'Ingenious & learned gentlemen' social perceptions and self-fashioning among parish elites in Essex, 1680-1740

Abstract

Alan Everitt's well-known characterization of parish elites as the 'pseudo'-gentry has precluded further study of their social aspirations and identity. Recent research has emphasized the varied nature of literary definitions of gentility, but has not examined their relationship to social practice. This study focuses ona network of parish rulers and vestrymen in rural Essex, and their social and intellectual self-fashioning through the pursuit of natural science and history. Following Shapin's isolation of social gentility as a key component in constructing scientific credibility, the study shows the efforts of parish elites to conform to ideals of 'gentelmanly' objectivity, learning and erudition. In doing so, they moulded this acquired status to their circumstances, to break out of circumscribed, contingent social hierarchies in the parish. Gentility was employed as a new currency, to supersede existing, local tokens of status, to be reputed 'a better man and more excellent' than mere inhabitants of 'the town'. Yet the study also illustrates the social limits of this acquired status, and the fears of stepping outside the faniliar local 'sphere'. The study emphasizes that for these parish elites the attainment of gentility was a mixed blessing - a move from the small, secure pond of parish status to the deeper, hostile waters of a more universal status criterion.

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