Read Anywhere and on Any Device!

Subscribe to Read | $0.00

Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!

Create Free Account

Old Age in Late Medieval England

Joel T. Rosenthal

5/5 ( ratings)

In Old Age in Late Medieval England, Joel T. Rosenthal explores the life spans, sustained activities, behaviors, and mentalites of the individuals who approached and who passed the biblically stipulated span of three score and ten in late medieval England. Drawing on a wide variety of documentary and court records as well as literary and didactic texts, he examines old age as a social construct and web of behavioral patterns woven around a biological phenomenon.

Focusing on lived experience in late medieval England, Rosenthal uses demographic and quantitative records, family histories, and biographical information to demonstrate that many people lived into their sixth, seventh, and occasionally eighth decades. Those who survived might well live to know their grandchildren. This view of a society composed of the aged as well as of the young and the middle aged is reinforced by an examination of peers, bishops, and members of parliament and urban office holders, for whom demographic and career-length information exists. Many individuals had active careers until near the end of their lives; the aged were neither rarities nor outcasts within their world. Late medieval society recognized the concept of retirement, of old age pensions, and of the welcome release from duty for those who had served over the decades.

Language: English

Pages: 288

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Release: August 29, 1996

ISBN: 0812233557

ISBN 13: 9780812233551

Old Age in Late Medieval England

Joel T. Rosenthal

5/5 ( ratings)

In Old Age in Late Medieval England, Joel T. Rosenthal explores the life spans, sustained activities, behaviors, and mentalites of the individuals who approached and who passed the biblically stipulated span of three score and ten in late medieval England. Drawing on a wide variety of documentary and court records as well as literary and didactic texts, he examines old age as a social construct and web of behavioral patterns woven around a biological phenomenon.

Focusing on lived experience in late medieval England, Rosenthal uses demographic and quantitative records, family histories, and biographical information to demonstrate that many people lived into their sixth, seventh, and occasionally eighth decades. Those who survived might well live to know their grandchildren. This view of a society composed of the aged as well as of the young and the middle aged is reinforced by an examination of peers, bishops, and members of parliament and urban office holders, for whom demographic and career-length information exists. Many individuals had active careers until near the end of their lives; the aged were neither rarities nor outcasts within their world. Late medieval society recognized the concept of retirement, of old age pensions, and of the welcome release from duty for those who had served over the decades.

Language: English

Pages: 288

Format: Hardcover

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Release: August 29, 1996

ISBN: 0812233557

ISBN 13: 9780812233551

More books from Joel T. Rosenthal

Life as a Viking: An Interactive History Adventure

3.7/5 ( ratings)

Understanding Medieval Primary Sources: Using Historical Sources to Discover Medieval Europe

Angles, Angels, and Conquerors, 400-1154

3.5/5 ( ratings)

Margaret Paston's Piety

Medieval Women and the Sources of Medieval History

The Purchase of Pardise: The Social Function of Aristocratic Benevolence, 1307-1485

Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England

Thomas Frederick Tout (1855–1929): Refashioning History for the Twentieth Century

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History: Volume 14

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History: Volume 13

Medieval England: A Social History and Archaeology from the Conquest to 1600 Ad (Revised)

Patriarchy and Families of Privilege in Fifteenth-Century England

Women, Marriage, and Family in Medieval Christendom: Essays in Memory of Michael M. Sheehan, C.S.B.

Kings and Kingship

Studies on the Personal Name in Later Medieval England and Wales

The Preservation and Transmission of Anglo-Saxon Culture: Selected Papers from the 1991 Meeting of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (Studies in Medieval Culture)

Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, series 3, volume 18: Essays in Memory of Paul E. Szarmach, part 2 (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 2024, ser. 3, no. 18)

Rate this book!

Write a review?