, 19 February 1662, 8 July 1662, 6 October 1664).
Caleb Trenchfield, A Cap of Grey Hairs for a Greenhead, Or, The Fathers Counsel to his Son, An Apprentice in London (London, 1671), pp. 153–4.
Ilanna Krausman Ben-Amos, ‘Reciprocal bonding: parents and their offspring in early modern England’, Journal of Family History 25:3 (2000), 291–312.
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Jordan, J. (2011). ‘To Make a Man Without Reason’: Examining Manhood and Manliness in Early Modern England. In: Arnold, J.H., Brady, S. (eds) What is Masculinity?. Genders and Sexualities in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230307254_12
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