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Why was an ideal of elite women's virtue promoted in London c. 1580-1630, and why was it based on their reformed piety and charity? To what extent can elite women's piety and charity reveal their religious identity, among an elite characterised as 'puritan' by contemporaries and historians? How did women practise piety and charity in a worldly City, and did they share a civic ethos? This thesis engages with historiographies of urban history, the history of charity and hospitality, and gender history. It concerns over 400 wives and widows of the 331 aldermen elected 1540-1630, and uses 78 widows' wills. Women's wills are analysed qualitatively save to consider widows' public charitable bequests. From preambles to exceptionally diffuse bequests, wills are an intimate source for studying women's religious identity through their piety and charity. They reveal women's understanding of their gender in a patriarchal society that fostered an attitude of sorority that is particularly evident in women's charity and hospitality. To study the piety and charity of aldermen's wives extra-testamentary personal evidence complements the wills. Sources written by women themselves include a household book used to reconstruct a woman's charity and hospitality, portraits, devotional works and letters. Sources of praise and abuse authored by men including Stow's Survay, funeral sermons, verse libel and verbal abuse are used to reconstruct ideals and antitypes of elite female virtue and hypocrisy, and are read critically in comparison with other sources to furnish evidence of female piety and social conduct. Chapter II-VII focus on the conforming female elite, comparing contemporary discussion of female piety, charity and religious identity to women's lives and practice in the household and the community, and Chapter VIII considers three Catholic women to ask to what extent the civic ethos shared by reformed City women could accommodate even their recusant kinswomen.

This thesis endeavours, first of all, to examine the attitude of English and Scottish Protestant reformers towards the problem of poverty as it existed in the sixteenth century, and more particularly between the years 1528 and 1563. This period represents a logical phase in English social history marking at one end the start of the Reformation and at the other what might be referred to as the Elizabethan settlement of 'commonwealth' matters. In Scotland the same period witnessed the beginnings of a national awareness of social problems, together with the steady growth of the reform movement culminating in the Reformation of 1560 and the compilation of the first Book of Discipline. [...]

The theme of this thesis is the relationship of the Jane Austen heroine to her social environment--codes of proper behavior as exemplified by the heroines of Emma, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, and Persuasion. The study follows the development of the characters from the ignorance of the social code demonstrated by Emma Woodhouse, through views of the expectations of women of marriageable age as seen by Elizabeth and Jane Rennet, to a comparison of sensible and sensitive behavior in Marianne and Elinor Dashwood, and concluding with the perfect propriety of Anne Elliot. The thesis explores the connection between propriety and the heroine, demonstrating why a heroine succeeds or fails on the basis of her individual view of the social code and her behavior in obeying or denying its dictates.

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The dissolution of the monasteries in England and Wales is too often viewed simply as a component of the English Reformation and little more. Its place in the Reformation is obvious, but its importance extends far beyond that fact. Unlike the other elements of the Reformation which transformed the traditional nature of the church in England and established a new confession of faith, the dissolution brought about a complete and far reaching alteration in the established social and economic structure of England. The most prominent feature of the dissolution was the sudden transfer of the vast landed estates of the monks to the laity. In the sixteenth century land was still the paramount source of wealth and influence. Englishmen looked to the land not only for their food and drink, but also for their fuel and industrial materials. The dissolution occurred in a period of expanding trade and commerce, rising prices, and rapidly growing population. In the society of the sixteenth century, where the individual and economic concerns of England became increasingly important, the monasteries as they were structured had no place. In many ways they were a major block to capitalistic development. When the monks were eliminated from the social structure and their landed wealth dispersed among the English people, the way was cleared for economic progress to begin. The dissolution must be viewed against this wider background of England's economic transformation during the mid-sixteenth century and beyond. It is the purpose of this thesis to examine the economic significance of the monasteries as well as the reasons for their dissolution, and to delineate the economic and social changes which occurred in English industry and agriculture after they disappeared from the scene. / Master of Arts

This study presents a picture of the social, political and economic life of the Gloucestershire county community on the eve of, and during the civil war, and discusses the causes and effects of the conflict in the Gloucestershire context. / Chapter One describes the county in 1640, studying its physical features, wealth and pursuits and social structure. The second chapter offers a survey of the 'county community,' the prominent county families who formed a small but most powerful and influential group in the county. / Chapter Three attempts to classify the established county gentry in terms of landed income and to consider how far it is possible to describe the class as 'rising' during the early seventeenth century. The fourth chapter covers the personal lives of the resident peers and major gentry, considering the strength and impact of kinship and marriage bonds among the leading families. / Chapter Five considers the role of the gentry is governors of the shire. The sixth chapter traces the development of opposition in the county to the policies of the Caroline government. / Chapter Seven presents a narrative of 1640-42. The next chapter suggests that, at the beginning of the civil war, the elite gentry families began losing their predominance in county affairs due to external commitments and divisions among them. / The ninth chapter describes military rule in Gloucestershire between 1642 and 1646. Finally, the last chapter assesses some of the effects of civil war.

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