Work and Identity in Early Modern England

Abstract How did work shape people's identity before industrial capitalism? It is a question that early modernists have never really got to grips with. Thanks decades of research by social and cultural historians, we now much better understanding how people in the past saw themselves labelled those around them. But until recently scholars modern England had surprisingly little say about person's working life – their occupation, trade, vocation or livelihood influenced identity. This essay therefore an attempt synthesise recent on subject into more explicit historiographical intervention. Early need broaden consider ‘working identities’ as whole, rather than merely narrower concept ‘occupational identities’. By exploring self-image role, can reshape our broader relations this period challenge some ‘grand narratives’ economic change.