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'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500-1700 (Paperback)
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'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500-1700 (Paperback)
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'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early
Modern England, 1500-1700 examines the construction of gypsy
identity in England between the early sixteenth century and the end
of the seventeenth century. Drawing upon previous historiography, a
wealth of printed primary sources (including government documents,
pamphlets, rogue literature, and plays), and archival material
(quarter sessions and assize cases, parish records and constables's
accounts), the book argues that the construction of gypsy identity
was part of a wider discourse concerning the increasing vagabond
population, and was further informed by the religious reformations
and political insecurities of the time. The developing narrative of
a fraternity of dangerous vagrants resulted in the gypsy population
being designated as a special category of rogues and vagabonds by
both the state and popular culture. The alleged Egyptian origin of
the group and the practice of fortune-telling by palmistry
contributed elements of the exotic, which contributed to the
concept of the mysterious alien. However, as this book reveals, a
close examination of the first gypsies that are known by name shows
that they were more likely Scottish and English vagrants, employing
the ambiguous and mysterious reputation of the newly emerging
category of gypsy. This challenges the theory that
sixteenth-century gypsies were migrants from India and/or early
predecessors to the later Roma population, as proposed by
nineteenth-century gypsiologists. The book argues that the fluid
identity of gypsies, whose origins and ethnicity were (and still
are) ambiguous, allowed for the group to become a prime candidate
for the 'other', thus a useful tool for reinforcing the parameters
of orthodox social behaviour.
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