| Popis: |
This chapter explores the extent of bastardy among the nobility and gentry, using a variety of sources, especially wills, property transactions and court records. It compares numbers of births and rates of bastardy among the elite with overall and non-elite bastardy rates, suggesting that although there are some correlations with levels of bastard-bearing among the poor, the peaks of activity in the mid-sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries do not correlate clearly. There are also clear regional and sub-regional variations to be observed, in particular of north versus south, and within the north in the north west and far north east, although any attempt to see the developments of the period as producing a clear distinction between a bastard-prone north and west, and a non-bastard-prone south and east is not supported by the evidence. |
