‘To Avoide All Envye, Malys, Grudge and Displeasure’: Sociability and Social Networking at the London Wardmote Inquest, c.1470–1540

Abstract

This study considers the London wardmote inquest as a venue for social networking in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. It uses a combination of social network analysis (SNA) of wills and a set of ordinances for the conduct of wardmotes written by the jurors of Aldersgate ward in 1540. Wardmotes were an important venue for men to accrue social capital and ‘respectability’ in the eyes of their neighbours and develop personal connections which were crucial for social and economic advancement in the pre-modern city. Such advancement is evidenced in the later office holding careers of jurors and their importance in parish social networks. The meeting of the inquest was a potentially fraught occasion of conflicting loyalties which required close policing in order to engender the sociability key to its role as a venue for networking.