England and Empire: England is the heartland of the British Empire, an island colonial power established primarily on naval supremacy. At this time the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent has pretty much fallen, the trafficking of people captured by British-allied groups or kidnapped directly from the shores of western Africa is a buisness on which fortunes are quickly made, certain colonies are vexed about disruptions to the tea supply, and there are rumours of yet more new lands discovered at the bottom of the world.

In terms of rural English life, the main changes to be seen from these events are an uptick in young men kidnapped or "pressed" into the military (mostly the Navy, though glass or glass-bottomed tankards have started to appear to foil inland recruiting sergeants' common trick of slipping a shilling into the last pint offered to a likely lad and 'accepting his offer' when the choking youth spat it into his palm), the ready availability of sugar and a new wave of fascination with Indian food and design. The middle class is becoming distinct, and transferware plates intended for display rather than use take the place of the nobility's silver services in specially-built cabinets of the ambitious well-to-do.

Speech is beginning to distinctly diverge between classes once more: literacy is high amongst the nobility and largely nonexistent amongst the working class, excluding the latter from the dialect-neutralising effects of university. The second-person familiar (thee/thou) is already pretty much extinct in the South, lacking the noble-coded politeness of formal address (you). The rurality of our immediate setting prevents the effects of the trend for normalising horizontal births and consequent maternal mortality instigated by the replacement of tradtional midwives with upper-class male physicians (a process only encouraged by the fetishes of Louis XIV): only the fanciest locals are likely to be missing a mother for this reason.

The push towards private land ownership and emphasis on both title and capital, in combination with access to Indian cotton and the first throes of the Industrial Revoloution, has forced many elsewhere off the land. This change is only really felt in fertile and sparsely-populated Somerset via the increase in highway robbery as the landless pick on those with goods and/or funds to travel on long stretches of unlit country roads. Despite the largely deforested landscape and lack of large carnivores therein, land travel remains a slow and daunting prospect for most, a fact that gives stopping-points like inns and private hostelries a thriving trade.


The Somerset landscape: after approximately 5,000 years under the plough - first simple stone adzes and chipped slates, then wood and bronze, then at last iron, steel and the heavy horse - the landscape of the fertile floodplains is largely a patchwork of fields bounded by lanes. The fields in our period look somewhat uneven in terms of shape and soil composition and certain hedgerows less ancient than others as what once was common land increasingly passes into private ownership.

Though trees are certainly encouraged to grow around villages, shading roads and in single-digits in large fields as a concession to reapers against sunstroke, what woodland remains is generally reserved as a deer park and/or screen for the homes of the nobility. As such, gamekeepers are usually a significant part of the squire's payroll, since the attraction of free meat and gather on one's own wits is signficant to the parish poor. Even the Wyzenwood is technically owned by the Fox family as part of a dowry from a 14th-century ancestor, but since no local will approach the place after dark it is unlikely to be poached (if, indeed, there is anything to poach within its bounds, since even the rooks give it a wide berth) and impossible to manage.

The monuments of the first farmers are still dotted about, notably over in Avesbury and the taller but less mathematically impressive circle at Stonehenge, and it is a common regrettable passtime of certain members of the gentry (clergy included) to dig into known barrow cemeteries in hopes of ancient treasure. The deep past lives layer on layer in the soil, the ghosts of Roman settlements and hamlets abandoned during the Black Death sometimes showing up in fields when the crops are dry as pale outlines in differencially-parched wheat.

~ The Masters, the People, the Poor:

A little over a century ago it was proved, decisively, that even the royal lineage were human beings. An aura of near-religious awe still surrounds certain members of the peerage, however, so that even relatively impoverished nobility command respect among the lower classes for the social clout of their name if nothing else.

The upper middle class consists of those rich in land or made rich in commerce. Merchant venturers, lawyers, makers of military, luxury and trade goods and owners of vessels making slave runs make up the majority of the latter category, farmers and urban landlords the former.

