ABSTRACT
Exhibit Page
1 The biblical account of Creation 142
2 Baptism 144
3 The churching of women 145
4 The Homilies 147
5 The Pilgrim’s Progress 150
6 The parish register 154
7 Wills 157
8 Inventories 162
9 Apprenticeship indentures 166
10 The crime of petty treason 169
11 Advice to the country housewife of the sixteenth century 170
12 The duties of husbands and wives, parents and children, masters and servants
13 The arguments for maternal breastfeeding 181
14 Advice to the seventeenth-century housewife 183
15 Advice to the head of a modest seventeenth-century household 185
16 A gallery of good children 188
17 Advice on educating sons (designed for the upper ranks of society) 191
18 The mercenary aspect of choosing a bride 194
20 Almanacs 205
21 Jest books 208
22 Penny merriments 213
23 Reckoning 216
24 Teaching yourself French 219
25 The medical uses of English herbs 220
26 Observations of the natural world in the 1660s 222
27 Memorial inscriptions 226
28 The Sondes murder 231
This collection is made up of texts where were in the public domain between 1560 and 1720. Most were printed but, for example, parish registers and wills were handwritten; memorial inscriptions were, normally, cut into some durable material such as stone or metal.
