Publication Type
Journal Article
Version
publishedVersion
Publication Date
6-2012
Abstract
Influenced by interdisciplinary studies and the ‘spatial turn’ in social history, this article explores the relationship between space and the construction of gender identity amongst the poor to middling sorts of seventeenth-century Norwich. To this end I have considered gendered interaction in different ‘types' of space: domestic, private space, ‘borderline’ space – such as the alehouse or threshold – and, finally, the public space of streets and markets. Each section explores the relevance of recent spatial historiography in the Norwich context, and evaluates whether men and women inhabited different ‘worlds' in the city, not only in terms of their physical movement or access to certain places but also, more importantly, in terms of how their presence was perceived, and thus their identity shaped by others. The empirical basis is primarily defamation depositions of the Norwich Diocese Court, largely used by the middling sorts, contextualized where appropriate with secular court records.
Keywords
Gender, history, urban history
Discipline
Civic and Community Engagement | Gender and Sexuality
Research Areas
Humanities
Publication
Cultural and Social History
Volume
9
Issue
2
First Page
169
Last Page
185
ISSN
1478-0038
Identifier
10.2752/147800412X13270753068722
Publisher
Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Citation
WILLIAMSON, Fiona.(2012). Space and the city: Gender identities in the seventeenth-century Norwich. Cultural and Social History, 9(2), 169-185.
Available at: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/2655
Copyright Owner and License
Publisher
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Additional URL
https://doi.org/10.2752/147800412X13270753068722