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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Cordelia Beattie @cordeliabeattie.bsky.social · 8h

Lady Ursula Wyvill also wrote a commonplace book (c.1662-72) which has survived. #EarlyModern search.library.yale.edu/catalog/9970...

Commonplace book - Quicksearch - Yale Library

search.library.yale.edu

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Cordelia Beattie @cordeliabeattie.bsky.social · 8h

Daphne Lightfoot had been a servant for the Wandesford and then Thornton families for many years. The context of the letter is that she had taken one of Thornton's first manuscript books to Lady Wyvill, at a time when rumours were spreading about Thornton, her daughter and Thomas Comber. 📚 📜

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 8h

12 Oct. 1668 #otd Thornton received a letter from Lady Wyvill, consoling her on the death of her husband: 'Lady Wyvill's most Christian letter to me after Mr Thornton's death and that she had sent for Daphne to acquaint her of my abuses and that Daphne had told her of my sad condition'. (Bk3) 🗃️

17th-century painting of a woman with a large white ruff around her neck looking down at a book in her hand.

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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 8h

Image: Jacob Jordaens, Portrait of a woman reading a book (1640-45). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
#EarlyModern

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 8h

12 Oct. 1668 #otd Thornton received a letter from Lady Wyvill, consoling her on the death of her husband: 'Lady Wyvill's most Christian letter to me after Mr Thornton's death and that she had sent for Daphne to acquaint her of my abuses and that Daphne had told her of my sad condition'. (Bk3) 🗃️

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 3d

One of the most daring theological works of the C17th, published by Elizabeth Avery in 1647. It reconsiders every mainstream Protestant teaching about the apocalypse, and caused her to be denounced as a heretic, including by her own brother. I tell Avery’s story in Voices of Thunder #earlymodern

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 2d

Anne Wentworth (1630-c.1693) endured years of abuse at the hands of her husband. She knew speaking out would alienate her from the Baptist church of which they were both members, but she went ahead and published 4 accounts of the abuse. I tell her remarkable story in Voices of Thunder #earlymodern

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Newcastle Uni Special Collections & Archives @ncllibspeccoll.bsky.social · 3d

New on CollectionsCaptured is a wonderfully illustrated set of 17 proof copies of early 17th Century maps, later included in John Speed's 'Theatre of the Empire of Great Britaine'.

All 17 pages can be seen here on CollectionsCaptured: collectionscaptured.ncl.ac.uk/digital/coll...
[Ref. Freinds/JSM]

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Dr Laura Sangha @lsangha.bsky.social · 3d

Many congratulations to my colleagues in the Forms of Labour project team on the publication of their new monograph! 🗃️👏🎉

Brilliantly, The Experience of Work in #EarlyModern England is available open access:

www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...

news.exeter.ac.uk/faculty-of-h...

A woman’s place was not in the home: New book challenges assumptions about women’s work in early modern history

New research has revealed that women played a fundamental role in the development of England’s national economy before 1700. Far from being the unpaid homemakers and housewives of traditional historic...

news.exeter.ac.uk

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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 2d

Followed!

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Kerry-Louise Apps 🗃️ (formerly the 👩‍🏫 Ms. Apps) @kerrylouisehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Do you like seventeenth century stuff? Then my Instagram (@kerrylouiseapps), which has zero engagement, but so many pictures of Ham House in empty periods might be for you. 🫠

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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 3d

Image: National Library of Ireland, Dublin, MS 2368.

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 3d

9 Oct. 1677 #OTD Alice Thornton told her brother, Sir Christopher Wandesford, that she had written to Lady Ayscough to help negotiate a marriage between one of his daughters and the Ayscoughs’ son but could not visit her in person: ‘I find not myself able to walk down the hills’. #EarlyModern 🗃️ 📜

The end of a 17th-century letter which includes the large signature of Alice Thornton.

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Brodie Waddell @brodiewaddell.bsky.social · 10d

Who did what in early modern England?

New #OpenAccess book, 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' by @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, @hkrobb.bsky.social & @aucointaylor.bsky.social, based on thousands of #EarlyModern court depositions 🗃️

Read it: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

This book applies the innovative work-task approach to the history of work, which captures the contribution of all workers and types of work to the early modern economy. Drawing on tens of thousands of court depositions, the authors analyse the individual tasks that made up everyday work for women and men, shedding new light on the gender division of labour, and the ways in which time, space, age and marital status shaped sixteenth and seventeenth-century working life. Combining qualitative and quantitative analysis, the book deepens our understanding of the preindustrial economy, and calls for us to rethink not only who did what, but also the implications of these findings for major debates about structural change, the nature and extent of paid work, and what has been lost as well as gained over the past three centuries of economic development. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Cover of Whittle, Jane, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, and Taylor Aucoin. The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. of Cambridge Studies in Economic History - Second Series. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025.

