At the heart of the project is the research, writing and publication of three books. The Experience of Work in Early Modern England is based on the database of work tasks compiled from court records. It is joint-authored by Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Taylor Aucoin and Hannah Robb and will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. The book presents an entirely new perspective on the history of work in England’s preindustrial economy. Rather than focusing on men’s work, wage levels, or particular occupations as previous studies have done this study presents a history of work at the level of the task and pays equal attention to men and women. It includes evidence of work on small farms and businesses that has not been documented before and has startling conclusions that will revise ideas about the contribution of women to the economy, the timing of work, and the meaning of occupational titles.
Labour Laws in Preindustrial Europe: The Coercion and Regulation of Wage Labour, c.1300-1850 edited by Jane Whittle and Thijs Lambrecht is contracted with Boydell Press for publication in 2023. It demonstrates how labour it was heavily regulated across this period, to an extent that historians should be wary of describing it as ‘free’ and assuming it was shaped only by market forces. The intervention of the state in determining forms of labour is shown to be pervasive. The writing of the third book, Rethinking Women’s Work: A Historical Perspective is scheduled for the second half of the project. This book links modern debates about gender inequalities of wealth and wages to historical debates about the nature of women’s work, demonstrating the deep roots of many of these issues. In addition, at least ten articles and chapters based on new research by members of the project team are either complete and accepted for publication or in preparation. These examine topics such as women’s work, the gender pay gap, enforcement of the labour laws, the literacy of working people, pauper apprenticeship, and methods of accounting.
Together these publications reshape the history of work in late medieval and early modern Europe by demonstrating the important contribution made by women and by young people working as servants. They also significantly enrich our understanding of ordinary people’s working lives with new evidence on topics such as hours of work, multi-occupations, and the impact of labour regulations and poor laws on working people.
