Old Age in Late Medieval EnglandIn Old Age in Late Medieval England, Joel T. Rosenthal explores the life spans, sustained activities, behaviors, and mentalites of the individuals who approached and who passed the biblically stipulated span of three score and ten in late medieval England. Drawing on a wide variety of documentary and court records (which were, however, more likely to specify with precision an individual's age on reaching majority or inheriting property than on the occasion of his or her death) as well as literary and didactic texts, he examines "old age" as a social construct and web of behavioral patterns woven around a biological phenomenon. |
Contents
Inquisitions Post Mortem as a Window on Old Age | 9 |
Proofs of Age and the Culture of Attesting to Age | 33 |
ThreeGeneration Families The Old and the Young | 55 |
ThreeGeneration Family Links and Last Wills | 69 |
Full Lives and Careers Some Case Studies ང | 91 |
Careers and Case Studies of the Peers | 135 |
The Length of Lives | 156 |