‘The Purgatory of Servants’: (In)Subordination, Wages, Gender and Marital Status of Servants in England and Italy in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries
From Firenze University Press Journal: Journal of Early Modern Studies (JEMS)
Raffaella Sarti, BSFM: Laboratorio editoriale OA
Especially during the last fifty years, historians have been trying to understand differences between the characteristics and conditions of servants in different parts of Europe, differences which have come to be considered crucial to explaining differences in important aspects of life in pre-industrial and industrialising societies in various parts of the ‘old continent’: aspects such as the so-called European marriage pattern, the strength of family ties, the role of the family in providing assistance to its members in need of care, etc. (Sarti 2007 and 2014). However, it is not only modern scholars who have focussed on the diversity of domestic service in different areas: a number of authors who lived in past centuries also tried to pinpoint those differences. In 1814, for instance, Abbé Grégoire, the former ‘constitutional’ priest who took part in the French Revolution and fought against slavery, published a book entitled De la domesticité chez les peuples anciens et modernes, which described the transformation of domestic service over time and tried to make clear differences among the working conditions and legal positions of servants in different countries, regions and cities.
As well as, and possibly even more than scholars, travellers and visitors have also tried to identify servants in different contexts. Their opinions are precious sources for understanding the ways in which our ancestors imagined European diversity — a topic of deep interest to both cultural and social historians, and a crucially important issue for contemporaries (such as decision-makers) trying to understand continuities and discontinuities in the representation of Europe. Yet these opinions have so far been neglected by those who study domestic service. In this article I shall give examples of the ideas that circulated in early modern times about the characteristics of servants and servant-keeping in Britain and Italy, making some reference to other countries, too, especially France.
The focus is on the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, though I shall also be mentioning examples from other periods. During the early modern period the notion of ‘the servant’ was ambiguous and controversial (Sarti 2005b), but it was an expression in constant use, and one which some writers (especially jurists) went to some trouble to explicate. Different kinds of servants were ubiquitously present in early modern societies, as was the notion of service. The very fact that people made comparisons between the characteristics and status of (various types of ) servants in a number of contexts and countries confirms that — despite its blurred boundaries — the category of the servant was a crucial one for early modern representations of society.
Many of my comparisons between servants and servant-keeping in Britain, Italy and, to a lesser extent, other countries, are taken from travel books, a literary genre that often expresses prejudices and stereotypes, and also contributes to circulating and strengthening preconceived ideas (see, for example, Speake 2003). This will not represent a problem for us here — rather the contrary — since the focus of the article is precisely on ideas and representations. At the same time, however, I shall evaluate the specific vantage point of the authors of the books used as sources, comparing some of their views with the findings of historians of domestic service in early modern Europe and drawing on my own work in the field.
First, I shall focus on ideas about servants and servant-keeping in England as expressed by both English and foreign writers, especially French and Italian, showing how these ideas evolved over time and the differences between the internal and the external gaze. I shall then focus on Italy, analyzing the views of Italian customs expressed by travellers from Britain. I will show both how they differ and what they have in common, and evaluate whether their representations of the differences between domestic service in the two countries were consistent with the points made by the observers of social conditions in England. Finally, I shall compare early modern representations of the national characteristics of domestic service with the findings of recent historians, showing that — at least in some cases — these early representations turn out to be consistent with modern ones, particularly as regards the (crucial) issues of marriage and family formation.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.13128/JEMS-2279-7149-15814
Read Full Text: https://oajournals.fupress.net/index.php/bsfm-jems/article/view/7044
