ABSTRACT

This chapter considers the significance that key early modern public spaces in Exeter may have held for its inhabitants in terms of maintaining ‘good order’ in the late 16th century. Much of Exeter’s early modern urban fabric is lost and documentary evidence is biased towards the civic and official rather than the personal. However, new prosopographical work has enabled the partial reconstruction of Elizabethan ‘middling sorts’, lives including that of haberdasher/hatter Thomas Greenwood (c. 1555–1591).  Using knowledge of his various roles and identities, Thomas accompanies the app user to nine city sites which reveal and reinforce the importance of good order – something he has sworn to maintain in his new role as city Steward. Along the way, site-specific museum artefacts are contextualized through integration into his narrative. With this approach, we explore the hidden historic functions of well-known city spaces and highlight the public aspect of the obedience and conformity believed essential for civic prosperity.