TY - CHAP
T1 - Spaces and Places (of shopping in the early modern era)
AU - Reinke-Williams, Tim
AU - Cox, Nancy
PY - 2022/6/30
Y1 - 2022/6/30
N2 - In 1573 Isabella Whitney, a woman of genteel birth from Cheshire who like so many of her female contemporaries had left north-west England to become a servant in London, produced a poem in which she mourned being forced to leave the metropolis. Written in the form of a will and elegiac in tone, Whitney provided a list of what she had ‘left to London’, including details of the extensive range of retailers which were to be found within the walls of the medieval city. These included butchers “that every day shall kill”; “brewers store and bakers at your will”; mercers “with silk so rich as any would desire”; and goldsmiths “with jewels such as are for ladies meet”. The mercers and goldsmiths, Whitney told her readers, were based in Cheapside, and she expounded on where other goods might be purchased too, noting that woollens might be bought in Watling Street and Candlewick Street; linens in Friday Street; hose in Burchin Lane; “boots, shoes or pantables” in St Martin’s; and beds in Cornhill, while tailors were to be found in Bow. “In many places, shops are full” observed Isabella, reassuring her readers with the promise that ‘I left you nothing scant”. (Whitney [1573] 2000: 13-15).
AB - In 1573 Isabella Whitney, a woman of genteel birth from Cheshire who like so many of her female contemporaries had left north-west England to become a servant in London, produced a poem in which she mourned being forced to leave the metropolis. Written in the form of a will and elegiac in tone, Whitney provided a list of what she had ‘left to London’, including details of the extensive range of retailers which were to be found within the walls of the medieval city. These included butchers “that every day shall kill”; “brewers store and bakers at your will”; mercers “with silk so rich as any would desire”; and goldsmiths “with jewels such as are for ladies meet”. The mercers and goldsmiths, Whitney told her readers, were based in Cheapside, and she expounded on where other goods might be purchased too, noting that woollens might be bought in Watling Street and Candlewick Street; linens in Friday Street; hose in Burchin Lane; “boots, shoes or pantables” in St Martin’s; and beds in Cornhill, while tailors were to be found in Bow. “In many places, shops are full” observed Isabella, reassuring her readers with the promise that ‘I left you nothing scant”. (Whitney [1573] 2000: 13-15).
KW - Shopping
KW - early modern history
KW - social history
KW - economic history
KW - cultural history
UR - https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/cultural-history-of-shopping-9781350027060/
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9781350027060
T3 - A Cultural History of Shopping
SP - 47
EP - 67
BT - A Cultural History of Shopping in the Early Modern Era
A2 - Reinke-Williams, Tim
CY - London
ER -