Hidden lives: domestic servants in the European country house, c.1700-1850

从厨房到马厩，从清理便盆到管理庄园，佣人对欧洲乃至其他地区的乡村住宅的运转起着核心作用。他们的工作生活引起了历史学家和遗产专业人士的注意，然而，乡村别墅的仆人，因为人们仍然令人惊讶地被忽视。我们缺乏对他们的住宿、社会和家庭网络以及经历的详细的、学术的和比较的研究，特别是在公元1850年之前的时期。虽然近年来欧洲各地对这些“隐蔽”生活的兴趣有所回升，但研究仍然局限于本地化，缺乏更广泛的比较框架。拟议的网络力求提供这样一个框架，并通过建立一个可持续的研究人员社区来促进进一步的研究，这些研究人员对乡村家庭佣人有着共同的兴趣，并共同相信，比较观点可以提供重要的新见解。它是跨学科、跨部门和国际的，汇集了历史、艺术史和文学研究的学者；将学者与遗产专业人员联系起来，并使来自北欧和西欧八个国家的网络成员参与其中。它也是一个开放的网络：21个核心成员将全程参与，但将对四个工作坊的每个成员发出公开邀请。这些研讨会将通过让相同的核心小组参与一系列讨论来加深网络的成员资格；鼓励不同学科和部门之间的新颖互动；强调欧洲乡村家庭佣人在经历和生活中的共性和差异，并通过帮助ECR和博士生建立自己的强大和可持续的网络来培养他们。它们将涵盖四个广泛的主题：第一个链接到对乡村住宅的消费和物质文化的研究，探索仆人的住宿和财产如何随时间和国家之间的变化而变化；第二个链接侧重于仆人的社会和家庭网络，将大数据项目与对仆人的生活经历的研究结合在一起，以细致入微地了解仆人的地理和社会流动性，以及他们在自己的家庭和家庭中的责任；第三个链接通过他们在文学和视觉媒体中的呈现来探索仆人的生活，询问这些内容告诉我们关于仆人是如何被感知的以及他们的生活经历如何。最后的研讨会将展示和批判性地评估仆人的生活是如何在对公众开放的房子里被解释和呈现的。每个研讨会上讨论的研究将提供给一个关于北欧和西欧乡村小屋中仆人隐藏生活的虚拟展览，基于关键物品、个人和档案来源。这为研究提供了一个展示窗口，也是一个与更广泛的研究界和公众接触的重要机制，利用并培养了人们对乡村别墅和唐顿庄园等电视节目中看到的仆人生活的广泛兴趣。从讲习班上摘录的论文集将以开放获取的方式出版，以便向地域和部门范围广泛的受众进一步传播研究成果。

Servants were central to the functioning of country houses across Europe and beyond: from the kitchens to the stables; from emptying bedpans to managing the estate. Their working lives have attracted the attention of both historians and heritage professionals, however, country house servants as people remain surprisingly neglected. We lack detailed, scholarly and comparative research on their accommodation, social and familial networks, and experiences, particularly for the period before c.1850. Whilst recent years have seen something of an upturn in interest in these "hidden" lives in various parts of Europe, research remains localised and lacks a broader comparative framework. The proposed network seeks to provide such a framework and nurture further research by building a sustainable community of researchers with a shared interest in country house servants and a common conviction that comparative perspectives can offer important new insights. It is inter-disciplinary, inter-sectoral and international, drawing together scholars from history, art history and literary studies; linking academics with heritage professionals, and involving network members from eight countries across northern and western Europe. It is also an open network: 21 core members will participate throughout, but open calls for participants will be issued for each of the four workshops.These workshops will deepen membership of the network by engaging the same core group cross a series of discussions; encourage novel interactions between different disciplines and sectors; highlight commonalities and differences in the experiences and lives of country house servants across Europe, and nurture ECRs and PhD students by helping them to create robust and sustainable networks of their own. They will cover four broad themes: the first links to research on consumption and the material culture of the country house, exploring how the accommodation and possessions of servants varied across time and between countries; the second focuses servants' social and familial networks, bringing together big data projects with research on the lived experiences of servants to nuance our understanding of the geographical and social mobility of servants, and their responsibilities within their own households and families; the third explores servants' lives through their representation in literary and visual media, asking what these tell us about how servants were perceived and how about their life experiences. The final workshops will showcase and critically assess the ways in which servants' lives are interpreted and presented in houses open to the public.The research discussed at each workshop will feed into a virtual exhibition on the hidden lives of servants in country houses across northern and western Europe, based around key objects, individuals and archival sources. This provides a showcase for research and a important mechanism for engaging with the broader research community and the public, tapping into and nourishing a widespread interest in country houses and the lives of servants seen in he popularity of TV shows such as Downton Abbey. A collection of essays drawn from the workshops will be published open access to facilitate further dissemination of the research to a geographically and sectorally broad audience.