List of Figures
Acknowledgements
1. How to Read a Primary Source
2. Lives Uncovered: Life Cycles in the Early Modern Period
3. Body and Spirit, Sickness and Health
3.1. The Cosmic Human (1531)
3.2. The Human Animal (1561)
3.3. You are what you eat, or you eat what you are? (1656)
3.4. Cooking Comfort Foods (1570)
3.5. A Balanced Diet (1587)
3.6. New Food: Tomato (1692)
3.7. Depression as a Spiritual Imbalance (1643)
3.8. Combatting Inner Demons (1653)
3.9. Self-Medicating with Alcohol (1682)
3.10. A New Addiction: Coffee
3.11. A New Vice: Tobacco (1605)
4. Conception, Contraception, and Birth
4.1. A Woman’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1671)
4.2. A Man’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1612)
4.3. Menstruation
4.4. How to Have a Healthy Childbirth (1513)
4.5. Boys and Girls in the Womb (1587; 1671)
4.6. One Sex or Two? Women and Men as Mirrors of Each Other
4.7. How to Prevent Miscarriage (1656; 1671)
4.8. Diary of a Dutch Midwife (1693-1702)
4.9. Diary of a Florentine Father (1404–31)
4.10. Diary of an English Mother (1648–68)
4.11. Penalties for Abortion and Infanticide (1555)
4.12. Miscarriage and Abortion (1671)
4.13. Trials for Infanticide (1677; 1679)
4.14. Trying to Understand Birth Defects (1575)
4.15. The Business of Wetnursing (1420s)
4.16. Wetnursing Carnival Songs
4.17. Breastfeeding is Good, and Mother’s Milk is Best (1622)
4.18. A Jewish Circumcision
5. Childhood and Adolescence
5.1. What Boys and Girls Need to Learn
5.2. Bad Dreams and Bedwetting (1653)
5.3. Training of a Renaissance Feminist (1488)
5.4. A Man’s Idea of a School for Girls (1671)
5.5. A Woman’s Idea of a School for Girls (1694)
5.6. A Feminist Instructs Her Brothers (1485)
5.7. Raising Muslim and Jewish Children in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)
5.8. Writing Home: An Obedient Son (1578)
5.9. Writing Home: A Wily Son (1629-36)
5.10. Youth Rules the Night
5.11. Life of a University Student (1550s)
6. Working Life
6.1. Instructions for the Ideal Servant: An Employer’s View (1681)
6.2. Learning a Trade on the Job
6.3. The Apprentice’s Overseer
6.4. Peasant Protest and Rebellion (1502; 1525)
6.5. Workers and Employers at Odds
6.6. Women in/and the Guilds: Gold Spinners in Germany
6.7. Apprenticeship Contract for a Daughter (France 1610)
6.8. Apprenticeship Contract for a Female Orphan
6.9. Protecting Local Industry (1687)
6.10. The Rural Woman’s Guide to Hard Work (1550)
7. Marriage: Making and Ending It
7.1. A Contested Marriage in Court: Richard Tymond vs.Margarey Shepard (1487)
7.2. A Contested Marriage in Court: Alice Parker vs. Richard Tenwinter (1488)
7.3. Marrying Your Own
7.4. A Man Describes the Perfect Wife (1583)
7.5. Domestic Assault
7.6. Marrying to Breed (1654)
7.7. Italian Marriage Negotiations
7.8. German Marriage Negotiations (1533)
7.9. English Marriage Negotiations (1680–81)
7.10. Marriage Night Conversation
7.11. Fertility Curses and Cures
7.12. French Marriage Negotiations: Contract for a Second Marriage (1540)
7.13. A Woman’s Critique of Married Life (1600)
7.14. “Happy the Woman Without a Man”
7.15. A Man’s Critique of Married Life (1682)
7.16. Calculating Adultery
7.17. Marriage and Divorce in Muslim Spain (1438; 1474)
7.18. A Woman’s Response to Bigamy: Recovering Independence (1539)
7.19. Impotence and Divorce (1635)
7.20. Muslim Marriage Ceremonies in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View
7.21. Marriage Without Rituals: The Quaker Option
7.22. A Woman Reflects on Marriage
8. Sex, Gender, and Prostitution
8.1. A Morisca Prostitute in Valencia (1491)
8.2. A Catalogue of London Prostitutes (1691)
8.3. City Government Establishing a Brothel (1460)
8.4. Same-Sex Relations and Cross-Dressing (1477)
8.5. Warning Parents about Same-Sex Relations among Girls
8.6. A Transvestite Prostitute (1395)
8.7. Prosecuting a Priest for Same-Sex Relations (1651)
