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

This essay explores what we can learn about the household limitationbehaviour and strategies of those members of sixteenth-centuryFrench society who numbered among the mass of the poor. In particular,it focuses on the evidence produced by urban poor relief councilsand hospitals, as they recorded the circumstances of the poverty-strickenclientele for their administrative records, and presents somepreliminary findings. Although contraceptive methods do notfeature explicitly in petitions and supporting documents, itis possible to build up a modest picture from these sourcesof the kinds of household limitation techniques available tothe urban poor. As this essay demonstrates, in some cases, theseinvolved reproductive strategies, yet in other cases it maybe more appropriate to speak of household limitation methods.