A farmer who'd inherited fortunate fields or made good choices on livestock as the climate fluctuations of the 18th century reduced available land for heavy cattle and summer-growing wheat might buy several neighbouring fields from struggling subsistence farmers and become an employer: unmarried labourers (includng women, hence milkmaid, though quarters are separate) might live on the farm and/or take some duties filled by servants in other households. The children of such a man might well be literate, since education would provide a key to an officer's commission, fitness for political office or running a merchant household.

The commerce-rich with little land are generally looking to get some, whether at home or in the colonies, and conform more in appearance to the popular image of 'gentleman' in terms of wigs, brocades and lace (hence 'bigwigs' - the farmer may or may not have such touches of low aristocracy, depending on how hands-on he is and whether he might be thought pretentious). Ladies may have brocades, silks and even Indian (though not Bengal) muslin, but are unlikely to go heavily wigged. They are likely to get more say in whom they marry, be literate in themselves, have literate children, and have some awareness of events occurring more than 20 miles away.

The hierarchy of the clergy runs much in parallel with the secular one. Scorch Norton has a vicar of the above class who ultimately reports to the Bishop of Bath and Wells, Edward Willes, cryptographer to the King. It also possesses a lower-middle-class sexton.

Clergy retain the remnants of a notoriously opaque parallel legal system and may be excused crimes to an extent generally determined by their class of origin: a vicar turned wrecker, for instance, might be branded and sent inland for handling goods or given over to the lay system for greater involvement, whilst an archdeacon could probably get away with a symbolic "branding" and being told sternly not to do it again. In theory this system extends beyond the Church of England, but in practice any Catholic or Nonconformist clergy wandering around Somerset are taking their lives into their hands.

The lower middle class consists of craft workers, servants, and minor freeholders. Dyers, weavers, carpenters, makers of lace, blacksmiths, tanners, all likely own their own premises - or in the case of servants, have rooms allotted to them in a large house and access to their masters' discarded goods and leftover food - and equipment for their trade.

The working class work the fields, tend the herds and wash the dishes. These common people are generally employed by a landowner, who may also provide or rent them a place to live. The more fortunate might be tenant farmers, paying rent largely in produce rather than coin, though this remains a precarious existence dependant on the whims of the seasons and prevalence of crop pests. Many of the transactions between working class people are based on barter rather than money, with labour as a recognised resource to be bargained with. The poor on the land are rarely literate, since the long and sometimes dangerous trek to the nearest town with a school is more labour lost than most poor households can afford.

Due to a high infant and juvenile mortality fate, working-class families tend to be either particularly large or small and marked my misfortune, depending on personal fertility and when and if measles, smallpox or some lesser affliction carries off multiple children in a household at once. Although christened as soon as possible to prevent them becoming ghosts or ingredients for witchcraft, children under about 2 ^1/2 years are usually referred to as 'the baby' with the pronoun 'it' in general conversation. Households dubiously lucky enough to have every child survive can end up with a dozen or so mouths to feed, stretching resources thin.

The destitute - a group swelled by increased wealth inequality - may be looked after by the Church, the villagers, or take to a vagrant begging lifestyle. The healthiest may become footpads or wandering thieves. Travellers, Roma and itinerant traders are assumed to fall somewhere in this last category.

People actively enslaved are usually only to be seen in cities, immediately with their enslavers. Said planters rarely bring captives into the country since any who speak enough English may be contacted by freed communities and informed that they have rights, since English law considers them serfs rather than property (in Wales & Scotland they'd have a legal claim to being servants and getting back pay). This generally results in the complainant being freed, since the legal wrangling to try and compel such a person back to the colonies would be several times the cost of obtaining a replacement from the owner's store of enslaved labour back home.



