ABSTRACT
Houses – the buildings in which people live their day-to-day existence, and the furnishings and material objects contained within them – are embedded at the very heart of the ‘material turn’ within medieval and early modern studies. There will be few topics treated in the present volume which will not in some way impact on our understanding of the changing material environment of the domestic context in this period, from clothing and jewellery to food and tablewares, books, musical instruments and candlesticks. The transformation of the ‘world of goods’ and changing attitudes towards the acquisition, display and consumption of everyday and ‘luxury’ objects within the home is now central to our interpretation of social and economic life between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, informing us not simply about the changing material conditions in which life was lived, but more subtly and profoundly about shifting patterns of behaviour and modes of thought concerning personhood, family, privacy, gender and class (Weatherhill 1988; Brewer & Porter 1993; Hamling & Richardson 2010).
