Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-Century LondonThe enormous growth of London during the early modern period brought with it major social problems, yet, as Steve Rappaport demonstrates in this innovative study, Tudor London was essentially a stable society, subject to stress but never seriously threatened by widespread popular unrest or other forms of instability. Professor Rappaport looks once again at the nature, causes, and effects of the principal threats to the capital's stability in the sixteenth century - the threefold increase in population, the economic impact of such demographic expansion, the substantial rise in prices and the inequitable distribution of wealth and power - and concludes that historians have hitherto exaggerated the severity of such problems and over-simplified their effects. Professor Rappaport's researches suggest that the institutional superstructure of the capital was more adaptable, its small social organisations more resilient, and opportunities for social mobility far greater than many historians have acknowledged. Worlds Within Worlds combines sophisticated quantitative analysis with vivid empirical detail, and mounts a major challenge to much current thinking about urban life in early modern Britain. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION | 1 |
Early modern Londons alleged instability | 6 |
THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF CITIZENSHIP | 23 |
Every freemen shall be of some mystery or trade | 29 |
The status of women | 36 |
Repression of foreigners and strangers | 42 |
Extension of the freedom in Henriciar London | 47 |
Renewal of tensions in Elizabethan London | 54 |
The importance of the companies | 184 |
The companies role in resolving conflict | 201 |
STRUCTURAL INEQUALITY | 215 |
The yeomanry | 219 |
Apprentices | 232 |
journeymen and householders | 238 |
liverymen and assistants | 250 |
The distribution of men and wealth in companies | 273 |
THE GROWTH OF POPULATION | 61 |
Life expectancy and mortality | 67 |
The capitals magnetism in early modern England | 76 |
DEMOGRAPHIC GROWTH AND TUDOR LONDONS ECONOMYY | 87 |
The decline of the clothfinishing industry | 96 |
Too many foreigners apprentices and encroachers of handicrafts | 104 |
Some causes of unemployment and its extent in Elizabethan London | 117 |
THE STANDARD OF LIVING | 123 |
The price revolution | 130 |
Trends in the prices of consumables | 138 |
Trends in nominal and real wages | 145 |
The effects of rising prices in sixteenthcentury London | 153 |
THE SUBSTRUCTURE OF SOCIETY | 162 |
Limitations of Londons central government | 176 |
PATTERNS OF MOBILITY | 285 |
Apprenticeship | 291 |
The transition to adulthood | 322 |
The occupational career | 329 |
The company career | 345 |
Making it in Tudor London | 363 |
SOCIAL STABILITY IN SIXTEENTHCENTURY LONDON | 377 |
1 Estimate of the age structure of Londons male population in the middle of the sixteenth century1 | 388 |
2 Numbers of apprentices admissions and shopowners in livery companies 14909 to 16009 | 394 |
3 Prices and wages in London 1490 to 1609 | 401 |
| 408 | |
| 431 | |
Other editions - View all
Worlds Within Worlds: Structures of Life in Sixteenth-century London Steve Lee Rappaport No preview available - 1989 |
Common terms and phrases
accounts aldermen apprenticed apprenticeship assessment Average number Bakers CM became citizens Beier Boulton Brewers Butchers careers Carpenters cent city's cloth exports cloth finishers Clothworkers CM company's companymen court minutes courts of assistants craft or trade crafts and trades craftsmen debasements decades Drapers CM early modern London economic elite Elizabethan England entrants estimated Evil May Day F. F. Foster family background Finlay flour four freedom admission freemen Grocers Haberdashers I-II immigrants increase Ironmongers John Stow journeymen labour lived livery companies liverymen London's companies mayor means Merchant Taylors CM minor companies mortality native Londoners number of apprentices occupations ordinances organisations paid Palliser panies parishes Pewterers CM plague poor poverty line quarterage lists real wages records rise in prices roughly semi-skilled served shops sixteenth century sixteenth-century London social mobility sons of gentlemen status Statute of Artificers Table Tudor London Tudor period urban wage labourers wealth women yeomanry yeomen