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Cover image for book The gentleman's mistress

The gentleman's mistress

Illegitimate relationships and children, 1450–1640
By:Tim Thornton; Katharine Carlton
Publisher:Manchester University Press
Print ISBN:9781526114068
eText ISBN:9781526114099
Edition:1
Copyright:2019
Format:Reflowable

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This study explores pre- and extra-marital relationships among the gentry and nobility of the north of England from 1450 to 1640: the keeping of mistresses, the taking of lovers, the birth of illegitimate children and the fate of those children. It challenges assumptions about the extent to which such activities declined in the period, and hence about the impact of Protestantism and other changes to the culture of the elite. A major contribution to the literature on marriage and sexual relationships, family, kinship and gender, it is aimed at an academic readership in the fields of social and political history.