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 book is the first study of the ideal and practice of hospitality in England between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries. In early modern Engl...