~ The Daily Routine:

A working-class person would wake up about sunrise in their shirt or shift (or an old one kept for nightwear, should it be available), wash with cold water and put on their hose, then the rest of their clothing. The first food taken is likely leftover bread or boiled barley with grease or butter, at which point a man would head out to his land or employment and a woman set the day's bread baking and attend to any children or animals in the house.

Many homes would keep a pottage pot: a heavy earthenware crock containing a never-ending stew of anything available brought to boil for some ten minutes before needed. This and/or a basket with the fresh bread, boiled eggs, onions, blood/pease pudding or cheese (or even potatoes) for the fortunate would be hauled up to a husband's place of work or made ready for his return between 10-11am for the main meal of the day. The wife might stay and work in the field from this point, or return to other tasks at home (where her work is likely to lie if she's a professional). Those without spouses live with their parents or married children, depend upon bought food or, at worst, upon the charity of the parish, which might vary considerably with the village's fortunes. Children without tasks are generally left outdoors to roam as a pack.

The last meal of the day for the working class is small and consists of more pottage, bread and grease or leftovers from the main meal at around 5-6pm. The local drinking establishment may have been visited beforehand. Shortly after sundown, folk go to bed.

In the winter months at least (with the sunset at ~4:30 in December), and for a stretch either side according to individual constitution, the natural patch of wakefulness after about 7-8 hours sleep results in a brief period of activity around 3a.m., generally used for any small work that might be done by moon- or candlelight, personal grooming and socialising with the family and immediate neighbours, after which everyone goes back to sleep until dawn. The nobility live by different rhythms, being able to afford more and better light, often both retiring and rising at ten. Midnight is thus the period when most people are guaranteed to be deeply asleep.



~ Georgians, Sex & Gender:

It is in fact the comparatively relaxed Georgian period rather than the Victorian era whence the stereotype of historical Europeans being excited by saucy ankles arises: although breeches are usually tied at the knee and the skirts of peasants and working women generally halt well above the muddy ground, making the form of the lower leg visible, the hose or stocking is the first garment on in the morning and so denotes nudity when removed. No other underwear yet existing, a naked ankle on an adult is considered a reminder of what's directly under the clothes further up.

Women are considered closer to the material/animal world than to God and thus to possess a tendancy to be irrational, lustful beings: always a step away from being 'up for it' and in need of control via marriage. On the other hand, due to the prevalance of syphilis, a young man tomcatting around will decidedly harm his prospects and social standing - 'hellrake' or simply 'rake' can be considered the masculine of 'slut' in terms of period consideration.

Actual prostitutes do not always fall within the latter category (with its implications of social/emotional harm): there is a certain amount of tolerance and even appreciation in the country for lower-class women who take to the cities in winter to earn coin for their families when food doesn't grow or materials for barter goods are lacking. 'Winter work' is known to be dangerous, both from disease and the uneven social leverage of clients, and considered a great sacrifice. Full-time prostitutes are generally confined to dockyard areas, and tend to find other employment if they marry and head inland.

Before marriage, courtship consists of (theoretically) overseen contact between young people: an unmarried person may be courted by several others, paying them even attention until a 'best girl/boy' is settled on, who will likely remain prime suitor until an engagement is settled. Due to the sibling-like nature of the village mob of children, intra-village matches usually have an age gap, involve a partner from the outlying farms or considerable time spent away; the usual place of meeting spouses is at livestock fairs or through introductions to the children of parents' friends. With a patrilocal society, maternal cousins are considered 'strangers' enough not to count as immediate relations.

Pregnancy out of wedlock is deeply frowned upon and if possible remedied by immediate marriage. The lower classes have considerably more leeway since the balance of power between landowners and workers is steep, though considerable effort is expended in warning the unmarried to avoid activities that may produce a child between themselves. Abortion is risky and only legal until the three-month mark unless a baby can be proved to have died in the womb, though most midwives will quietly arrange a "stillbirth" on request if a child cannot be raised.

