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Deeds Against Nature: women and Crime in Street Literature of Early Modern England
Posted on October 9, 2012 | No CommentsIn early modern England, when news in printed form designed for a large- scale readership was only beginning to develop, accounts of murders committed by women assumed an importance entirely disproportionate in relation to their actual occurrence. -
The Pageant of History: Nostalgia, the Tudors, and the Community Play
Posted on October 9, 2012 | No CommentsDuring the first half of the twentieth century, although these events have attracted little scholarly attention to date, English cathedral cities, market towns and hamlets put on a large number of historical pageants, habitually preoccupied with what the English think of as the Tudor period. -
The True Executor of the Execution of Mary, Queen of Scots
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsThis paper examines the culpability of Elizabeth and her Councillors in the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, the woman who threatened to take Elizabeth's throne and life away from her. -
Songs and society in early Tudor London
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsBy comparison, far less attention has been made to recreational music making in the urban communities of early Tudor England, and to musical experiences that lay beyond court, college, cathedral and church. -
A Scottish Threat: Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsOne must ask, after nineteen years of confinement, was Mary, Queen of Scots really such a threat to Queen Elizabeth that her death would be necessary? -
Heinrich Bullinger and the Marian Exiles: The Political Foundations of Puritanism
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsIn this paper two fundamental issues related to the Reformed views on politics from the sixteenth century will be considered: Firstly, what the theoretical origin of these Reformed views were, and secondly, identifying the political basis for the views of the Huguenot theorists. -
Life in Montgomeryshire during the Tudor and Stuart periods
Posted on September 27, 2012 | No CommentsMontgomeryshire is fortunate in that the records of its Court of Great Sessions are good for the 290 years existence of the court -
The Impact and Importance of the Elizabethan Re-Conquest of Ireland
Posted on September 20, 2012 | No CommentsThe English rule of Ireland had, in the fifteenth century, only been to a certain extent consolidated in the area known as the Pale.1 Under the reign of King Henry VIII, the Irish were brought a bit more under English control... -
The public life of Francis Bacon
Posted on September 20, 2012 | No CommentsFrancis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561, the youngest son of Lord Keeper Nicholas Bacon, England’s highest judicial officer, said to have been the second “prop” of the Kingdom. -
Anglo-American Relations Before 1580
Posted on September 20, 2012 | No CommentsIt took the American Indian to show English (or more particularly Welsh) historians that it really couldn't have been quite like that... -
Religious Disputation in Tudor England
Posted on September 20, 2012 | No CommentsIt may be said that the Reformation itself began with a disputation: the Ninety-Five Theses of Wittenberg, on which Martin Luther offered debate with all comers, and Luther was tulned into a schismatic by another disputation, in which he gave his enemies definite grounds for urging his excommunication. -
After marriage: The literature and culture of divorce in England, 1515-1650
Posted on September 15, 2012 | No CommentsThe following pages will argue that in the latter sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the idea of divorce, of marriage's breakdown and dissolution, was as important a concept as that of the marital union itself. -
An Englishman Who Collaborated with the Spanish Armada
Posted on September 15, 2012 | No CommentsAccording to Catholic historians, this one man is the prototype of all the guileful Jesuits who creep furtively in and out of the plots of numerous English novels. -
“Partners in the same”: Monastic Devotional Culture in Late Medieval English Literature
Posted on September 9, 2012 | No CommentsTo understand this apparent incongruity, it is, I argue, necessary to interrogate more carefully the continuation of monastic literary culture and its gradual diffusion beyond the walls of the cloister. -
Francis Bacon’s use of ancient myths in Novum Organum
Posted on September 8, 2012 | No CommentsIn this paper, I will show how the ancient myths of Pan, Perseus, Dionysius, and Prometheus have an impact on Book I of Francis Bacon's Novum Organum. -
Sir Thomas Cotton’s Consumption of News in 1650s England
Posted on September 7, 2012 | No CommentsIt is the evidence regarding Cotton's consumption of such tracts, and particularly two bookseller's bills from 1659, with which this piece is concerned. -
Protestant Bishops in Restoration England
Posted on September 7, 2012 | No CommentsCensure provoked defence; from the 1570s onwards, the English episcopate had faced various demands for further reform or else its total extirpation. -
Gender Equality in Wage Labour Relations: the example of statutory regulation in late medieval and early Tudor England
Posted on September 2, 2012 | No CommentsThe first question, not yet raised in labour historiography, is about the impact of wage labour relations on gender equality. The second question is related to the first one: what role did women play as protagonists of wage labour relations. -
The Grotesque Body: Early Modern Representations of Women and the Subversion of the Elizabethan World Picture
Posted on September 2, 2012 | No CommentsThe language of some tragic heroines from the English Renaissance is the first subversive strategy that contributes to uncover the oppressive doings of the hegemonic group. -
A Body Politic to Govern: The Political Humanism of Elizabeth I
