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The Importance Of Being Related: How The Nuclear Family Functioned Within The Urban Environment Of Medieval Norwich 1250-1348, Anne Grant

All Theses

Did medieval families function on a nuclear or an extended level? This thesis will show that the families in urban Norwich, England in the Middle Ages worked, loved and played within strong nuclear families instead of floundering in a sea of extended relatives and neighbors. Using two books of deeds from the city of Norwich as well as the police records and other assorted information from the city, this paper will prove that nuclear family relationships, with their economic and social bonds, were of primary importance to the functionality of the conjugal family and that much less focus was centered …