The concept of monosexual orientation has not yet solidfied: everyone is presumed to have varying degrees of romantic attraction to anyone else, but when it comes to the bedroom one can either have good (child-producing) or evil (non-child-producing) sex. Sodomy laws do not distinguish between consensual acts between adults and sexual violence, and whilst individual judges usually commute men's sentences in the former case to conscription or hard labour, institutions like the Royal Navy may hang both parties even in cases of the latter. People born with a severe mismatch between sex and gender will be varyingly tolerated by the community much like other congenital oddities, being so rare as to seem like a unique issue to be simply buckled down and worked around.



~ Crime & Punishment:

With land and wealth concentrating in the hands of the aristocracy and emergent middle class, crimes of theft are viewed with considerable ambiguity by the rural poor. The highwayman cut a romanticised figure even in the period, and some coastal communities survived on the activities of wreckers, viewing them as local heroes. The poacher's bravery is admired even if it's unlikely the community will step in to prevent them being transported to the colonies if the gamekeepers live in a different village or the secondary buildings of the squire's estate.

Within the village itself, borrowing and bartering items is commonplace and theft is socially unprofitable and likely to be quickly detected. Should something go missing, it will be assumed borrowed until enquiries at the pub fail to locate it, unless strangers are in the area to be immediately suspected.

For excessive drunken or "unfemminine" rowdiness one might be confined to the village cell. The stocks and pillory are considered unenlightened and cruel by this point as a casual or civil punishment, though such apparatus may still be called into use by town judges. The stone cross at the edge of the green (marking the centre of the village) serves as its whipping-post. In the event of serious and/or violent offences, the suspect is ideally confined and the local sheriff or his constables sent for to bring the unfortunate before a judge.

Branding still exists, though used far less than in the colonies or on the Irish: (ex-)convicts drafted into the armed forces instead of serving time may bear branded thumbs, hands and/or ribs (if troublesome). Most punishments can be lessened with sufficient bribery in cash or kind, with the exception of premeditated murder.



~ The Armless, the Legless, the Blind, the Insane:

Life can be brutal in the time period, and smallpox scarring and permanent injuries from accident or warfare are commonplace. Only the upper middle class upward have a diet refined enough for common acne, though the abundance of sugar has vastly increased the rate of tooth wear and decay amongst the general population.

Missing lower limbs can be substituted with wood or metal prosthetics, depending on the injured party's income (the stereotypical pirate's hook is an exaggeration of an accurate thrown-together sailor's prosthetic, for instance), and upper middle-class people may be seen with spectacles, though they are still indeed rare enough to be more of a spectacle than a glass eye or tin nose. Blindfolds serve to indicate those entirely without sight.

Insane or developmentally disabled persons that cannot be managed within the community may be given to an asylum as display cases as a last resort. Most families would prefer the affected to avoid such a fate and do their best to keep loved ones in familiar surroundings. This leads to somewhat haphazard treatment and the prospect of finding difficult or troubled people both locked in dwellings and out roaming the countryside.


This message was last edited by the GM at 00:52, Thu 03 June 2021.

~ Witches:

With two grounded and self-confident German kings preceeding the current George, belief in witchcraft has returned to normal peasant caution and explanations for troubles difficult to explain without modern understanding of disease. Everyone is held to have a little negative power in them that they might use in anger or jealousy to steal another's luck, women moreso than men: whilst it is possible to put the evil eye on someone by accident, deliberately giving in to the temptation and seeking out specialists (mortal or otherwise) to learn more powerful ways to damage one's neighbours' fortunes is a fast track to Hell. Curewives and cunning-men do a good trade in fixing petty witchcraft, though just as a herbalist is by necessity well-versed in poisons, their specialist knowledge invokes some ambivalence.