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsIn this dissertation I demonstrate a discernible influence between the thoughts and virtues of political humanism upon the public presentation of Elizabeth I‘s political persona. -
The Duke’s Devil and Doctor Lambe’s Darling: A Case Study of the Male Witch in Early Modern England
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsDuring the early modern period in England changing economic patterns, religious reforms, and social relationships altered gender roles. While the role of women in English society has been well documented by scholars of the early modern period, there are few substantial studies of masculinity for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. -
Civilizing the Natives: State Formation and the Tudor Monarchy, c.1400-1603
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe theory of human development from barbarism to civilization was a commonplace of political discourse in premodern times. -
Devotion and Piety of English Women, 1480-1620
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsThese very personal invocations to God were self-reflective and pensive, capturing some early modem English women's desire and need to comprehend the intrinsic complexities of their intimate relationship with God. -
English Reformation and Irish Witches: The Effects of Confessionalisation in Suppressing Witchraft Accusations in Early Modern Ireland
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsIndeed, Ireland stands out among the countries of early Modern Europe as having very few recorded witchcraft trials and no actual witch hunts. In point offact, there was no actual statute in Ireland criminalizing witchcraft until 1586.3 Why was Ireland spared this plague of internal suspicion that took the lives of nearly 50,000 women and men in the rest of Europe? -
Law as the Engine of State: The Trial of Anne Boleyn
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe use of trials' in the treason cases of Tudor England illustrates an important feature of the Tudor view of law and legal institutions and provides additional insight into the relationship of law to politics, a relationship that can be understated as much as it can be exaggerated. -
‘So manie gallant gentlemen’: Imperial humanists and Tudor imperial identity
Posted on August 27, 2012 | No CommentsIn Tudor England, the salient features of civic humanism became support of the status quo according to a "princely" model, an emphasis on the vita activa as necessary for a life of manly virtue, and a commitment to programs of social and economic reform instituted by the state. -
Anne Askew and Margaret Fell: Religious Women in Prison And Technologies of the Self
Posted on August 26, 2012 | No CommentsBoth Anne Askew (1521-1546) and Margaret Fell (1614-1702) were imprisoned and wrote significant writings in jail. In prison Askew wrote The First Examination (1546) and The Latter Examination (1547); Fell wrote Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved and Allowed by the Scriptures (1666). The two Protestants’ imprisonment indicates not only their struggle for freedom of their Protestant belief but also the government’s arbitrary exercise of institutional power over non-conforming women. -
Henry VIII: Supremacy, Religion, And The Anabaptists
Posted on August 25, 2012 | No CommentsAnabaptism was another variation of Protestant theology that began to emerge because of the Reformation. Their theology was considered the most heretical of the Reformation and they were persecuted all over Europe. Their noteriaty as extreme heretics caught the eye of Henry VIII. He realized they would make good tools to use in helping establish his new church. -
John Prestall: A Complex Relationship with the Elizabethan Regime.
Posted on August 25, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis is the biography of John Prestall, a gentleman from Elizabethan England. However as Norden‘s barbed prose suggest, a gentleman in social rank only. He spent his life egotistically peddling his magical abilities to members of Elizabeth I‘s Court, and conspiring to replace Elizabeth with those disaffected by her Protestant rule. John Prestall‘s life weaves through the perverse and often baffling political underworld that existed on the penumbra of the salubrious Elizabethan Court. -
A Homelie Herbe: Medicinal Cannabis in Early England
Posted on August 25, 2012 | No CommentsTransformed almost overnight from outlaw to commercial opportunity, cannabis is the sub- ject of urgent investigation on the part of commercial scientists, as companies on both sides of the Atlantic scramble to patent profitable analogues. I suggest that a rational consideration of its venerable history in England, coupled with the evidence of its therapeutic properties (newly confirmed in the language of biochemistry), leads to the inescapable conclusion that the prohibition of medicinal cannabis in England is an historical anomaly that should be rectified as soon as possible. -
Sir Francis Vere in the Netherlands, 1589-1603: a re-evaluation of his career as Sergeant Major General of Elizabeth I’s troops
Posted on August 22, 2012 | No CommentsA combination of a lower profile commander and an apparently less interesting and significant Anglo-Dutch alliance has in turn led most historians to neglect these areas in preference for the earlier period and protagonists of their connection. -
Ideal and practice : aspects of noble life in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England
Posted on August 20, 2012 | No CommentsEarly modem England witnesseda significant number of political, social and cul- tural changes.The transformation of the ideal of the nobility was amongthosechanges.The sixteenth century saw the appearance of humanist tracts that tried to redefine the idea of nobility, and its role in society. -
The early career of Thomas, Lord Howard, Earl of Surrey and third Duke of Norfolk, 1474-c.1525
