ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the words used to describe illegitimate children in religious and legal texts, autobiographies, correspondence, and defamation cases. It argues that a taxonomy of illegitimacy existed in this period, in which specific words were used to convey moral judgement according to a child’s socio-economic status and the type of parental relationship. Language analysis provides crucial evidence of how stigma towards illegitimate children operated and suggests that this was highly variable. It also suggests that language use changed over time, in line with increasingly punitive attitudes towards the poor and the adoption of a culture of politeness during the eighteenth century.
