Fresh approaches to how premodern women were viewed in legal terms, demonstrating how this varied from country to country and across the centuries. There has been a tendency in scholarship on premodern women and the law to see married women as hidden from view, obscured by their husbands in legal records. This volume provides a corrective view, arguing that the extent to which the legal principle of coverture applied has been over-emphasized. In particular, it points up differences between the English common law position, which gave husbands guardianship over their wives and their wives' property, and the position elsewhere in northwest Europe, where wives' property became part of a community of property. Detailed studies of legal material from medieval and early modern England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Ghent, Sweden,Norway and Germany enable a better sense of how, when, and where the legal principle of coverture was applied and what effect this had on the lives of married women. Key threads running through the book are married women'srights regarding the possession of moveable and immovable property, marital property at the dissolution of marriage, married women's capacity to act as agents of their husbands and households in transacting business, and married women's interactions with the courts. Cordelia Beattie is Senior Lecturer in Medieval History at the University of Edinburgh; Matthew Frank Stevens is Lecturer in Medieval History at Swansea University Contributors: Lars Ivar Hansen, Shennan Hutton, Lizabeth Johnson, Gillian Kenny, Mia Korpiola, Miriam Muller, S.C. Ogilvie, Alexandra Shepard, Cathryn Spence.

Essays exploring childhood and youth in Scotland before the nineteenth century. Children and youth have tended to be under-reported in the historical scholarship. This collection of essays recasts the historical narrative by populating premodern Scottish communities from the thirteenth to the late eighteenthcenturies with their lively experiences and voices. By examining medieval and early modern Scottish communities through the lens of age, the collection counters traditional assumptions that young people are peripheral to our understanding of the political, economic, and social contexts of the premodern era. The topics addressed fall into three main sections: the experience of being a child/adolescent; representations of the young; and the constructionof the next generation. The individual essays examine the experience of the young at all levels of society, including princes and princesses, aristocratic and gentry youth, urban young people, rural children, and those who came to Scotland as slaves; they draw on evidence from art, personal correspondence, material culture, song, legal and government records, work and marriage contracts, and literature. Janay Nugent is an Associate Professor ofHistory and a founding member of the Institute for Child and Youth Studies at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada; Elizabeth Ewan is University Research Chair and Professor of History and Scottish Studies at the Centrefor Scottish Studies, University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada. Contributors: Katie Barclay, Stuart Campbell, Mairi Cowan, Sarah Dunnigan, Elizabeth Ewan, Anne Frater, Dolly MacKinnon, Cynthia J. Neville, Janay Nugent, Heather Parker, Jamie Reid Baxter, Cathryn R. Spence, Laura E. Walkling, Nel Whiting.

In 1633, plans were made for a new one-off tax on house-rent, or "mail," intended to pay the stipends of Edinburgh's clergy. At the request of Charles I, full power and commission was given "for passing through the whole city and trying of what mail every tenement, dwelling house, low tavern, cellar or chamber," and an inventory was taken, which survives in manuscript form in the Edinburgh City Archives. While it would seem that the tax was never actually collected and so was a failure in terms of municipal fund-raising, it left an incredibly detailed record of the socio-economic and political structures of the Scottish capital. Giving information on landlords, tenants, rental and annuity for over 900 businesses and 3,900 houses, the record enables the topographies of Edinburgh down to house-by-house level to be reconstructed; whilst Cardinal Beaton's Lodgings, or the Pudding Market, no longer survive, the inventory sheds important light on these missing structures and allows for a fuller interpretation of the still extant buildings, such as Mary King's Close, or Gladstone's Land. Now published in its entirety for the first time, this valuable record gives us an exceptional view of an early modern capital and an unprecedented insight into the socio-economic composition and landscape of early modern Edinburgh, forming an invaluable resource for those interested in topics such as the demographic and economic history of preindustrial towns, urban topography and the local and genealogical history of Scotland's capital. It is particularly useful in illuminating those sections of society so often hidden from history, and giving a rare window into the people and property of Edinburgh on the eve of revolution. The volume also includes an extensive historical introduction explaining the nature, context and utility of the records. Dr Aaron Allen is a Honorary Postdoctoral Fellow in Scottish History at the University of Edinburgh, where he teaches history for the Office of Lifelong Learning; Dr Cathryn Spence is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

This richly illustrated history explores the many challenges and triumphs faced by one of Britain's most fascinating cities. The Story of Bath charts the long history of this important city from its beginnings in the Roman period through to the present day. Its lively narrative takes in Bath's medieval reinvention as a health resort and focuses on its Georgian heyday, when a new classical town was achieved as the elegant backdrop to the social round of polite society. The rediscovery of the Roman Baths and growing industries led to Bath's expansion in the late nineteenth century, while the Blitz and the consequent conservation battles of the Sack of Bath are highlighted in the twentieth century. Accompanied by evocative archival images, Cathryn Spence brings to life the many facets of this remarkable World Heritage Site.

This text provides the first full-length consideration of women's economic roles in early modern Scottish towns. Drawing on tens of thousands of cases entered into burgh court litigation between 1560 and 1640 in Edinburgh, Dundee, Haddington and Linlithgow, Women, credit and debt explores how Scottish women navigated their courts and their communities. The employments and by-employments that brought these women to court and the roles they had in the economy are also considered. In particular, this book explores the role of women as merchants, merchandisers, producers and sellers of ale, landladies, moneylenders and servants. Comparing the Scottish experience to that of England and Europe, Spence shows that over the course of the latter half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth century women were conspicuously active in burgh court litigation and, by extension, were engaged participants in the early modern Scottish economy. -- .