Addresses the dynamics of power in early modern societies. This book challenges the existing tendency to see past societies in terms of binary oppositions - such as male/female, rich/poor, rulers/ruled - in which the disadvantaged have influence only in moments of direct confrontation.

Introduction: grids of power: order, hierarchy and subordination in early modern society Michael J. Braddick and John Walter; 1. Ordering the body: illegitimacy and female authority in seventeenth-century England Laura Gowing; 2. Child sexual abuse in early modern England Martin Ingram; 3. Sex, social relations and the law in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century London Faramerz Dabhoiwala; 4. Exhortation and entitlement: negotiating equality in English rural communities, 1550–1650 Steve Hindle; 5. Public transcripts, popular agency and the politics of subsistence in early modern England John Walter; 6. 'Bragging and daring words': honour, property, and the symbolism of the hunt in Stowe, 1590–1642 Dan Beaver; 7. Administrative performance: the representation of political authority in early modern England Michael J. Braddick; 8. Negotiating order in early seventeenth-century Ireland Raymond Gillespie; 9. Order, orthodoxy and resistance: the ambiguous legacy of English puritanism, or, Just how moderate was Stephen Denison? Peter Lake; 10. Making orthodoxy in late Restoration England: the trials of Edmund Hickeringill, 1662–1710 Justin Champion and Lee McNulty.

'The editors' achievement is that they have assimilated all the best recent work on their theme and set out a prospectus for fruitful analysis of power relations in early modern England that leaves behind the well-worn dynamic of elite and popular cultures in favour of a highly sophisticated new model. They bring out the sheer complexity of social and political relations in England and Ireland, and provide a convincing framework for further research.' Anthony Fletcher, Institute of Historical Research, University of London