Back of Book: From royalty to peasantry, every age has its bad eggs, those who break all the rules and rub everyone up the wrong way. But their niggling, anti-social and irritating ways not only tell us about what upset people, but also what mattered to them, how their society functioned and what kind of world they lived in.

In this brilliantly nitty-gritty exploration of real life in the Tudor and Stuart age, you will discover:
- how to choose the perfect insult, whether it be draggletail, varlet, flap, saucy fellow strumpet, ninny-hammer or stinkard
- why quoting Shakespeare was very poor form
- why flashing the inside of your hat could repulse someone
- the best way to mock accents, preachers, soldiers and pretty much everything else besides

Ruth Goodman draws upon advice books and manuals, court cases and sermons, drama and imagery to outline bad behaviour from the gauche to the galling, the subtle to the outrageous. It is a celebration of drunkards, scolds, harridans and cross dressers in a time when calling a man a fool could get someone killed, and cursing wasn't just rude, it worked!

You might enjoy this book if you've got an interest in history. This would also be an excellent resource for anyone writing a historical book.

This book is well-researched. Because Goodman took the information from actual historic documents, we know these are accurate descriptions. It's written in a way that's understandable, but still very specific. It covers all areas of etiquette in the 16th and 17th centuries.

When I finished reading this book, I had the urge to randomly offend people with archaic terms.

I feel like I have a better understanding of the origins of certain manners and traditions.

Ruth Goodman is a historian of the social and domestic life of Britain.

Knowing how people behaved in the past gives us a clearer picture of why and how society has changed over the years. This book accomplishes that in an amusing way.

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Created Nov 05, 2022 at 11:45am • Submit your own review...