The Politics of the ‘Essential Work’ under Charles I's Personal Rule, 1629-1641

Recent scholarship by Whittle, Macleod and others have shown that women contributed to virtually every aspect of the early modern economy. In this paper, I suggest that society's reliance upon women's (and men’s) essential work may have given them greater political agency than hitherto considered. This may come as a surprise. For, if we turn to the gender and the social history of the period, we often learn that ordinary women's political engagement was largely limited to the 'local level, usually over minor and non- ideological issues' (Cupp, 2003). Yet, as Braddick, Hindle and others have shown, the 'nerves of the state' were cast widely upon English subjects in the quest for raising revenues. The Crown's search for revenue became especially acute under Charles I's Personal Rule in which the royal administration ruling without a parliament sought to extract 'extraordinary' (i.e. non-parliamentary) revenues out of the everyday routines of the ordinary household.

How did non-elite women and men respond when their mundane routines in and outside their home - provisioning, heating, cooking, washing, the raising of cattle and other forms of work routines - came to be disrupted by enterprising courtiers and syndicates intent upon extracting money ostensibly for the public good? This paper presents my preliminary findings and considers the power wielded especially by women presiding over many of these routines. I hope to conclude by exploring what happens to the history of state-formation and of economic institutions if we put gender and essential work back in.

Koji Yamamoto (ky751@york.ac.uk) is a historian of early modern England, an associate professor at the Faculty of Economics, the University of Tokyo and an affiliate researcher at CREMS. He spent six beautiful years in York between 2003 and 2009, and fondly remembers the seminars hosted by CREMS, CECS and the History Department. He subsequently held postdoctoral positions across the UK and in Paris before taking up a position in Tokyo. His first monograph is Taming Capitalism before its Triumph: Public Service, Distrust and 'Projecting' in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2018), and he is the editor of Stereotypes and Stereotyping in Early Modern England: Puritans, Papists and Projectors (Manchester, 2022). This talk is about his second monograph project.

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After Koji’s talk we will be heading to SPARK for an informal meal. Please email if you would like a seat in the taxi.