Consumption and gender in the early seventeenth-century household

Lady Alice Le Strange of Hunstanton in Norfolk kept a continuous series of household accounts from 1610-1654. The authors have used the Le Stranges' rich archives to reconstruct the material aspects of family life. This involves looking not only at purchases, but also at home production and gifts, and not only at the luxurious, but at the everyday consumption of food and medical care. Here the context of household consumption is illuminated, and instead of finding tradition and stability, it is revealed that this was a life of constant change and innovation. The book looks into details at who managed the provisioning, purchases, and work within the household, how spending on sons and daughters differed, and whether men and women attached different cultural values to household goods. This single household economy provides a window into some of the most significant cultural and economic issues of early modern England, innovations in trade, retail and production, the basis of gentry power, social relations in the countryside, and the gendering of family life.