ABSTRACT
Every individual human who lived in the early modern city belonged, then, to a multiplicity of social identities: age, gender, family, neighbourhood, occupation, civic status and religion. The tensions between individual, group and communal needs and aspirations lay at the heart of all social interactions in the early modern city. In short, gender was a permanent distinction which cut through every other social or economic grouping in the early modern city. People in the early modern city lived in distinct neighbourhoods, wards or parishes. Of course the social norms of urban life in early modern times differed massively from those of today. As in most European cities of the early modern era, rich and poor lived in close proximity - but the rich were more likely to be found on a major thoroughfare, especially one bustling with commercial activity, while the poor were more heavily concentrated in smaller back streets.
