Dens of tyranny and oppression : the politics of imprisonment for debt in seventeenth-century London
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- This dissertation provides the first archival account of England's seventeenth-century prisons, uncovering their internal social structures, their place within wider society and their role in political conflict. As inmate populations swelled with debtors due to dramatic economic shifts and growing strain placed upon credit relations, prisons became hubs of social and political activity. In ever-closer quarters, prisoners lived, petitioned, rioted, participated in self-government and developed novel political arguments. Reacting against what they perceived as oppressive legal and prison systems, inmates proposed more equitable means of maintaining credit networks, and developed radical new models of social relations. This was particularly significant during the English Revolution, when imprisonment was increasingly equated with royal absolutism. Arguments against imprisonment for debt were first developed within inmate societies, but in the mid-seventeenth century entered into broader debates over authority and tyranny, intersecting with a radical political milieu that included John Lilburne and the Levellers during the English Revolution. These developments were contingent upon (and reactions against) both economic turbulence and experiences of the participatory processes that constituted the early modern state. Inmates were the casualties of new levels of economic instability and the increasing activity of an agonistic legal system, left at the mercy of gaolers whose offices operated at the intersection of self-interest and state power. Within this context, inmates developed novel critiques of legal systems (particularly imprisonment for debt) and the social order. Thus, this dissertation considers how direct engagements with the ligatures of the early modern state precipitated by rapid economic change and dislocation could produce friction and contention that was not simply a by-product of growing participation in governance and negotiation with authority, but a key experience in generating political dissent and opposition. In short, it explores how straining credit networks, swelling inmate populations and civil war reshaped early modern prisons and their social worlds, and the political resonances this had within and beyond the prison walls.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Form | electronic; electronic resource; remote |
| Extent | 1 online resource. |
| Publication date | 2017 |
| Issuance | monographic |
| Language | English |
Creators/Contributors
| Associated with | Bell, Richard Thomas |
|---|---|
| Associated with | Stanford University, Department of History. |
| Primary advisor | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Como, David R, 1970- |
| Thesis advisor | Findlen, Paula |
| Thesis advisor | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
| Advisor | Findlen, Paula |
| Advisor | Stokes, Laura, 1974- |
Subjects
| Genre | Theses |
|---|
Bibliographic information
| Statement of responsibility | Richard Thomas Bell. |
|---|---|
| Note | Submitted to the Department of History. |
| Thesis | Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2017. |
| Location | electronic resource |
Access conditions
- Copyright
- © 2017 by Richard Thomas Bell
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