In this important study, Professor McIntosh argues against the suggestion that social regulation was a distinctive feature of the decades around 1600, resulting from Puritanism. Instead, through an examination of 255 village and small-town communities distributed throughout England, Professor McIntosh demonstrates that concern with wrongdoing mounted gradually between 1370 and 1600. In an attempt to maintain good order and enforce ethical conduct, local leaders prosecuted people who slandered or quarrelled with their neighbours, engaged in sexual misdeeds, operated unruly alehouses, or refused to work. Professor McIntosh also explores who the offenders were as well as the factors that led to misbehaviour and shaped responses to it. More generally, Professor McIntosh sheds light on the transition from medieval to early modern patterns and succeeds here in opening up little-known sources and new research methods.

This study explores the diverse and changing ways in which English women participated in the market economy between 1300 and 1620. Marjorie Keniston McIntosh assesses women's activity by examining their engagement in the production and sale of goods, service work, credit relationships, and leasing of property. Using substantial evidence from equity court petitions and microhistorical studies of five market centres, she challenges both traditional views of a 'golden age' for women's work and more recent critiques. She argues that the level of women's participation in the market economy fluctuated considerably during this period under the pressure of demographic, economic, social, and cultural change. Although women always faced gender-based handicaps, some of them enjoyed wider opportunities during the generations following the plague of 1348-9. By the late sixteenth century, however, these opportunities had largely disappeared and their work was concentrated at the bottom of the economic system.

Winner of the Aidoo-Snyder Prize. This groundbreaking book by two leading scholars offers a complete historical picture of women and their work in Uganda, tracing developments from pre-colonial times to the present and into the future. Setting women's economic activities into a broader political, social, and cultural context, it provides the first general account of women's experiences amidst the changes that shaped the country. Prior to the 1970s, relatively few Ugandan women broughtin their own income, despite producing most of the food and craftwork that was taken to local markets. Educational expansion in the 1950s and 1960s were years of gradual evolution for women and their work, with many employed as lower level teachers or nurses. Since the 1970s, there have been a number of dramatic changes which have led to many more women earning their own income: high mortality of men from conflict and HIV/AIDS, increased migration of women into urban areas, the collapse of the state-controlled economy and the emergence of a magendo economy, the development of a free market economy within a system of global capitalism, deepening poverty through Structural Adjustment Programmes, and the expansion of women's roles in many areas. This book traces the origins of the current situation, highlighting the challenges working women now face, and recommending strategies that will improve their circumstances in the future. North America: Ohio U Press; Uganda: Fountain Publishers

At the cutting edge of new social and demographic history, this book provides a detailed picture of the most comprehensive system of poor relief operated by any Elizabethan town. Well before the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, Hadleigh, Suffolk-a thriving woolen cloth center with a population of roughly 3,000-offered a complex array of assistance to many of its residents who could not provide for themselves: orphaned children, married couples with more offspring than they could support or supervise, widows, people with physical or mental disabilities, some of the unemployed, and the elderly. Hadleigh's leaders also attempted to curb idleness and vagrancy and to prevent poor people who might later need relief from settling in the town. Based upon uniquely full records, this study traces 600 people who received help and explores the social, religious, and economic considerations that made more prosperous people willing to run and pay for this system. Relevant to contemporary debates over assistance to the poor, the book provides a compelling picture of a network of care and control that resulted in the integration of public and private forms of aid.

Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

This study explores the diverse and changing ways in which English women participated in the market economy between 1300 and 1620. Marjorie Keniston McIntosh assesses women's activity by examining their engagement in the production and sale of goods, service work, credit relationships, and leasing of property. Using substantial evidence from equity court petitions and microhistorical studies of five market centres, she challenges both traditional views of a 'golden age' for women's work and more recent critiques. She argues that the level of women's participation in the market economy fluctuated considerably during this period under the pressure of demographic, economic, social, and cultural change. Although women always faced gender-based handicaps, some of them enjoyed wider opportunities during the generations following the plague of 1348-9. By the late sixteenth century, however, these opportunities had largely disappeared and their work was concentrated at the bottom of the economic system.

Between the mid-fourteenth century and the Poor Laws of 1598 and 1601, English poor relief moved toward a more coherent and comprehensive network of support. Marjorie McIntosh's study, the first to trace developments across that time span, focuses on three types of assistance: licensed begging and the solicitation of charitable alms; hospitals and almshouses for the bedridden and elderly; and the aid given by parishes. It explores changing conceptions of poverty and charity and altered roles for the church, state and private organizations in the provision of relief. The study highlights the creativity of local people in responding to poverty, cooperation between national levels of government, the problems of fraud and negligence, and mounting concern with proper supervision and accounting. This ground-breaking work challenges existing accounts of the Poor Laws, showing that they addressed problems with forms of aid already in use rather than creating a new system of relief.

This history of the English royal manor of Havering, Essex, illustrates life at one extreme of the spectrum of personal and collective freedom during the later Middle Ages, revealing the kinds of patterns which could emerge when medieval people were placed in a setting of unusual independence. As residents of a manor held by the crown, they profited from royal administrative neglect. As tenants of the ancient royal demesne, they had special legal rights and economic privileges. Havering’s dominant families controlled the legal and administrative life of their community through the powerful manor court. The tenants combined effectively to prevent outside interference in their affairs, despite the individualistic self-interest manifest in their economic dealings. In 1465 the tenants obtained a royal charter which established Havering as a formal Liberty, with its own justices of the peace. By the end of the fifteenth century Havering displayed many characteristics commonly associated with the Elizabethan and Jacobean periods.

Through an examination of 255 places in England, Professor McIntosh argues against the suggestion that social regulation was a distinctive feature of the decades around 1600, resulting from Puritanism, and demonstrates that concern with wrongdoing mounted gradually between 1370 and 1600. This trail-breaking study of how English people defined and attempted to control misbehavior opens up little-known sources and new research methods, challenges many historical assumptions and sheds light on the transition from early medieval to early modern patterns.

A Community Transformed traces the restructuring of Havering between 1500 and 1620 through detailed analysis of demographic patterns, the economy, religion, social and cultural forms, and local administration and law. McIntosh’s study, the most complex and richly drawn portrait of any English community in this period, goes beyond local history in illuminating the transition from medieval to early modem life. A Community Transformed is the sequel to Professor McIntosh’s acclaimed work Autonomy and Community: The Royal Manor of Havering, 1200–1500, published by Cambridge in 1986.