The Twinkling of a Bedstaff
Recovering the Social Life of English Beds 1500–1700
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12877697 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Laura Gowing (0000-0003-3759-8985, King's College London, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2014 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 275-304 |
| Publication date | 2014-09-05 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Home Cultures (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1740-6315 • E-ISSN: 1751-7427 |
| Publisher | Taylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.2752/175174214x14035295691355 |
| OpenAlex | W1984428257 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 12 |
This article investigates the social history of the bed in England 1500–1700. It proposes an approach that uses legal records to recover the emotional resonances and social practices of an object in its context. The legal records are particularly useful for their use of narrative: their reliance on storytelling, it is argued, is not incidental but central for their importance as a source. Beds were sociable places, often shared: the crimes of illicit sex, infanticide, and theft encouraged witnesses to remember and recount the words and deeds of a shared bed in detail. An attention to these kinds of narratives both restores some of the emotional and social resonance of the material object, and adds depth and complexity to existing narratives of the transformation of the domestic sphere in this period
Aesthetics · Art · Context (archaeology · Linguistics · Literature · Narrative · Object (grammar · Period (music · Social science · Social sphere · Sociology · Storytelling · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies on Reproduction, Gender, Health, and Societal Changes · History · History of Emotions Research · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
Consumption and the World of Goods
Europe at Home
Gender, Space, and Place
Rooms and room use in Norwich housing, 1580–1730
Domestic Life and Domestic Tragedy in Early Modern England
History and Material Culture
An Englishman's Home Is His Castle? Thresholds, Boundaries and Privacies in the Eighteenth-Century London House
Apprenticeship, Health and Social Cohesion in Early Modern London
Continuity and Change in the Urban House
| Citations per year | 0.27 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2015 - 2022 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |