Old Age In English History

At the end of the twentieth century more people are living into their seventies, eighties, nineties and beyond, a process expected to continue well into the next millennium. The twentieth century has achieved what people in other centuries only dreamed of: many can now expect to survive to old age in reasonably good health and can remain active and independent to the end, in contrast to the high death rate, ill health and destitution which affected all ages in the past. Yet this change is generally greeted not with triumph but with alarm. It is assumed that the longer people live, the longer they are ill and dependent, thus burdening a shrinking younger generation with the cost of pensions and health care. It is also widely believed that 'the past' saw few survivors into old age and these could be supported by their families without involving the taxpayer. In this first survey of old age throughout English history, these assumptions are challenged. Vivid pictures are given of the ways in which very large numbers of older people lived often vigorous and independent lives over many centuries. The book argues that old people have always been highly visible in English communities, and concludes that as people live longer due to the benefits of the rise in living standards, far from being 'burdens' they can be valuable contributors to their family and friends.

Seven contributors examine how the best thinkers and artists of each historical epoch in the West have treated old age. Full of surprising and fascinating facts, this is an uplifting companion for those who, like it or not, are beginning to understand the inevitability of their own aging process.

The Decline of Life is an ambitious and absorbing study of old age in eighteenth-century England. Drawing on a wealth of sources - literature, correspondence, poor house and workhouse documents and diaries - Susannah Ottaway considers a wide range of experiences and expectations of age in the period, and demonstrates that the central concern of ageing individuals was to continue to live as independently as possible into their last days. Ageing men and women stayed closely connected to their families and communities, in relationships characterised by mutual support and reciprocal obligations. Despite these aspects of continuity, however, older individuals' ability to maintain their autonomy, and the nature of the support available to them once they did fall into necessity declined significantly in the last decades of the century. As a result, old age was increasingly marginalised. Historical demographers, historical gerontologists, sociologists, social historians and women's historians will find this book essential reading.

Minois concludes with comments on the most recent turn in this long and complex history--the emotional debate over euthanasia, assisted suicide, and the right to die.

After an extensive introduction that takes stock of the relevant research literature on Old Age in the Middle Ages and the early modern age, the contributors discuss the phenomenon of old age in many different fields of late antique, medieval, and early modern literature, history, and art history. Both Beowulf and the Hildebrandslied, both Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival and Titurel, both the figure of Merlin and the trans-European tradition of Perceval/Peredur/Parzival, then the figure of the vetula in a variety of medieval French, English, and Spanish texts, and of the Old Man in The Stricker's Daniel, both the treatment of old age in Langland's Piers the Plowman and in Jean Gerson's sermons are dealt with. Other aspects involve late-antique epistolary literature, early modern French farce in light of Disability Studies, the social role of old, impotent men in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Netherlandish paintings, and the scientific discourse of old age and health since the 1500s. The discourse of Old Age proves to have been of central importance throughout the ages, so the critical examination of the issues involved sheds intriguing light on the cultural history from late antiquity to the seventeenth century.

Here is an absorbing and startlingly original illustrated study of one of the great - and most neglected - themes in all history: the ways in which society has perceived old people throughout the ages. From increased life expectancy and 'grey gap years' to dwindling pensions, the pros and cons of aging is a constant theme, yet much of the debate continues to be based on assumptions and misconceptions about the past. Is it true, for instance, that people were considered 'old' at fifty? How far have our ideas about the average life-span in previous centuries been distorted by infant mortality? Were the old respected and cared for? Did sexuality survive into old age? Here, for the first time, a group of leading historians address these and allied questions, writing vividly about a topic of great contemporary resonance that has for too long been surrounded by taboo. The visual evidence is a vital part of the story, and here the book is equally original. Drawing upon the rich legacy of art through two millennia, with works by a wide range of artists including Whistler, Rembrandt, Rego and Freud, this enthralling human story presents a picture that is sometimes compassionate, sometimes horrifying, but overall unexpectedly reassuring.

"Explores the representation of old age in Elizabethan England."--BLACKWELL'S.

This study draws a comprehensive picture of medieval old age in western Europe, combining primary sources and secondary litrature to produce a broad cultural history.