Posted on August 20, 2012 | No CommentsMy aim has been to present a complete picture of the man, his family (so intimately involved in the life of every nobleman of this period) and their affairs in the years which are covered here. -
The early modern demographic dynamic : celibates and celibacy in seventeenth-century England
Posted on August 20, 2012 | No CommentsBut by failing to investigate shifts in the nature and extent of celibacy from a more holistic perspective, historians have also failed to appreciate the overall impact of a rise in the proportion of lifelong celibates on the economy, society and culture of Tudor and Stuart England. -
Places to Hear the Play: The Performance of the Corpus Christi Play at York
Posted on August 19, 2012 | No CommentsAt the beginning of the tradition, the pageants were linked to the religious procession on Corpus Christi Day. In the city og York this procession was organised by the Corpus Christi Guild as a separate event from the celebration of the minister. -
An examination of interpretations of ghosts from the reformation to the close of the Seventeenth Century
Posted on August 19, 2012 | No CommentsAn examination of interpretations of ghosts from the reformation to the close of the Seventeenth Century. -
Good Reads for the Dog Days of Summer
Posted on August 18, 2012 | No CommentsSee summer off with these fun reads! -
Renaissance women fought men – and won
Posted on August 17, 2012 | No CommentsA three-year study into a set of manuscripts compiled and written by one of Britain’s earliest feminist figures has revealed new insights into how women challenged male authority in the 17th century. -
Blunting lances and razing towers : masculine performance and early Tudor reforms
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsIn 1531, at the height of Henry VIII’s reign, a respected knight with a rising fortune and a gift for letters endeavored to find a metaphor that would help illustrate the characteristics of true nobility. -
The Westminster Tournament Challenge (Harley 83 H 1) and Thomas Wriothesley’s Workshop
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsOnNewYear’sDay1511,KingHenryVIIIandKatherineofAragoncelebratedthebirthoftheir firstson.1 Tomarktheoccasion,Henrysponsoredalavishpageantandtournamenttotakeplace in Westminster on the twelfth and thirteenth of February 1511. -
‘Books with manuscript’: the case of Thomas Cranmer’s library English plague regulations and Italian models: printed and manuscript items in the Yelverton Collection
Posted on August 14, 2012 | No CommentsAlthough European cities outside Italy, for instance Lille and Barcelona, took measures to control plague during the fifteenth century, in England attempts at regulation were sporadic and local until January 1518, when a royal proclamation was issued, ordering, for example, that infected houses should be marked. -
“Exchanging Values”: Negotiating Pedagogical Authority and the Transmission of Knowledge in Sixteenth-Century English Pedagogical Literature
Posted on July 20, 2012 | No CommentsWhere anxieties are experienced today regarding the commercialization of education, they are generally read as the product of modern capitalist society. -
Discourse on History, Geography, and Law: John Dee and the Limits of the British Empire, 1576-80
Posted on July 19, 2012 | No CommentsRecently, literary scholar William Sherman offered the most detailed examination of Dee's imperial writings yet attempted, including a brief discussion of his most important collection of manuscripts on empire, the "Brytanici Imperii Limites," which was only discovered in 1976. -
Shakespeare’s History Plays as Propaganda
Posted on July 15, 2012 | No CommentsIn this unit I plan to use Henry V and Richard III to focus on the ways in which Shakespeare’s history plays have served as tools for political propaganda and have also reflected the attitudes of Englishmen at the time of any given production of these plays. -
The Education and Training of Gentry Sons in Early-Modern England
Posted on July 6, 2012 | No CommentsIn this paper, we examine the relationship between birth order and the education and training received by sons in gentry families in early modern England. -
‘Witchcraft is a rife and common sinne in these our daies’: The Powers of Witches in English Demonologies, 1580-1620
Posted on June 25, 2012 | No CommentsI contend that a detailed textual analysis of these works displays the complexity of early modern witchcraft beliefs, as significant divergences among these authors‟ arguments demonstrate that it is impossible to identify a single, “typical” English demonology, or to conclude that “elite” ideas about early modern witchcraft were homogeneous and hegemonic. -
Galley-foists, Lord Mayors’ Shows, and Early Modern English Drama
Posted on June 24, 2012 | No CommentsWhat is a ‘galley-foist’? According to OED, it is ‘a state barge, esp. that of the Lord Mayor of London’. This definition appears to be wrong however, certainly for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, or at the very least so misleading as to require serious qualification. -
Of Crymsen Tissue: The Construction of a Queen. Identity, Legitimacy and the Wardrobe of Mary Tudor
Posted on June 24, 2012 | No CommentsExamining Mary’s wardrobe and choices of dress and accessory for particular public occasions and commissioned images opens another lens through which we can understand more about the queen’s multifaceted political strategies. -
The Divorce of Henry VIII: The Untold Story from Inside the Vatican
Posted on June 20, 2012 | No CommentsHenry’s man in Rome was a wily Italian diplomat named Gregorio Casali who drew no limits on skullduggery including kidnapping, bribery and theft to make his king a free man -
Knights and knighthood in Tudor England
Posted on June 19, 2012 | No CommentsThis thesis is an attempt to determine the nature of that significance, and the degree to which it changed throughout the period, by examining the considerations which led, to the dubbing of a gentleman, the nature of the knighting ceremonies, and the role of the knight in Tudor society.