Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500-1700This book explores the varied vernacular forms and rich oral traditions which were such a part of popular culture in early modern England. It focuses, in particular, upon dialect speech and proverbial wisdom, "old wives' tales" and children's lore, historical legends and local customs, scurrilous versifying and scandalous rumour-mongering. Adam Fox argues that while the spoken word provides the most vivid insight into the mental world of the majority in this semi-literate society, it was by no means untouched by written influences. Even at the beginning of the period, centuries of reciprocal infusion between complementary media had created a cultural repertoire which had long ceased to be purely oral. Thereafter, the expansion of literacy together with the proliferation of texts both in manuscript and print saw the rapid acceleration and elaboration of this process. By 1700 popular traditions and modes of expression were the product of a fundamentally literate environment to a much greater extent than has yet been appreciated. |
Contents
Popular Speech | 51 |
Proverbial Wisdom II 2 | 112 |
Old Wives Tales and Nursery Lore | 173 |
The Historical Imagination | 213 |
Local Custom Memory and Record | 259 |
Ballads and Libels | 299 |
Rumour and News | 335 |
Conclusion | 406 |
Bibilography | 414 |
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Common terms and phrases
2nd edn alehouse ancient Antiquities ballad Britain broadside Cambridge Camden Charles church circulation coffee house Collection common court custom Diary Dictionary E. P. Thompson earl Early Modern England early modern period Education Edward Elizabethan England England London English Dialect English Proverbs Essex example Folklore Francis Francis Bacon George haue heard Henry History James John Aubrey King L&P Hen language legends letters libels Literacy London Lord manor manorial manuscript Medieval memory neighbours oral tradition Oxford Oxfordshire parish political printed pronunciation Proverbs Records reign Report rhymes Richard Richard Pococke Robert rumours Samuel Pepys sayings Scotland seventeenth century Seventeenth-Century England Sir Thomas sixteenth and seventeenth sixteenth century social Somerset songs speech Star Chamber stories Stuart tenants texts Thomas Nashe Tilley town Tudor verses VIII vols vulgar W. W. Skeat White Kennett William William Camden William Stukeley Wiltshire women writing written word Yorkshire