ERO Presents Special: an Archive Full of Animals

Speaker: Professor Erica Fudge

Many years ago, the then just ‘Dr Fudge’, spent much time in the ERO Searchroom looking through surviving wills from between 1620-1634, looking for instances of livestock being bequeathed. For some testators, it might be a single named cow, pig or sheep (such as Berry, Blackbird or Brownbacke), that formed an essential part of their daily life and survival. For others, a substantial but anonymous flock of sheep or heard of cattle was just part of a larger and more complex bequest. How did people identify and differentiate their livestock in early-modern Essex and what role did those animals play in everyday life? For the first time since the resulting book, Quick Cattle and Dying Wishes, was published, Professor Fudge returns to Essex to discuss her research:

I’m looking forward to coming back to Chelmsford to talk about some of the cows I found lurking in the ERO. It might not seem the most obvious thing to be looking for, but my talk will make the case that looking for livestock in wills is actually tracking down what meant a huge amount to the testators and their legatees. In the talk I will introduce you to Goldilocks, Evered, Offine, and Rug, among others; and will trace what thinking about animals adds to our understanding of seventeenth-century communities.

Erica Fudge is Professor of English Studies in the Department of Humanities at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. She has published a number of works on human-animal relations in the early modern period, including essays in History Today on the impossibility of writing animal biographies, early animal healthcare, and bestiality.

This event has been made possible by sponsorship from the Friends of Historic Essex (registered charity no. 235270), the charity that supports the Record Office.

Host or Publisher Essex Record Office