ABSTRACT
This chapter turns to ‘shopping for pleasure’. Historians have generally accepted this to be a phenomenon that developed in the eighteenth century or later.1 In this chapter, the authors depart somewhat from the approach taken in the earlier chapters, where the focus is largely on contemporary perceptions, and instead challenge present-day assumptions about what is meant by ‘shopping’. To do this, we explore the interaction between retailers and customers during the seventeenth century. Coincidentally, we confront the paucity of sources, and suggest ways of presenting a meaningful picture of shopping under the Stuarts.2
