Cathryn Spence – författare

This richly illustrated history explores the many challenges and triumphs faced by one of Britain’s most fascinating cities. The Story of Bath charts the long history of this important city from its beginnings in the Roman period through to the present day. Its lively narrative takes in Bath’s medieval reinvention as a health resort and focuses on its Georgian heyday, when a new classical town was achieved as the elegant backdrop to the social round of polite society. The rediscovery of the Roman Baths and growing industries led to Bath’s expansion in the late nineteenth century, while the Blitz and the consequent conservation battles of the Sack of Bath are highlighted in the twentieth century. Accompanied by evocative archival images, Cathryn Spence brings to life the many facets of this remarkable World Heritage Site.

Gender influenced every aspect of life in medieval and early modern Scotland. This collection illuminates how gendered expectations and experiences shaped people's relationships with where they lived, what they believed and how they exercised power.Showcasing new work by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, essays in this collection draw upon a wide range of sources to present familiar topics in original ways, while opening up unexpected vistas for our historical sight.Essays range from innovative interpretations of famous people and well-known events to examinations of the thoughts and activities of ordinary Scots, with consideration also for how people from the past are publicly commemorated today. Together, they demonstrate the centrality of gender in the shaping of Scottish history.

Gender influenced every aspect of life in medieval and early modern Scotland. This collection illuminates how gendered expectations and experiences shaped people’s relationships with where they lived, what they believed and how they exercised power.Showcasing new work by an international and interdisciplinary group of scholars, essays in this collection draw upon a wide range of sources to present familiar topics in original ways, while opening up unexpected vistas for our historical sight.Essays range from innovative interpretations of famous people and well-known events to examinations of the thoughts and activities of ordinary Scots, with consideration also for how people from the past are publicly commemorated today. Together, they demonstrate the centrality of gender in the shaping of Scottish history.

This text provides the first full-length consideration of women’s economic roles in early modern Scottish towns. Drawing on tens of thousands of cases entered into burgh court litigation between 1560 and 1640 in Edinburgh, Dundee, Haddington and Linlithgow, Women, credit and debt explores how Scottish women navigated their courts and their communities. The employments and by-employments that brought these women to court and the roles they had in the economy are also considered. In particular, this book explores the role of women as merchants, merchandisers, producers and sellers of ale, landladies, moneylenders and servants. Comparing the Scottish experience to that of England and Europe, Spence shows that over the course of the latter half of the sixteenth century and into the seventeenth century women were conspicuously active in burgh court litigation and, by extension, were engaged participants in the early modern Scottish economy.