Matthew McCormack
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780198703648
- eISBN:
- 9780191772832
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198703648.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Early Modern History, Military History
Whereas the first three chapters focused on representation, from this point the book focuses on practice: it explores how the institution was experienced by the men who were actually required to ...
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Whereas the first three chapters focused on representation, from this point the book focuses on practice: it explores how the institution was experienced by the men who were actually required to serve in it. This chapter explores the practical processes by which the militia was brought into being, or ‘embodied’ for service. At the same time, it thinks about embodiment in a corporeal sense, as it makes the case that the New Militia represented a watershed in the state’s relationship with its population. The Militia Lists were effectively the first modern census, and the muster rolls constituted a biometric record of the recruits. In addition, procedures of selection and nurture reveal a concern with optimizing the bodily resources at its disposal, and in the masculine civilian population more widely.Less
Whereas the first three chapters focused on representation, from this point the book focuses on practice: it explores how the institution was experienced by the men who were actually required to serve in it. This chapter explores the practical processes by which the militia was brought into being, or ‘embodied’ for service. At the same time, it thinks about embodiment in a corporeal sense, as it makes the case that the New Militia represented a watershed in the state’s relationship with its population. The Militia Lists were effectively the first modern census, and the muster rolls constituted a biometric record of the recruits. In addition, procedures of selection and nurture reveal a concern with optimizing the bodily resources at its disposal, and in the masculine civilian population more widely.
