Lady Alice Le Strange of Hunstanton in Norfolk kept a continuous series of household accounts from 1610 to 1654. This book uses the Le Stranges’ rich archive to imaginatively reconstruct the material aspects of family life. This involves looking not just at purchases but also at home production and gifts; and not just at the luxurious but also at the everyday consumption of food and medical care. Consumption is viewed not just as material culture, but as a process involving household management, acquisition and appropriation, a process which created and reinforced social links with craftsmen, ... More

Lady Alice Le Strange of Hunstanton in Norfolk kept a continuous series of household accounts from 1610 to 1654. This book uses the Le Stranges’ rich archive to imaginatively reconstruct the material aspects of family life. This involves looking not just at purchases but also at home production and gifts; and not just at the luxurious but also at the everyday consumption of food and medical care. Consumption is viewed not just as material culture, but as a process involving household management, acquisition and appropriation, a process which created and reinforced social links with craftsmen, servants, labourers and the local community. It is argued that the county gentry provide a missing link in histories of consumption: connecting the fashions of London and the royal court with those of middling strata of rural England. Consumption is often viewed as a female activity, and the book looks in detail 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’s economy provides a window onto some of 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.