~ Religion:

Though Protestant England is still in the process of breathing out a long sigh of relief traceable to the removal of Cromwell's fundamentalist regime, the burst of newly un-repressed ideas is beginning to die down and most surviving novel cults (in the archaeological sense) have headed out to the colonies. God-As-Unquestionable-Fact is being replaced by God-As-Preferred-Theory from the educated down, though the mingling of older, forgotten gods' traits with the Christian Devil makes the latter very much a presence in the landscape, shaping hills and tricking ancestors and easily met at the crossroads at midnight, should one want to learn the best tunes.

Catholics, though still scattered throughout England, are held in great suspicion, being associated with both traditional enemies and conquered Irish peasantry: it is assumed a Catholic would kill you if they could. Jews are just beginning to find their way back into the English countryside, though as recently as twenty years ago the proposal to give them the same rights as Christians sparked off protests and an upsurge of general anti-Semitic harassment: whilst safer than in much of Europe, their position is most marginal, and many remain poised to flee to Scotland should things heat up again. Although at least nominally Christian, upswellings of blood libel rumours also pursue Romany bands, causing occasional outbreaks of violence.

Hindus from the Indian subcontinent may be seen in port cities and the capital, often pressed sailors or fashionable servants, but 'Mohammedans' are vanishingly rare and unlikely to be encountered unless someone has had a run-in with pirates on the Barbary Coast. They are viewed with much the same suspicion as Catholics for much the same reasons.

Religious visions are less commonplace than in previous centuries, due to the year-round availability of sugar and relative non-necessity of true fasting over Lent, but are considered a normal form of thought, much like dreams. The spiritual weight given to them varies according to content and community.



~ The Fair Folk:

The Fair Folk, Shining Ones, Other Gentry etc. are essentially considered a kind of particularly vindictive wildlife grown rare with the spread of humans and the decrease of truly wild ancient woodland. As humans are considered direct works of God and demons the burned-out remnants of rebel angels, Christianity has absorbed fairy belief with the explanation of a halfway point between the two: the fair folk are considered to be semi-physical descendants of angels more obsessed with the earth for its own sake than covetuous of the power to rule it. That there are no fey-related stories or sightings attached to the Wyzenwood make it a particular place of dread.

Some scientific classification has even been attempted by this era, though faltering for lack of specimens (or agreement on whether specimens can even theoretically be obtained - the Enlightened world is stll deciding on whether clouds are a kind of plant, robins and wrens are the same thing, and if geese come from barnacles, so the common assumption that fey bodies become earth or mist if sucessfully killed is not definitively outside known nature). Whilst the lychiobobinous folk are held to have a Queen, the notion of divided courts according to Scots definitions of seelie qualities, seasons or other twee human notions is the invention of upper-class poets for fairy-themed balls rather than any part of actual folklore. Evidently, since English do not even have a word for the concept of seelieness, any feylife is assumed hostile until proven otherwise, which might still change in an instant.

The woodwose, British equivalent of the sasquatch, almasty, yowie etc. is considered to have become extinct within the lifetime of the oldest villagers, though still depicted in art and mumming performance.

N.B. Whilst cutesy, airy butterfly-winged creatures from the Continent are gaining ground in the imaginations of the literate classes, peasants will picture native British fey on hearing the word 'fairy' - should they stick around someone using such dangerous terminology long enough to hear them out, that is (Themselves do not appreciate the word).




~ Folk History:

With peasant historical education being largely oral, a mixture of fact and legend forms the basis of folk knowledge about the history of the British Isles.





~ Black British and the Men of Brutus:

Back-importation of the colour hierarchy becoming increasingly defined in the North American colonies since laws forbidding the mingling of convicts and captives were passed does form some factor in how 'foreignness' and 'Englishness' is defined in the period. However, in the Empire's homeland the main notion of supremacy is that of conqueror to native: if the Empire gains land, it must be so willed by God due to inherent quality; so the English are better than Scots, Welsh and Irish, having been conquered and colonised by the best of the Romans, Saxons and Normans whenever the preceding peoples got decadent; so their right to conquer and replace the simple and the complex civilisation alike is affirmed (and the contradiction happily argued from both ends and thus considered addressed).

