Taverns and Inns, Drinking and Sociability in Early Modern German Villages

FAIN: FB-52267-06

Marc Richard Forster
Connecticut College (New London, CT 06320-4125)

This project will expand what is known about popular culture and rural communities by examining popular sociability in and around taverns and inns. This study of village and small town taverns will focus on the tavern as a central place in village life. Because rural taverns served all inhabitants, they were frequently the locus for social and political interaction and conflict. A study of taverns will necessarily open up questions about gender differences, generational divides, and social conflict within communities, the importance of the tavern as a public space for political action, and the place of drinking in rural culture.