This is a study of bastardy and marriage between the 16th and 18th centuries, exploring the topic from a regional perspective. The book asserts that the very co

This book is the first major study of courtship in early modern England. Courtship was a vitally important process in early modern England. It was a period of p

This book places childbirth in early-modern England within a wider network of social institutions and relationships. Starting with illegitimacy - the violation

This study considers the figure of the bastard in the context of analogies of the family and the state in early modern England. The trope of illegitimacy, more

Focusing on cases of extramarital sex, Johanna Rickman investigates fornication, adultery and bastard bearing among the English nobility from about 1560 to 1630