Probate inventories provide an unparalleled and intimate glimpse into the lives of the inhabitants of early modern England. After death, the items within the deceased's home would frequently be itemised and valued room-by-room. As well as providing invaluable information about the rich diversity and value of domestic material culture, the inventories also offer insights into the different tastes, domestic arrangements and range of activities that took place within the early modern home. Inventories also enable scholars to reconstruct the informal social and business networks that are crucial for understanding this period, but which might otherwise remain hidden. By offering a critical introduction to the use of probate inventories for historical research, and by providing transcriptions of inventories from French immigrants to early modern London, this book provides a new and important resource for students and researchers interested in the early modern household, material culture studies, and the domestic lives of the Huguenot refugees. The book begins with a detailed introduction that provides historical background on the French immigrant community in London. This is followed by an original analysis of the key differences that existed between French and English domestic interiors during this period, along with a discussion of how these trends are visible within the included inventories. The book subsequently provides a critical discussion of the issues and challenges involved in studying probate inventories and the difficulties in their interpretation. Following a description of the methodology used for the current study and the general characteristics of the sample included, the volume provides transcriptions of ninety-two probate inventories from members of London's Huguenot community. In addition, the book contains a fully referenced historical glossary of the items of early modern material culture listed within the inventories. Taken together, the book ha

Evidence gleaned from archaeology sheds dramatic new light on religious practices and identities between the later sixteenth and the nineteenth centuries. The post-medieval period was one of profound religious and cultural change, of sometimes violent religious conflict and of a dramatic growth in religious pluralism. The essays collected here, in what is the first book to focus onthe material evidence, demonstrate the significant contribution that archaeology can make to a deeper understanding of religion. They take a broad interdisciplinary approach to the spatial and material context of religious life, using buildings and landscapes, religious objects and excavated cemeteries, alongside cartographic and documentary sources, to reveal the complexity of religious practices and identities in varied regions of post-medieval Britain,Europe and the wider world. Topics covered include the transformation of religious buildings and landscapes in the centuries after the European Reformation, the role of religious minorities and immigrant groups in early modern cities, the architectural and landscape context of eighteenth and nineteenth-century nonconformity, and the development of post-medieval burial practices and funerary customs. Offering a unique perspective on the material remains ofthe post-medieval period, this volume will be of significant value to archaeologists and historians interested in the religious and cultural transformation of the early modern world. Contributors: Chris King, Duncan Sayer, Andrew Spicer, Philippa Woodcock, Matthias Range, Simon Roffey, Greig Parker, Jeremy Lake, Eric Berry, Peter Herring, Claire Strachan, Peter Benes, Diana Mahoney-Swales, Richard O'Neill, Hugh Willmott, Natasha Powers, Adrian Miles, Anwen Cedifor Caffell, Rachel Clarke, Rosie Morris