The House as a Place of Work in Early Modern Rural England

ABSTRACT

This article examines patterns of work in rural early modern English households, looking particularly at the early seventeenth century. It relates models of architectural change and gendered work to the experience of three case-study households and their houses, belonging respectively to a gentleman, a rural craftsman of middling wealth, and a wage laborer. It concludes that there was a trend to separate work from living space well before industrialization but, importantly, this trend did not apply to elements of women's work, which remained located within the house, or to laborers' houses, which have often been omitted from discussions.