The existence of Black British communities long prior to their being swelled by freedmen somewhat throws a wrench into this narrative. As such and as ever, mythology is turned to in order to justify a narrative from the unremembered past. Brutus of Rome was claimed to have founded London, then trotted across to create Bristol too. It is well-known that Roman works dug up in the area occasionally depict people of African descent and that both Bristol and London possess concentrations of the rare native-born dark-skinned people; therefore these must be Romans, and as Romans who were once as great and noble as the Empire is now, the descendants of soldiers.

It is far more likely that John the innkeep is descended from southern Italian masons brought in to work on cathedrals in the north of England during the 13th century, or at a greater stretch, settled merchants from Christian north Africa.


This message was last edited by the GM at 08:04, Thu 03 June 2021.

~ Period Terms of Address

People are generally addressed with '[Relevant Title] Surname'. Friends use Christian- or nicknames (which may include professions that replace names in general address, e.g. Vicar). People being rude might use the first name (if not a friend) or untitled surname to show contempt.

---

(the baby): The baby is not generally addressed, but it may be cooed at. Its parents may use its name to talk to it, but the community doesn't really acknowledge the baby as an individual living human until the child is walking and talking unaided and given gendered clothing (somewhere between 3-4 years old).

[Surname]: A male servant.

[Rank] [Surname]: A soldier.

[Captor's Surname]'s [Name]: This person or their parent has been kidnapped by a European operation and enslaved by the head of [Surname] family, who probably doesn't want you to address them.


Miss: A girl child, or young woman one is on familiar terms with (or spinster one is very good friends with).
 - Miss [First Name/Nickname]: either a) a young woman one is on familiar yet courteous terms with, only and specifically when surrounded by unmarried sisters  b) a prostitute one is being formal/gallant to, since last names are not given in such profession.

Mistress: A culturally adult (14+) unmarried woman.

Missus: This woman has a husband. Rarely used without the married surname following.

Widow: This woman was married, but her husband has died; in this way secondary contacts who may not have known her personal name still know who she is.

Granny/Nanny: informal address of any very old woman, probably an actual grandmother. Used with surname.

Goodwife: independent older woman of uncertain marital status. Whatever else she is, she's keeping her household, so Goodwife she is. Often shortened to 'Goodie'. Occasional variant: Alewife, if the goodwife owns a brewery.


Master: A male child or youth.

Mister: A man of an age generally expected to be married, or a young one known to be; a mark of maturity. Also the term for a surgeon.

Doctor: Term for a man in the medical profession. Often used alone.

Vicar: Term for the religious official ministering to the parish. Often used alone.

The Elder/Younger: Period manner of telling a father with a son named after him apart in conversation.

[Surname] Major/Minor: Period manner of telling brothers apart in conversation if simultaneously sent to a large boarding school, regiment or university.


[Full Name]: There are two people with this Christian name nearby, so everyone is habitually specific.

[Nickname Only]: No-one actually remembers what this person's real name is.
This message was last edited by the GM at 23:17, Tue 30 Nov 2021.

~ Resources & Further Reading:

King George III (Wikipedia)
Currency (website)
Men's Clothing (video - colonial military but good explanations)
Women's Clothing (video)
Dialect reference (video)
The Art of Cookery (period cookbook via Google Books)
The Poacher (BBC-dramatised folktale)
Samples of Prehistoric Monument-Related Folklore (website)
Somerset Surname examples (website)
Rough costs of commonplaces (website - costs are London c.1750, thus close to normal costs c.1770)
Wages vs. expenses (website)
A Glossary of Provincial Words and Phrases in Use in Somersetshire (pamphlet, Project Gutenberg)


This message was last edited by the GM at 20:50, Thu 17 Nov 2022.