Poverty, property and profit in English popular culture, 1660-1720

• Main Author: Waddell, Brodie Banner
• Published: University of Warwick 2009
• Subjects: 942.08; HC Economic History and Conditions : DA Great Britain
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.521396

This thesis explores popular attitudes towards economic relations in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It focuses on the economic implications of three of the most important and pervasive themes in the popular culture of this period: religious teachings about God‟s will; analogies based on the „well-ordered household‟; and assertions of communal solidarity. This study thus includes analysis of a range of moralised ideals and beliefs, including Christian stewardship, divine providence, patriarchal power, paternal duty, local community, and collective identity. Although some of these concepts have been discussed in the existing historiography, their impact on the economic culture of the period has largely been neglected or misunderstood. The sources used in this study are primarily printed media created for a very broad audience: broadside ballads, short tracts, chapbooks, pamphlets, sermons, catechisms, etc. These are placed in context by drawing on a variety of less „public‟ sources such as diaries, state papers, magisterial records, and the archives of craft guilds. Together, this diverse collection provides evidence of both moral prescription and social practice. The study demonstrates the vibrancy and diversity of later Stuart „moral economies‟. As a result, it also reveals the inadequacy of many previous historiographical approaches to early modern economic life. Many of these have ignored popular culture in favour of quantifiable metrics or elite ideas, while others have depicted „the moral economy‟ as an ever-receding anachronism. In contrast, this study argues that such beliefs and assumptions continued to serve as the frame through which people viewed food marketing, labour relations, land use, private charity, public poor relief, and many other „worldly‟ concerns. An analysis of later Stuart popular culture can thus contribute significantly to our understanding of economic relations during this period.