Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T18:44:38.008Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Growing Old in Early Stuart England*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Get access

Extract

It is difficult to generalize about how people at any point in time view the process of growing old and the aged themselves. Attitudes towards old people have perhaps always been ambiguous and are probably ambiguous in western societies today. In seventeenth-century England, which in so many ways combined tradition and modernity, the ambivalent attitude towards the elderly included both traditional and modern aspects in three ways. First, as with traditional societies, early modern Englishmen looked upon old age as simply another stage in life, one of the seven through which all persons must pass; at the same time, old age was seen as something entirely different, a reversal of all previous stages. The latter view, which sociologists have labeled the “implicit” view, sees life as a constant process of expansion and growth until one reaches old age when the process is halted and reversed. Secondly, as in other traditional societies, old age was seen as a period of great dignity and wisdom, with the elderly deserving the respect and admiration of all other persons. Alongside this view in seventeenth-century England, old age was thought of as a time of folly and old people were described in undesirable terms. Thirdly, there were two ways of looking at death and its nearness: the traditional Christian view, held by many seventeenth-century theologians, was that death was entirely in God's hands and was a relief from the suffering of earthly life. The more modern view, held by others in the seventeenth-century, was that death was postponable by sensible precautions or by the science of medicine. Drawing on the literature of the age, this article will attempt to show old age in all of these various ways and point out the ambiguities.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 8 , Issue 2 , Summer 1976 , pp. 125 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

An earlier version of this paper was read at the 1974 annual meeting of the American Historical Association. I am grateful to all those who made comments on the paper at that meeting, and to Professor Lawrence Stone of Princeton University and Professor Paul Hardacre of Vanderbilt University, both of whom have offered valuable suggestions.

References

1 Cumming, Elaine and Henry, William E., Growing Old: the Process of Disengagement (New York, 1961), p. 18.Google Scholar

2 Gilbert, Creighton, “When Did a Man in the Renaissance Grow Old?Studies in the Renaissance, XIV (1967): 732.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 Hill, C.P., England, 1603 to 1714, Vol. IIIGoogle Scholar, and Routh, C. R. N., England 1485-1603, Vol. IIGoogle Scholar of Who's Who in History, ed., Routh, C. R. N. (3 vols.; Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar. Brunton, Douglas and Pennington, D. H., Members of the Long Parliament (London, 1954), p. 188Google Scholar. Dictionary of National Biography was used to determine certain ages.

4 Streib, Gordon F. and Orbach, Harold L., “Aging” in Lazarfeld, P. F., Sewell, W. H., and Wilensky, H. L., eds., The Uses of Sociology (New York, 1967), p. 615.Google Scholar

5 Bacon, Francis, The History of Life and Death (London, 1638; S.T.C. 1157), p. 108Google Scholar. Laslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost (London, 1965), pp. 103, 98–99Google Scholar. Bridenbaugh, Carl, Vexed and Troubled Englishmen, 1509-1642 (New York, 1968), p. 26Google Scholar. Wrigley, E. A., “Mortality in Pre-Industrial England: The Example of Colyton, Devon, Over Three Centuries,” Daedalus, XCVII (Spring, 1968):555.Google Scholar

6 The seventeenth-century's medical opinions were essentially the same as those held by the ancient Greeks. See Gruman, Gerald J., A History of Ideas about the Prolongation of Life; the Evolution of Prolongevity Hypotheses to 1800 Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, new series, V. 56, part 9 (Philadelphia, 1966), pp. 1516.Google Scholar

7 Aries, Philippe, Centuries of Childhood, tr., Baldick, Rogert (London, 1962), pp. 1819Google Scholar. Cuffe, Henry, The Difference of the Ages of Man's Life (London, 1926; S.T.C. 6104), pp. 113, 114121Google Scholar. Vaughn, William, Approved Directions for Health (4th ed.; London, 1612; S.T.C. 24615), pp. 112113Google Scholar. Office of Christian Parents (Cambridge, 1616; S.T.C. 5180), pp. 44, 135, 192, 204Google Scholar. Strode, George, The Anatomy of Mortality (London, 1618; S.T.C. 23364), p. 15Google Scholar. On the intellectual background of the seven ages of life, see Whitaker, Virgil K., Shakespeare's Use of Learning: An Inquiry into the Growth of His Mind and Art (San Marino, California, 1969), pp. 89.Google Scholar

