My Research
My research offers an innovative comparative examination of English and French drinking culture in the early modern period (c. 1550-1750). With an emphasis on the positive and constructive agency of drink, my intention is to assess how drinking practices and drinking spaces constructed a wide range of individual and collective identities in two different political and religious contexts: the ‘individual’ identities of men and women – young and old – formed within drinking houses, and the ‘collective’ community, religious and civic identities formed in relation to them. From the regional focus of two port cities, Bristol and Bordeaux, this project addresses a significant gap within the comparative history of drink, but also contributes to current wider areas of historiographical debate including cultural exchange, the dynamics and meanings of personal relationships, the experience of the life cycle, gender, popular agency, confessional affliction and the impact of religious change.