8.8. Socially Acceptable – and Unacceptable – Same-Sex Relations among Men
8.9. Sex and the Convent
8.10. Prosecuting Rape (1675)
9. Poverty and Poor Relief
9.1. Rural Poverty in France (1484)
9.2. Poor Consumers Protesting Adulterated Food (1484; 1494)
9.3. Unworthy Poor and Worthy Rich (1524)
9.4. Chasing the Deadbeat Dad (1696)
9.5. Civic Help = Self Help (1526)
9.6. The Common Chest and the Common Good (1522)
9.7. Women in the Economy of Makeshifts (17th Century)
9.8. Urban Poverty in France (1530s)
9.9. Sheltering and “Improving” Orphans and Abandoned Children (1686)
9.10. The Challenge of Keeping an Orphanage Open
9.11. Better Schools for “Better” Children (1683–84)
9.12. Getting the Poor Out of Sight
10. Crime and Punishment
10.1. Selling Murder and Mayhem (1661)
10.2. Punishing Women who Brawl (1690)
10.3. Deception, Social Climbing . . . and Death (1697)
10.4. Frustrated Lovers Separated by Convent Walls (1585)
10.5. Close Call: A Near-Execution for Sodomy (1667)
10.6. Preparing for Execution
10.7. The Execution of Two Nobles (1568)
10.8. The Theatre of Execution in Rome (1581)
10.9. Ritual Execution of an Alleged Rapist and Robber in Venice (1513)
10.10. A Burning for Heresy
10.11. The Galleys in Marseilles
10.12. Appointment of an Executioner: Charles Sanson in Paris
10.13. Diary of an Executioner: Franz Schmidt of Nuremburg
10.14. Public Penance and Punishment in Spain – Heresy and Inquisition (1486)
10.15. Confessions on the Scaffold (1700)
11. Holy and Unholy: Mystics, Nuns, and Witches
11.1. Men Enclosing Women Behind Convent Walls (1654)
11.2. Nuns in the Reformation (1547)
11.3. Trials of an Educated Nun (1682)
11.4. Nuns Possessed in Loudon (1643)
11.5. Nuns and Demons: Possession or Pretension? (1643)
11.6. Authorizing the Witch-Hunt (1484)
11.7. Why Become a Witch? (1486)
11.8. Husband and Wife Witch Team
11.9. Judgment on the Witch Walpurga Hausmannin (1587)
11.10. Witchcraft as a Problem for Political Leaders (1580)
11.11. A Miller Faces the Inquisition (1584-86)
12. Living Apart Together: Jews, Muslims, and Christians
12.1. Expelling the Jews from Spain: The Official Order (1492)
12.2. Going into Exile: Iberian Jews around the Mediterranean (1495)
12.3. A Jewish Ghetto in Southern France
12.4. How to be a Practicing Muslim in a Catholic Country
12.5. Living Undercover (1504)
12.6. You are what you wear – or are you? (1567)
12.7. Conversion: A Jew in Italy Converts to Christianity (1569)
12.8. Doubting Conversion: The Spanish Inquisition Investigates a Morisco (1622)
12.9. A Jewish Woman in Germany
12.10. Targeting Refugees: The Dutch Threat to London (1593)
12.11. Observing the Ottomans in Istanbul (1562)
12.12. In Awe and Fear of “The Great Turk” (1601)
12.13. Allowing the Jews to Return to England (1649)
12.14. Toleration – or Conversion?
12.15. The Jewish Community in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)
13. Other Worlds: Migration and Emigration
13.1. Black and White Enslaved Peoples in Africa (1600)
13.2. Into India: Making Unfamiliar Worlds Familiar (1497)
13.3. Into America: Unfamiliar Worlds and Peoples (1497)
13.4. Tense Encounters: Early Portuguese Travelers in China
13.5. Protesting Exploitation of Indigenous People (1552)
13.6. An Immigrant Writes Home (1574)
13.7. Encouraging Migration from New England to Jamaica (1656)
13.8. A Portuguese Missionary’s First Impressions of Japan
13.9. A Young Black Nobleman in the British Empire
14. Danger, Disease, and Death
14.1. Death on the Road: The Dangers of Travel (1550s)
14.2. How to Survive into Old Age (1683)
14.3. Death of a Jewish Rabbi (1509)
14.4. Fighting Plague (1541)
14.5. Stealing Bodies From the Grave (1554)
14.6. Visitors from beyond Death (1572)
14.7. Muslim and Jewish Rituals around Death and Burial in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)
14.8. Popular Burial Customs in Spain (1500s)
Sources
Index
