SC - BMR: Woolgar, The Great Household (Rosenthal) (fwd)

[sjk3 at cornell.edu]

I thought this book might be of interest to people on the list.  The 
review is rather long; this is just a bit of it.  If anyone would like 
the whole thing, I could send it to the off-list.

Sandra Kisner
sjk3 at cornell.edu
- ---------- Forwarded message ----------

C. M. Woolgar.  <i>The Great Household in Late Medieval 
England</i>.  New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.  Pp. 288.  
$40.00.  ISBN 0-300-07687-8.

   Reviewed by Joel T. Rosenthal
        State University of New York at Stony Brook
        jrosenthal at notes.cc.sunysb.edu


The (great) household is obviously a topic of considerable 
interest, whether we come to it from the perspective of upper 
class and gentry social and political configurations, or from 
that of consumption and display and related economic issues, or 
from that of popular and privatized religion, or from that of 
architectural styles and innovations and of cultural patronage.  
It is a topic that Christopher Woolgar has made very much his 
own (though not exclusively his own), and he comes to this 
scholarly-cum-general survey with a two volume edition of 
household accounts and some specialized articles already to his 
credit.

Drawing mainly on these case studies (and a lot of material 
about the royal court, and wherever else he can dip for 
pertinent information), Woolgar's guided tour is arranged to 
address those aspects of the late medieval household that he 
expects us to inquire about:  size, membership, and 
hospitality; servants; space and residences; rhythms of the 
household; food and drink; cooking and the meal; the senses, 
religion and intellectual life; travel, horses and other 
animals.

As Woolgar has blocked out his project, I have few criticisms.  
We have some excellent detailed work along this line--most 
recently, ffiona Swabey's book on Alice de Brienne--but 
judicious generalizations are always welcome.  Though the Yale 
Press deserves credit for bringing out this attractive book, 
the absence of a bibliography is not compensated for by a few 
pages of abbreviated references or a glossary (from "All 
Saints" to "yeoman").  Scholarship should be able to assert 
some demands, if only to fly the flag of tradition (from the 
battlements, perhaps, as we come over the rise as see the 
towers of such a great household as the one existing and 
functioning with the walls of Warwick Castle).