Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The rise of the estate steward
- The steward's career
- The whole duty of a steward
- Between lord and tenant
- Returns to London
- The ambassador
- Tending the interest
- The almoner
- Filling the pulpit
- The constable: defending the manor
- The constable: defending the forests
- Exploiting the estate
- The clerk of works
- Master and man
- A note on the manuscript sources
- Index
- Title in the series
The almoner
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 December 2011
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction
- The rise of the estate steward
- The steward's career
- The whole duty of a steward
- Between lord and tenant
- Returns to London
- The ambassador
- Tending the interest
- The almoner
- Filling the pulpit
- The constable: defending the manor
- The constable: defending the forests
- Exploiting the estate
- The clerk of works
- Master and man
- A note on the manuscript sources
- Index
- Title in the series
Summary
Christmas now drawing near I would have you give to the several towns as formerly.
Lord Fitzwilliam of Milton, 1697they answer your lordship always remembered them after an election and if you were put in mind of their poor condition and the severity of their masters, would not forget them now. Indeed their poverty pleads their excuse. Everything (especially for the belly) is extravagantly dear, and the markets rise every day and all manner of trade is dead. Cloth which is the chief manufacture of that town does not go off so that little is made and … the weavers … and shearmen are ready to starve. Its much worse with them than common wandering beggars. The latter if they miss at one door will have it at another, whereas the former … cannot make their wants known, and many of them have great families to maintain … I doubt not but your lordship will be pleased to pardon my presumption to mention them, since there are more than two hundred families, which I have a list of, that are in want in that town.
John Mainewaring, from Tamworth, 1711John Mainewaring's letter reminds us that from the point of view of the modern historian stewards were valuable witnesses of social processes, social conditions and social change because of their tendency to report on all aspects of local life including times of dearth, communal plagues, individual illnesses, climatic disasters, the numbers and condition of the poor.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Stewards, Lords and PeopleThe Estate Steward and his World in Later Stuart England, pp. 159 - 172Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1992
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