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Mark Hailwood @markhailwood.bsky.social · 5d

As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?'

Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England)

manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...

The Experience of Work in Early Modern England I: Winter is Coming

This post is part of a series that marks the publication of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. The book is co-authored by monster head Mark Hailwood, along with Jane Whittle, Hannah Ro…

manyheadedmonster.com

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Mark Hailwood @markhailwood.bsky.social · 3d

Another post on 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' - a reminder that work in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was very much a family affair...

manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/09/t...

The Experience of Work in Early Modern England II: Family Fortunes

This post is part of a series that marks the publication of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England. The book is co-authored by monster head Mark Hailwood, along with Jane Whittle, Hannah Ro…

manyheadedmonster.com

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Cordelia Beattie @cordeliabeattie.bsky.social · 4d

The Thorntons helped Christopher and Anne Danby out in the 1660s. Alice was still pursuing this 'debt' in her last will and testament, written in 1705! #EarlyModern 📜 🗃️

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 4d

8 Oct. 1688 #OTD Thornton wrote to her great-nephew, Abstrupus Danby, seeking help with her son’s debts. She reminded him ‘how sad and necessitous a condition your father and mother ... were in for several years when their just right was detained from them and they cast off by all’. #EarlyModern 1/2

Outside of a 17th-century letter. Addressed to Abstrupus Danby at his house in York. Above that he has annotated it as a letter from his aunt Thornton, about what she did for his family, and that he is willing to pay her £50 next Martinmas.

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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 4d

Abstrupus noted on the outside of the letter (pictured) that he was willing to pay £50 (Thornton had asked for £150, claiming to have spent over £300).

Image: Letter from Alice Thornton to Abstrupus Danby, October 8 1688. NYCRO, ZS: Swinton and Middleham Estate Records. 2/2 📜 🗃️

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 4d

8 Oct. 1688 #OTD Thornton wrote to her great-nephew, Abstrupus Danby, seeking help with her son’s debts. She reminded him ‘how sad and necessitous a condition your father and mother ... were in for several years when their just right was detained from them and they cast off by all’. #EarlyModern 1/2

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Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 6d

Image: Peeter Gijsels, Landscape with Figures and Carriages (second half of 17th century). Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Alice Thornton's Books @thorntonsbooks.bsky.social · 6d

6 Oct. 1636 #OTD a young Alice, her mother and brothers were in a coach accident on the way to Kildare. The driver was worried they would all fall into a river and drown and so did ‘throw the coach' towards the other side 'which did hurt some of us’ (Bk 1). #EarlyModern 🗃️

A 17th-century painting of a rural scene with a coach and horses in the centre.

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 6d

Hester Biddle was a Quaker preacher who was imprisoned 14 times, often simply for preaching. She was enraged by the growing inequalities of C17th London and warned that God would judge those who ignored the needs of those begging for food on the streets. Ch 7 of Voices of Thunder tells her story

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 7d

Ch 6 of Voices of Thunder tells the inspiring story of the London lace woman Elizabeth Attaway, the first C17th woman to preach publicly to a mixed-sex congregation. Her Baptist church did not let women preach, but Attaway did not allow her low social status or her sex to be a barrier … 1/2

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 12d

Just two weeks until Voices of Thunder is published! If you’re interested in hearing the stories of a dozen radical seventeenth-century women, it can be pre-ordered now ⚡️#earlymodern #womenshistory

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 11d

Ch 1 of Voices of Thunder tells Rose Thurgood’s story. She lived in Colchester, where she and her children were poor to the point of starvation. As a C17th woman writing from this perspective, her voice in the archive is unique. Her account of her life is in manuscript @thejohnrylands.bsky.social

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Reposted by Alice Thornton's Books

Naomi Baker @drnaomibaker.bsky.social · 10d

Ch 3 of Voices of Thunder tells the story of the self-proclaimed prophet Elizabeth Poole, one of the only women of her era to intervene in political debate at the highest level. Just weeks before Charles I’s execution, Poole demanded an audience with Cromwell and the council of officers. 1/2

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