All rooms are equipped with an overhead projector
Rooms C, D, E, F, G and H (H only on Saturday): slide projector (framed slides, carrousel. There are extra carrousels available to set up your presentation in advance)
Rooms C, D, M, N, O, U and Committee Room 2: beamer to connect your laptop. You have to bring you own laptop. (If you want to use your Apple notebook, please contact us, as it may be incompatible.)
Rooms C, T and U: VCR
Programme
|
|
The ‘worth’ of witnesses and the language of self-description in early modern England
| Witnesses in the early modern English church courts were often required to provide details about their personal circumstances in response to a series of questions (‘interrogatories’) designed to test bias. Witnesses were commonly asked about their relationship with the parties involved in the suit as well as how they came by their knowledge of the case, but they were also often asked about their credit and social standing more generally. It was not unusual for further details to be requested about how they made a living, and a commonly asked question was ‘what are you worth with your debts paid?’ This paper will focus on the terms in which witnesses responded to this question, in order to explore the language of social description they deployed. How did they speak about material worth and forms of social esteem, and in what ways did this relate to age, marital status, gender and social position? Did the forms of self-description deployed by witnesses confirm or conflict with formal classificatory schemes penned by elites, and might such statements provide a new perspective on perceptions of the social order and experiences of social position in early modern England?
|
|
|
