Consumption and Gender in the Early Seventeenth-Century Household

The primary aim of this period of research leave is to complete a book of 90,000 words on Consumption and Gender in the Seventeenth-Century Household, which is under contract with Oxford University Press. The book is based on a detailed case study of an unusually complete set of household accounts. The accounts were written by Lady Alice Le Strange of Hunstanton, Norfolk, and run from 1606 to 1653, recording payments, receipts, and the production and consumption of food. These documents, together with others from the Le Strange archive and from the locality of Hunstanton, are used to reconstruct in rich detail the everyday consumption patterns of a large gentry household in the early seventeenth century.
Previous studies of consumption in early modern England have focused either on durable good owned at death, that were recorded in a type of document known as probate inventories; or on luxury and novel modes of consumption. This book will be original in providing a rounded view of consumption, examining everything from the production and purchase of food and clothes, to elite pursuits such as hunting and the acquisition of a large library of books. It views consumption as a process, examining how items were purchased or produced, how they were enjoyed or used, and how they were disposed of. The long run of accounts also allows different rhythms of consumption to be explored, from daily and yearly routines, to changes and events that occurred over the family's lifecycle, from birth to death. The gentry household purchased not only things, but also services and labour from other people. The study of this aspect of consumption leads to the reconstruction of relationships between the gentry household and the local community. It has been argued that England underwent a 'consumer revolution', or transition to modern consumption patterns in the eighteenth century. This book illuminates the complexity and sophistication of consumption patterns in the era before that revolution.
The Le Strange accounts are unusual in having been written by a woman who was not single or widowed, but lived with her husband and took on a major responsibility for running their home. The gendered nature of consumption is an important theme running through the book. In early modern England, as in the modern period, women were assumed to have an important role in consumption, ensuring that the household was kept clean and provided with food and clothing. Yet early modern 'housewifery' stretched into realms that are alien to modern housewives, such as the manufacture of medicines, and the production of butter and cheese. On the other hand shopping for the Le Strange household was usually done by men rather than women. Patterns of consumption allowed Alice and her husband Hamon to construct their identities in very different ways: Alice as the efficient and thrifty manager of the house, Hamon as a cultured Renaissance man with wide interests in music, science and sport.
The book arises out a research project which was part of an ESRC/AHRC themed research programme on 'cultures of consumption'. During the initial project a research fellow, Elizabeth Griffiths, worked full-time for two years transcribing the household accounts onto a database, and collecting copies of other relevant documents. She also drafted some sections of the book, and will be its joint author. Jane Whittle designed the database and managed the project, and has written a number of research papers, but has had no time off from her normal teaching and administrative duties to work on the project or the book. During the research project Jane Whittle also had a period of maternity leave and part-time work due to family commitments. Just over a quarter of the book is drafted already. The research leave funded by this grant will allow her to complete the book in a period of concentrated work free from other duties.