By discussing diverse social contexts - from the Inns of Court to rural Derbyshire - contributors ask what kinds of etiquettes and rituals governed different drinking communities in the seventeenth century. What was the significance of particular drink for particular social contexts? How exclusive were drinking communities? And what happened when outsiders breached these coteries? The role of gender in drinking and sociability in considered, including the ambiguous figure of the female drinker: was alcohol a source of female empowerment or a mechanism to enforce a patriarchal culture? The influence of particular kinds of drink - claret, port, beer, ale, cider, perry - and particular kinds of drinkers in generating discourses of politics, nationalism, and xenophobia is considered; and the received views of moderation and excess are analysed: while early modern medicinal tracts championed measured drinking of wine and beer as a cure for sickness, drunkenness was consistently and dramatically aligned with physical decay, madness and sedition. The range of texts discussed is broad: popular broadside ballads and husbandry manuals; dramatic works; verse collections; manuscript miscellanies; scientific and medical tracts; and political treaties.
Contributors: STELLA ACHILLEOS, KAREN BRITLAND, CEDRIC C. BROWN, TANYA CASSIDY, LOUISE HILL CURTH, ANGELA MCSHANE JONES, MARIKA KEBLUSEK, CHARLES C. LUDINGTON, CHARLOTTE MCBRIDE, MICHELLE O'CALLAGHAN, SUSAN J. OWEN, VITTORIA DI PALMA, ADAM SMYTH.