'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700

Frances Timbers (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

208 Seiten

2016
Routledge (Verlag)
978-1-4724-6251-0 (ISBN)

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'The Damned Fraternitie': Constructing Gypsy Identity in Early Modern England, 1500–1700 examines the construction of gypsy identity in England between the early sixteenth century and the end of the seventeenth century. Drawing upon previous historiography, a wealth of printed primary sources (including government documents, pamphlets, rogue literature, and plays), and archival material (quarter sessions and assize cases, parish records and constables's accounts), the book argues that the construction of gypsy identity was part of a wider discourse concerning the increasing vagabond population, and was further informed by the religious reformations and political insecurities of the time. The developing narrative of a fraternity of dangerous vagrants resulted in the gypsy population being designated as a special category of rogues and vagabonds by both the state and popular culture. The alleged Egyptian origin of the group and the practice of fortune-telling by palmistry contributed elements of the exotic, which contributed to the concept of the mysterious alien. However, as this book reveals, a close examination of the first gypsies that are known by name shows that they were more likely Scottish and English vagrants, employing the ambiguous and mysterious reputation of the newly emerging category of gypsy. This challenges the theory that sixteenth-century gypsies were migrants from India and/or early predecessors to the later Roma population, as proposed by nineteenth-century gypsiologists. The book argues that the fluid identity of gypsies, whose origins and ethnicity were (and still are) ambiguous, allowed for the group to become a prime candidate for the 'other', thus a useful tool for reinforcing the parameters of orthodox social behaviour.

Frances Timbers holds a PhD in British History from the University of Toronto (2008). She has published two books and three articles that deal with issues of magic, witchcraft and gender in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Timbers is currently on a self-imposed sabbatical in Panama, where she spends her time writing about gypsies, teaching yoga, biking to the beach and caring for seven rescued cats.

Introduction: ‘The damned fraternitie’: constructing gypsy identity in early modern England, 1500–1700

1 ‘From Aegypt have I come’

2 ‘Gypsies: thieves and tramps?’

3 ‘Chargeable unto the country’

4 ‘O’er the Moors to Kirk Yetholm’

5 The narrative of gypsyhood

6 ‘By lines they read in face and hand’

7 ‘These rowsey, ragged rabblement of rakehelles’: rogue literature

8 ‘The stain of my offence’

Erscheinungsdatum	24.05.2016
Zusatzinfo	8 Line drawings, black and white; 2 Halftones, black and white; 10 Illustrations, black and white
Verlagsort	London
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 234 mm
Gewicht	440 g
Themenwelt	Geisteswissenschaften ► Archäologie
	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Kulturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Anglistik / Amerikanistik
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Sprach- / Literaturwissenschaft ► Literaturwissenschaft
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
ISBN-10	1-4724-6251-3 / 1472462513
ISBN-13	978-1-4724-6251-0 / 9781472462510
Zustand	Neuware