Chapter Five of Sources and Debates in English History: 1485-1714 is rather properly named with “Masterless Men and the Monstrous Regiment of Women.” The late sixteenth and early seventeenth-centuries were plagued by all sorts of tensions and social unrest. Document 5.1 titled “Anonymous threatening note (1598)” demonstrates the anger felt by the English public about their justice system. The Early Modern English commoner’s sense of justice includes vigilante justice, as depicted in document 5.3, titled “Wiltshire Quarter Sessions, deposition of Thomas Mills, cutler, and his wife Agnes (Spring 1618)”. This document elaborates the parade-like method of vigilante justice, which intended to shame Thomas Mills, and beat his wife, into submission. Whether this was to restore order, or if there were other issues that their neighbors and other villagers were angry about, we cannot definitively prove. We can use this information to explain the dramatic lengths that villagers were incited to, in order to reestablish in their village. No only did they gather, which may have prevented them from performing their work, but based on the large-size of the gathered mob (if the document is not extremely exaggerated) men and women from other villages would have gathered to bring justice to this particular village. It must have taken a large amount of planning, just to get the word out to the other villages. So, this then begs the question that I asked in class: Did the victims of the mob realize that it was coming for them? If so, why did they not leave? Dr. Rabin argued that this family had no other place to live, and that leaving their village would have been traumatic, but if they knew their lives were in danger, would it not have been worth the difficulty of relocating? On the other hand, if the mob had indeed gathered people from other villages, it may have been impossible for them to find another village in which to live. Faced with those odds, I don’t know if I would have attempted escape either.
2 thoughts on “Masterless Men”
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In answer to your questions, Did the victims of the mob realize that it was coming for them? If so, why did they not leave? I would argue that people during this period centered their lives around village life and derived a large part of their identities from their community because their statuses were based on their birth and position in their community. I am sure that it would be difficult for them not to notice that people were plotting an event against them, however they probably stayed because leaving meant exiling themselves from the community and therefore abandoning their identities. It is likely that they feared loss of identity and exile more than a mob of their fellow villagers and an event that would pass as they fell back into normalcy.
I also thought the topic of crime and punishment meted out by the villagers was one of the most interesting parts in the source book. As for the passage that you are talking about, I personally believe that it was probably a little exaggerated. While I am unable to believe four hundred people gathered together over the issue of just one woman’s crimes, I still can see how a charivari would be an exciting event for these people, and probably looked forward to things like this. Compared to the other methods of punishment, I feel that what happened to the woman in the passage we read in the source book was a bit more harsh than usual, especially compared to something like the ducking stool. I believe most punishments were intended to bring the other villagers’ attention to potentially dangerous people, and to show them who to watch for. I don’t think the main object of punishment was the reformation and betterment of the individual though. Having their reputation ruined left them essentially powerless. I can sort of see why the woman did not run away, even if there was another village to go to. Moving to a different village back then would be such a drastic life change for them, and I think it’s hard for people like us to grasp that.