Understanding Household Limitation Strategies among the Sixteenth-Century Urban Poor in France

Abstract

This essay explores what we can learn about the household limitation behaviour and strategies of those members of sixteenth-century French society who numbered among the mass of the poor. In particular, it focuses on the evidence produced by urban poor relief councils and hospitals, as they recorded the circumstances of the poverty-stricken clientele for their administrative records, and presents some preliminary findings. Although contraceptive methods do not feature explicitly in petitions and supporting documents, it is possible to build up a modest picture from these sources of the kinds of household limitation techniques available to the urban poor. As this essay demonstrates, in some cases, these involved reproductive strategies, yet in other cases it may be more appropriate to speak of household limitation methods.