Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.
The database was created for a project which ran from 2003-2007 titled ‘The housewife in early modern rural England: gender, markets and consumption’, funded by the ESRC and AHRC as part of the ‘Cultures of Consumption’ research programme. The project was centred on a detailed study of the household accounts of the Le Strange family of Hunstanton, Norfolk, from 1606-1654, which from 1610 onwards were kept by Lady Alice Le Strange. These accounts are both remarkably long running and complete, and exceptionally detailed. They are also notable in having been written by a married woman. The accounts have been used to examine patterns of consumption in this early seventeenth century household, the gendered nature of the household economy, and the level of market development in this period. The main output of the project will be a book, authored by Jane Whittle and Elizabeth Griffiths: ‘Consumption and Gender in the Early Seventeenth Century Household: The World of Alice Le Strange’ which is under contract with Oxford University Press for publication in 2009.
Main Topics:
This digital resource consists of a relational database based on the household accounts kept by Sir Hamon Le Strange of Hunstanton, Norfolk, from 1606-1610, and by his wife Lady Alice Le Strange, from 1610-1654. The original documents are housed at the Norfolk Record Office, Norwich. The database contains a summary of all Hamon and Alice’s surviving household accounts, which included receipt accounts recording sources of income; disbursement accounts recording purchases; building accounts; kitchen books recording purchases, gifts, consumption of food, and farm labour; and miscellaneous notes. The heart of the database is a transcription of the disbursement accounts from 1606-1626, receipt accounts from 1606-1613 and 1619-21, and kitchen accounts from 1619-21: a total of 18,000 entries from the original accounts. The transcriptions in the database are entered both in their original spelling, and in a modernised form. The database categorises the entries, includes a dictionary of obscure words, and indexes of places and names.
No sampling (total universe)
Transcription of existing materials
Compilation or synthesis of existing material
