Family and Household in Medieval England discusses the history of family life in England from c. 1066 to c. 1530, drawing upon both primary sources and a wide range of secondary literature. After a discussion of the family in theory and law from late classical times, the book traces the development of the family in this period by following a "life-cycle" approach, from marriage, through childbirth, to the dissolution of marriage by death or separation.

In the later medieval centuries, a whole range of important social, political and artistic activities took place against the backdrop of the great English households. In this vividly illuminating book, C. M. Woolgar explores the details of life in these great houses. Based on an extensive investigation of household accounts and related primary documents, he examines the daily routines, the weekly and annual patterns, and the life-cycle observances of birth, childhood, marriage, death and burial. He also delineates the major changes that transformed the economy and geography of both lay and clerical households between 1200 and 1500.

Barbara A. Hanawalt's richly detailed account offers an intimate view of everyday life in Medieval England that seems at once surprisingly familiar and yet at odds with what many experts have told us. She argues that the biological needs served by the family do not change and that the ways fourteenth- and fifteenth-century peasants coped with such problems as providing for the newborn and the aged, controlling premarital sex, and alleviating the harshness of their material environment in many ways correspond with our twentieth-century solutions. Using a remarkable array of sources, including over 3,000 coroners' inquests into accidental deaths, Hanawalt emphasizes the continuity of the nuclear family from the middle ages into the modern period by exploring the reasons that families served as the basic unit of society and the economy. Providing such fascinating details as a citation of an incantation against rats, evidence of the hierarchy of bread consumption, and descriptions of the games people played, her study illustrates the flexibility of the family and its capacity to adapt to radical changes in society. She notes that even the terrible population reduction that resulted from the Black Death did not substantially alter the basic nature of the family.

From bestselling historians Frances and Joseph Gies, authors of the classic "Medieval Life" series, comes this compelling, lucid, and highly readable account of the family unit as it evolved throughout the Medieval period--reissued for the first time in decades. "Some particular books that I found useful for Game of Thrones and its sequels deserve mention. Life in a Medieval Castle and Life in a Medieval City, both by Joseph and Frances Gies." --George R. R. Martin, author of Game of Thrones Throughout history, the significance of the family--the basic social unit--has been vital. In Marriage and the Family in the Middle Ages, acclaimed historians Frances and Joseph Gies trace the development of marriage and the family from the medieval era to early modern times. It describes how the Roman and barbarian cultural streams merged under the influence of the Christian church to forge new concepts, customs, laws, and practices. Century by century, the Gies follow the development--sometimes gradual, at other times revolutionary--of significant components in the history of the family including: The basic functions of the family as a production unit, as well as its religious, social, judicial, and educational roles. The shift of marriage from private arrangement between families to public ceremony between individuals, and the adjustments in dowry, bride-price, and counter-dowry. The development of consanguinity rules and incest taboos in church law and lay custom. The peasant family in its varying condition of being free or unfree, poor, middling, or rich. The aristocratic estate, the problem of the younger son, and the disinheritance of daughters. The Black Death and its long-term effects on the family. Sex attitudes and customs: the effects of variations in age of men and women at marriage. The changing physical environment of noble, peasant, and urban families. Arrangements by families for old age and retirement. Expertly researched, master historians Frances and Joseph Gies--whose books were used by George R.R. Martin in his research for Game of Thrones--paint a compelling, detailed portrait of family life and social customs in one of the most riveting eras in history.

Analyzes family life in the Middle Ages focusing on the contrasts between the family in the Medieval West, the Byzantine East, the Islamic world, and the Jewish family. Discusses marriage, parenting, children, and religion and the family along with traditional and non-traditional families, and other related material.

This book examines one hundred years of historical debate on the English peasantry in the later Middle Ages, exploring the influences and changes to peasantry society, economy and culture.

This 2001 book concerns the history of the family in eighteenth-century England. Naomi Tadmor provides an interpretation of concepts of household, family and kinship starting from her analysis of contemporary language (in the diaries of Thomas Turner; in conduct treatises by Samuel Richardson and Eliza Haywood; in three novels, Richardson's Pamela and Clarissa and Haywood's The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless and a variety of other sources). Naomi Tadmor emphasises the importance of the household in constructing notions of the family in the eighteenth century. She uncovers a vibrant language of kinship which recasts our understanding of kinship ties in the period. She also shows how strong ties of 'friendship' formed vital social, economic and political networks among kin and non-kin. Family and Friends in Eighteenth-Century England makes a substantial contribution to eighteenth-century history, and will be of value to all historians and literary scholars of the period.