The Black Death that arrived in the spring of 1348 eventually
killed nearly half of England's population. In its long aftermath,
wages in London rose in response to labor shortages, many survivors
moved into larger quarters in the depopulated city, and people in
general spent more money on food, clothing, and household
furnishings than they had before. Household Goods and Good
Households in Late Medieval London looks at how this increased
consumption reconfigured long-held gender roles and changed the
domestic lives of London's merchants and artisans for years to
come. Grounding her analysis in both the study of surviving
household artifacts and extensive archival research, Katherine L.
French examines the accommodations that Londoners made to their
bigger houses and the increasing number of possessions these
contained. The changes in material circumstance reshaped domestic
hierarchies and produced new routines and expectations. Recognizing
that the greater number of possessions required a different kind of
management and care, French puts housework and gender at the center
of her study. Historically, the task of managing bodies and things
and the dirt and chaos they create has been unproblematically
defined as women's work. Housework, however, is neither timeless
nor ahistorical, and French traces a major shift in women's
household responsibilities to the arrival and gendering of new
possessions and the creation of new household spaces in the decades
after the plague.
General
Imprint: |
University of PennsylvaniaPress
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
The Middle Ages Series |
Release date: |
October 2021 |
First published: |
2021 |
Authors: |
Katherine L. French
|
Dimensions: |
235 x 155 x 31mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
416 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-8122-5305-4 |
Categories: |
Books >
Humanities >
History >
General
Books >
History >
General
|
LSN: |
0-8122-5305-1 |
Barcode: |
9780812253054 |
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