8 Vaughn, , Approved Directions, pp. 116, 117118Google Scholar. Goulart, Simon, The Wise Vieillard, or Old Man (London, 1621; S.T.C. 12136), p. 41Google Scholar. Macfarlane, Alan, The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, a Seventeenth-Century Clergyman: an Essay in Historical Anthropology (Cambridge, 1970), p. 99Google Scholar. Taylor, John, The Old, Old, Very Old Man; or, the Age and Long Life of Thomas Par (London, 1635; S.T.C. 23781).Google ScholarPubMed

9 Goulart, , Old Man, pp. 2425Google Scholar. Dr.Smith, John, The Portrait of Old Age (2nd ed.: London, 1666), p. 10.Google Scholar

10 Bacon, , History, pp. 275282Google Scholar. The Dutiful Advice of a Loving Son to His Aged Father (London, 1633); S.T.C. 156a), pp. 34Google Scholar. Smith, Portrait. Pechey, John, A Collection of Chronical Diseases (London, 1692), pp. 86, 114115.Google Scholar

11 Burton, Robert, The Anatomy of Melancholy, What It Is (4th ed., Oxford, 1632; 41612), pp. 59, 31Google Scholar. Cuffe, , Ages, pp. 131132Google Scholar. Smith, , Portrait, pp. 39, 38Google Scholar. Goulart, , Old Man, p. 24.Google Scholar

12 Hyde, Edward, Earl of Clarendon, A Dialogue Between A, an old Courtier; B, an Old Lawyer; C, an Old Soldier; D, an Old Country Gentleman; and E, an Old Alderman in A Collection of Several Tracts of…Clarendon (London, 1727). pp. 288308Google Scholar. (I am indebted to Professor Paul H. Hardacre for this reference.)

13 Simmons, Leo W., “Aging in Preindustrial Societies,” in Tibbets, Clark, ed., Handbook of Social Gerontology; Societal Aspects of Aging (Chicago, 1960), pp. 6291.Google Scholar

14 Pearson, Lu Emily, Elizabethans at Home (Stanford, California, 1957), pp. 462–463, 472Google Scholar. Delany, Paul, British Autobiography in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1969), pp. 57, 80Google Scholar, passim.

15 Laslett, , World, pp. 9096Google Scholar. On the literary treatment of windows and conduct books for them, see Pearson, , Elizabethans, pp. 502508.Google Scholar

16 Goulart, , Old Man, pp. 87, 88, 89, 93, 46, 47, 50, 53–62.Google Scholar

17 Reading, John, The Old Man's Staff; Two Sermons Showing the Only Way to a Comfortable Old Age (London, 1621; S.T.C. 20792), pp. 10–11, 12, 1415.Google Scholar

18 Reading, , Old Man's Staff, pp. 23–26, 2934.Google Scholar

19 Goulart, , Old Man, pp. 97, 122, 84, 85.Google Scholar

20 Gruman, , Prolongation of Life, pp. 19, 49, 62–66, 6871.Google Scholar

21 Byfield, Nicholas. The Cure of the Fear of Death (London, 1618; S.T.C. 4213a), pp. 140144.Google Scholar

22 Moore, John, A Map of Man's Mortality (London, 1617; S.T.C. 18057), pp. 7, 1213Google Scholar. Cuffe, , Ages, pp. 7274Google Scholar. [Allestreet, Richard], A Discourse Concerning the Period of Human Life: Whether Mutable or Immutable (London, 1677), pp. 55, 56, 63, 78, 82, 99, 116117Google Scholar. See also Goulart, Old Man, chapters 2 and 3.

23 Cuffe, , Ages, pp. 92–93, 98–100, 107108Google Scholar. Goulard, Old Man, pp. 30, 3437.Google Scholar

24 Bacon, , History, pp. 27, 62, 64, 119, 120, 121.Google Scholar

25 Bacon, , History, pp. 112, 149–156, 172, 173, 183–189, 197, 203.Google Scholar

26 Bacon, , History, pp. 72, 233, 238, 240, 242, 244252.Google Scholar

27 Nova, Arnaldus de Villa, Here is a New Book, Called the Defense of Age and Recovery of Youth (London, 1540; S.T.C. 777), sig. rA2, vA3, rB3Google Scholar. Starkey, George, Via and Vitam, Being a Short and Sure Way to a Long Life (London, 1661)Google Scholar. Lessius, Leonardus, Hygiasticon; or, the Right Course of Preserving Life and Health into Extreme Old Age (2nd ed.; Cambridge, 1634; 15521), pp. 15–16, 30–72, 121, 145–151, 164–170, 186Google Scholar. Harvey, William, The Anatomical Examination Of The Body Of Thomas Par in The Works of William Harvey, M.D. (London, 1858), pp. 587592.Google Scholar