Nicholas Terpstra is a professor in the Department of History at the University of Toronto.

• List of FiguresAcknowledgements1. How to Read a Primary Source2. Lives Uncovered: Life Cycles in the Early Modern Period3. Body and Spirit, Sickness and Health3.1. The Cosmic Human (1531)3.2. The Human Animal (1561)3.3. You are what you eat, or you eat what you are? (1656)3.4. Cooking Comfort Foods (1570)3.5. A Balanced Diet (1587)3.6. New Food: Tomato (1692)3.7. Depression as a Spiritual Imbalance (1643)3.8. Combatting Inner Demons (1653)3.9. Self-Medicating with Alcohol (1682)3.10. A New Addiction: Coffee3.11. A New Vice: Tobacco (1605)4. Conception, Contraception, and Birth4.1. A Woman’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1671)4.2. A Man’s Advice on Conceiving a Child (1612)4.3. Menstruation4.4. How to Have a Healthy Childbirth (1513)4.5. Boys and Girls in the Womb (1587; 1671)4.6. One Sex or Two? Women and Men as Mirrors of Each Other4.7. How to Prevent Miscarriage (1656; 1671)4.8. Diary of a Dutch Midwife (1693-1702)4.9. Diary of a Florentine Father (1404–31)4.10. Diary of an English Mother (1648–68)4.11. Penalties for Abortion and Infanticide (1555)4.12. Miscarriage and Abortion (1671)4.13. Trials for Infanticide (1677; 1679)4.14. Trying to Understand Birth Defects (1575)4.15. The Business of Wetnursing (1420s)4.16. Wetnursing Carnival Songs4.17. Breastfeeding is Good, and Mother’s Milk is Best (1622)4.18. A Jewish Circumcision5. Childhood and Adolescence5.1. What Boys and Girls Need to Learn5.2. Bad Dreams and Bedwetting (1653)5.3. Training of a Renaissance Feminist (1488)5.4. A Man’s Idea of a School for Girls (1671)5.5. A Woman’s Idea of a School for Girls (1694)5.6. A Feminist Instructs Her Brothers (1485)5.7. Raising Muslim and Jewish Children in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)5.8. Writing Home: An Obedient Son (1578)5.9. Writing Home: A Wily Son (1629-36)5.10. Youth Rules the Night5.11. Life of a University Student (1550s)6. Working Life6.1. Instructions for the Ideal Servant: An Employer’s View (1681)6.2. Learning a Trade on the Job6.3. The Apprentice’s Overseer6.4. Peasant Protest and Rebellion (1502; 1525)6.5. Workers and Employers at Odds6.6. Women in/and the Guilds: Gold Spinners in Germany6.7. Apprenticeship Contract for a Daughter (France 1610)6.8. Apprenticeship Contract for a Female Orphan6.9. Protecting Local Industry (1687)6.10. The Rural Woman’s Guide to Hard Work (1550)7. Marriage: Making and Ending It7.1. A Contested Marriage in Court: Richard Tymond vs.Margarey Shepard (1487)7.2. A Contested Marriage in Court: Alice Parker vs. Richard Tenwinter (1488)7.3. Marrying Your Own7.4. A Man Describes the Perfect Wife (1583)7.5. Domestic Assault7.6. Marrying to Breed (1654)7.7. Italian Marriage Negotiations7.8. German Marriage Negotiations (1533)7.9. English Marriage Negotiations (1680–81)7.10. Marriage Night Conversation7.11. Fertility Curses and Cures7.12. French Marriage Negotiations: Contract for a Second Marriage (1540)7.13. A Woman’s Critique of Married Life (1600)7.14. "Happy the Woman Without a Man"7.15. A Man’s Critique of Married Life (1682)7.16. Calculating Adultery7.17. Marriage and Divorce in Muslim Spain (1438; 1474)7.18. A Woman’s Response to Bigamy: Recovering Independence (1539)7.19. Impotence and Divorce (1635)7.20. Muslim Marriage Ceremonies in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View7.21. Marriage Without Rituals: The Quaker Option7.22. A Woman Reflects on Marriage8. Sex, Gender, and Prostitution8.1. A Morisca Prostitute in Valencia (1491)8.2. A Catalogue of London Prostitutes (1691)8.3. City Government Establishing a Brothel (1460)8.4. Same-Sex Relations and Cross-Dressing (1477)8.5. Warning Parents about Same-Sex Relations among Girls8.6. A Transvestite Prostitute (1395)8.7. Prosecuting a Priest for Same-Sex Relations (1651)8.8. Socially Acceptable – and Unacceptable – Same-Sex Relations among Men8.9. Sex and the Convent8.10. Prosecuting Rape (1675)9. Poverty and Poor Relief9.1. Rural Poverty in France (1484)9.2. Poor Consumers Protesting Adulterated Food (1484; 1494)9.3. Unworthy Poor and Worthy Rich (1524)9.4. Chasing the Deadbeat Dad (1696)9.5. Civic Help = Self Help (1526)9.6. The Common Chest and the Common Good (1522)9.7. Women in the Economy of Makeshifts (17th Century)9.8. Urban Poverty in France (1530s)9.9. Sheltering and "Improving" Orphans and Abandoned Children (1686)9.10. The Challenge of Keeping an Orphanage Open9.11. Better Schools for "Better" Children (1683–84)9.12. Getting the Poor Out of Sight10. Crime and Punishment10.1. Selling Murder and Mayhem (1661)10.2. Punishing Women who Brawl (1690)10.3. Deception, Social Climbing . . . and Death (1697)10.4. Frustrated Lovers Separated by Convent Walls (1585)10.5. Close Call: A Near-Execution for Sodomy (1667)10.6. Preparing for Execution10.7. The Execution of Two Nobles (1568)10.8. The Theatre of Execution in Rome (1581)10.9. Ritual Execution of an Alleged Rapist and Robber in Venice (1513)10.10. A Burning for Heresy10.11. The Galleys in Marseilles10.12. Appointment of an Executioner: Charles Sanson in Paris10.13. Diary of an Executioner: Franz Schmidt of Nuremburg10.14. Public Penance and Punishment in Spain – Heresy and Inquisition (1486)10.15. Confessions on the Scaffold (1700)11. Holy and Unholy: Mystics, Nuns, and Witches11.1. Men Enclosing Women Behind Convent Walls (1654)11.2. Nuns in the Reformation (1547)11.3. Trials of an Educated Nun (1682)11.4. Nuns Possessed in Loudon (1643)11.5. Nuns and Demons: Possession or Pretension? (1643)11.6. Authorizing the Witch-Hunt (1484)11.7. Why Become a Witch? (1486)11.8. Husband and Wife Witch Team11.9. Judgment on the Witch Walpurga Hausmannin (1587)11.10. Witchcraft as a Problem for Political Leaders (1580)11.11. A Miller Faces the Inquisition (1584-86)12. Living Apart Together: Jews, Muslims, and Christians12.1. Expelling the Jews from Spain: The Official Order (1492)12.2. Going into Exile: Iberian Jews around the Mediterranean (1495)12.3. A Jewish Ghetto in Southern France12.4. How to be a Practicing Muslim in a Catholic Country12.5. Living Undercover (1504)12.6. You are what you wear – or are you? (1567)12.7. Conversion: A Jew in Italy Converts to Christianity (1569)12.8. Doubting Conversion: The Spanish Inquisition Investigates a Morisco (1622)12.9. A Jewish Woman in Germany12.10. Targeting Refugees: The Dutch Threat to London (1593)12.11. Observing the Ottomans in Istanbul (1562)12.12. In Awe and Fear of "The Great Turk" (1601)12.13. Allowing the Jews to Return to England (1649)12.14. Toleration – or Conversion?12.15. The Jewish Community in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)13. Other Worlds: Migration and Emigration13.1. Black and White Enslaved Peoples in Africa (1600)13.2. Into India: Making Unfamiliar Worlds Familiar (1497)13.3. Into America: Unfamiliar Worlds and Peoples (1497)13.4. Tense Encounters: Early Portuguese Travelers in China13.5. Protesting Exploitation of Indigenous People (1552)13.6. An Immigrant Writes Home (1574)13.7. Encouraging Migration from New England to Jamaica (1656)13.8. A Portuguese Missionary’s First Impressions of Japan13.9. A Young Black Nobleman in the British Empire14. Danger, Disease, and Death14.1. Death on the Road: The Dangers of Travel (1550s)14.2. How to Survive into Old Age (1683)14.3. Death of a Jewish Rabbi (1509)14.4. Fighting Plague (1541)14.5. Stealing Bodies From the Grave (1554)14.6. Visitors from beyond Death (1572)14.7. Muslim and Jewish Rituals around Death and Burial in Algiers: A Portuguese Priest’s View (1612)14.8. Popular Burial Customs in Spain (1500s) SourcesIndex

"Terpstra has opened up the past in a dynamic and invigorating way. Students will no doubt be enthralled by dipping into this collection. It brings out a new three-dimensional view of the history of this important period of cultural and geographic expansion. Nicholas Terpstra’s Lives Uncovered is an essential source with which to teach the social history of early modern Europe."- Jacqueline Murray, University of Guelph (Renaissance and Reformation)