Evaluating early modern lockdowns
Household quarantine in Bristol, 1565-1604
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3601603 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Charles Udale (London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 76 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 118-144 |
| Publication date | 2023-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Economic History Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/ehr.13176 |
| OpenAlex | W4285389141 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 19 |
We know the policy of quarantining plague victims and their families together within their households entailed considerable costs and controversy in early modern Europe. Less clear is the extent to which the authorities implemented the policy in the face of this. This paper presents a novel approach to the measurement of enforcement which relies on linking deceased individuals listed in parish registers into household groups and then measuring changes in within-household mortality between parishes and epidemics. This provides a more complete assessment of the scale of implementation than would be possible using documentary sources alone. Measuring within-household mortality allows us to understand patterns of quarantine enforcement in settlements across early modern Europe. Here the focus is restricted to three epidemics that occurred in Bristol - one of England's most populous and prosperous cities. The analysis reveals household quarantine was enforced in 1603-4 with unprecedented vigour. The effects of quarantine are particularly pronounced in the affluent parishes where elite residence was highest. Greater evidence for enforcement is explained by greater elite oversight and control, as well as their desire to protect their own households. The scale of the impact is shocking. Household quarantine could double within household mortality
Business · Demographic economics · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Elite · Enforcement · Geography · Human settlement · Plague (disease) · Political science · Politics · Quarantine · Residence · Scale (ratio) · Socioeconomics · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Law · Medicine · Yersinia bacterium, plague, ectoparasites research
British Medieval Population
State Formation in Early Modern England, c.1550–1700
Easter Books and Parish Rate Books
Pandemics
Historians and plagues in pre-industrial Italy over the longue durée 1
English Provincial Towns in the Early Sixteenth Century
Plagues, Morality and the Place of Medicine in Early Modern England
Shutt Up
Perceptions of plague in eighteenth‐century Europe
Plagues and Governments
Placing Blame for Devastating Disease
Plague and the Poor in Renaissance Florence
The last visitation of the plague inSweden
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |