This book is the first study of the ideal and practice of hospitality in England between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. In early modern England, hospitality was believed to be a vital social virtue, comparable in significance to the maintenance of honesty or the proper pursuit of honour, and seen as one of the foundations of the moral economy. It was a Christian and moral duty to keep a good house: to be open and generous in entertainment of both rich and poor, neighbour and stranger. Hospitality is now regarded very differently, and our changed attitudes hamper our approach to the...

This is the first intensive study of an industrial community in early modern England. Whickham, a village built on an underground mountain of coal in north-east England, was arguably Britain's first modern industrial society.

David Levine and Keith Wrightson employ the latest techniques of socio-historical research and make full use of a wide variety of contemporary sources to explore many aspects of life in Whickham between 1560 and 1765. They bring together vital strands - including industrial development, agrarian change, social stratification, demography, religion, work, leisure, living...