Synopses & Reviews
This is an account of the ordinary working people of Holland in the seventeenth-century, the so-called âgolden ageâ. Professor van Deursen is the most outstanding and gifted scholar at present working on this period of Dutch history. His history âfrom belowâis based on a mass of contemporary documentary evidence and the text is enlivened by contemporary illustrations. Ranging over a broad spectrum of everyday conditions, sex, marriage, leisure, religion and popular culture, this is the most comprehensive study yet published of the plain lives of a âgolden ageâ.
Synopsis
st comprehensive study yet published of the plain lives of a 'golden age'.f plague from the first outbreak of the Black Death in 1348 to the mid-fifteenth century. Through an innovative study of this evidence, Professor Carmichael develops two related strands of analysis. First, she discusses the extent to which true plague epidemics may have occurred, by considering what other infectious diseases contributed significantly to outbreaks of 'pestilence'. She finds that there were many differences between the fourteenth- and fifteenth-century epidemics. She then sh
Description
Includes bibliographical references (p. [321]-397) and index.
Table of Contents
List of illustrations; Preface to the English edition; Part I. Daily Bread: 1. People of little wisdom and limited power; 2. The attraction of Holland; 3. Outside the community; 4. Honest poverty; 5. Paths upward; Part II. Popular Culture: 6. Women and girls; 7. The natural life; 8. Upbringing; 9. Popular reading and the supply of news; Part III. People and Government: 10. The government; 11. Money; 12. The community; 13. The war; Part IV. Hell and Heaven: 14. Popular belief; 15. Calvinists; 16. Catholics; 17. Mennonites; Afterword; Notes; Bibliography; Index.