Description
A thematically structured, technically ground-breaking demographic analysis of an important early-modern European city. Each chapter addresses an aspect of urban life: the household and family; wealth and taxation; employment; the position of women; care of the poor. Throughout the book runs the constant theme of ‘urban-ness’ in relation to the different social and economic structures of the parishes of Edinburgh. – – The strength of this work lies in the breadth of the range of sources that the author has exploited – Poll Tax and Health Tax registers, testaments, burial registers and town council, Kirk and craft records; in the sophisticated techniques used to marshal this prodigious amount of information to construct a coherent and readable account of city life; and in its subject – this is one of a very few urban-historical demographic studies of the period not to be based on an English city.