DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY
MODULE HANDBOOK
2015-16
APPROACHES TO EARLY MODERNITY:
1500-1750
Module Convenor: Prof Mark Knights
Context of Module:
This is the core module for the MA in Religious, Social and Cultural History. The module,
taught in the Autumn term, may also be taken by students on the MA in History, the MA
in Modern History, or any taught Masters students outside the History Department.
Module Aims:
This module aims to provide a broad and comparative introduction to the themes of the
MARSCH degree. It is organized around the three core themes of Religion, Culture, and
Society, with tutors introducing both broad approaches and insights from their own
research. By the end of the module, students should have a sound knowledge of current
trends in approach and topic, and be equipped to tackle the more specialised modules on
offer in the second term.
You can choose to write a 5000-word essay about any of the topics that we cover. You
can either use a title from the ones suggested or formulate one of your own in
consultation with the module director or with the seminar tutor. Suggestions for reading
are provided for each of the seminars, but again please ask if you want more advice.
You are expected to attend the Early Modern Seminar though you may also found much
of interest in the Global History, Eighteenth Century and History of Medicine seminars –
the programmes are on the departmental website, where you will also find a forum for
research activity.
Intended Learning Outcomes:
By the end of the module students should be able to:

display an advanced knowledge of the key themes in early modern European
history (including Britain). Students will have a sound knowledge of the complex
religious, social, political and cultural contexts that prevailed. Students will be able to
articulate an advanced understanding of key themes, and to be aware of change over
time and space.

show advanced knowledge and conceptual awareness of the different
interpretations of key themes in early modern history, evaluating the advantages and
disadvantages of varying approaches and arriving at an independent judgement.
Students should be able to show a sophisticated handling of concepts and arguments.

display an ability to interpret primary sources, showing initiative in researching
their contexts and meanings. Students should be able to work autonomously to identify
texts that are relevant to their essay topic, but within a guided framework.

refine their writing and debating skills

scope a dissertation topic, with the capacity for original work that will allow the
student to pursue independent research
Syllabus:
The course is taught in weekly 2-hour seminars; Thursday 3.00-5.00 pm; Room H.3.03
Week 1:
Introduction (Mark Knights)
Week 2 :
Religion I: The Reformation(s) and Confessionalization (Naomi Pullin)
Week 3:
Religion II: Popular Religion and ‘Disenchantment’ (Naomi Pullin)
Week 4:
Culture I: (Beat Kumin and Claudia Stein)
Week 5:
Culture I: (Beat Kumin and Claudia Stein)
Week 6:
Reading Week
Week 7:
Society I: Social Order and Social Protest (Bernard Capp)
Week 8:
Society II: Gender (Bernard Capp)
Week 9:
Europe and the New World (Julia McClure)
Week 10:
Module Workshop (Mark Knights)
Illustrative Bibliography:
M. Braddick, State Formation in Early Modern England c.1550-1700 (2000)
A. Brett and J. Tully (eds), Rethinking the Foundations of Modern Political Thought
(2006)
P. Burke, Varieties of Cultural History (1997)
R. Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France (1987)
J.H. Elliott, Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (New
Haven and London, 2006).
A. Grafton, New Worlds, Ancient Texts. The Power of Tradition and the
Shock of Discovery (1992).
K. von Greyerz, Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe 1500-1800 (1984)
R. Houston, Literacy in Early Modern Europe: Culture and Education 1500-1800 (1988)
B. Kumin (ed), The European World 1500-1800 (2009)
E. Muir, Ritual in Early Modern Europe (1997)
A. Pagden, European Encounters with the New World: from Renaissance to Romanticism
(1993).
J. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe (2001)
D. Sabean, Power in the Blood: Popular Culture and Village Discourse in Early Modern
Germany (1984)
R. Starn, ‘The Early Modern Muddle’, Journal of Early Modern History 6:3 (2002), 296307 W. Te Brake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics 1500-1700
(1998)
G. Walker (ed), Writing Early Modern History (2005)
M. Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (2008, 3rd edition)
P. Withington, Society in Early Modern England: The Vernacular Origins of Some
Powerful Ideas (Cambridge, 2010)
Assessment: 1 assessed essay of 5,000 words will be due on Tuesday 10 December
2013 (first week after the end of Term 1). In addition, an optional non-assessed,
‘practice’ essay of c. 2000 words (which you are encouraged to undertake) can be
handed in to Mark Knights by Monday of Week 7 (11 Nov).
Useful Online Resources:
The library has a page listing early modern online sources: go to ‘Databases’
tab on the library catalogue main page and then select History from the list of
databases listed by subject. Within History you will find an option to view early
modern resources.
Some highlights:
Historical Texts: this offers access to 350,000 texts published, chiefly in Britain, from
the late C15th to the C19th. https://historicaltexts.jisc.ac.uk/home
Early European Books: A similar, but less complete, resource for European
books up to 1700 http://eeb.chadwyck.co.uk/home.do
Gallica: Documents from French archives http://gallica.bnf.fr/?lang=EN
America’s Historical Imprints: covers 1639 to 1800
British History Online
Medieval and early modern sources for British history. Particular strengths include
parliamentary and local history
Connected Histories - British history sources 1500-1900 : Cross-searches a range
of digital resources relating to British history in the period 1500 – 1900, including the
British Museum Images, British History Online, British Newspapers 1600-1900,
Parliamentary Papers, Bodleian Library’s collection of ephemera, Old Bailey online – and
many more.
Electronic Enlightenment
edited correspondence of the early modern period, linking people across Europe, the
Americas and Asia from the early 17th to the mid-19th.
European Views of the Americas: 1493-1750
Index and comprehensive guide to printed records about the Americas written in Europe
before 1750 containing more than 32,000 entries
Making of the Modern World
Making of the Modern World is a database of digital facsimiles of literature on economics
and business published from the last half of the 15th century to the mid-19th century
State Papers Online 1509-1782
State Papers Online, 1509-1782 is a searchable archive of 16th, 17th and 18th-century
State Papers Domestic, Foreign, Scotland, Ireland and Registers of the Privy Council
WEEK 2: RELIGION I: THE REFORMATION(S) AND ‘DISENCHANTMENT’
Tutor: Naomi Pullin
Overview:
The sessions in Week 2 and 3 introduce some of the key themes of early modern religious history.
We will assess the legacy of the European Reformations by exploring some of the fundamental shifts
in attitudes towards magic, witchcraft and the supernatural, and religious conformity, toleration and
dissent.
In Week 2, we will explore whether ‘disenchantment’ was a necessary consequence of the
Reformations, and examine the circumstances in which prosecutions for witchcraft flourished during
the sixteenth and seventeenth-centuries. ‘Disenchantment’ is a concept used by historians to
explore a series of processes that affected the social and cultural outlook of the early modern
period. It is used to refer to a decline of supernatural beliefs in both popular and religious culture
that is often tied to the era of the Protestant and Catholic reformations.
Seminar and Essay Questions:




Did the Reformation(s) lead to the ‘disenchantment of the world’?
How far did the emergence of Protestantism intensify anxiety about witches?
In what ways can the persecution of witches be viewed as the product of tensions and
conflicts within local communities?
What is the difference between religion and magic?
Reading (* set reading):
J. Bossy, Christianity in the West (1985)
E. Cameron, Enchanted Europe: Superstition, Reason and Religion, 1250-1750 (2010), parts 3 and 4
P. Collinson, The Reformation (2003)
W. Coster and A. Spicer (eds), Sacred Space in Early Modern Europe (2005)
E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400-1580 (1992), esp. the
introduction
D. MacCulloch, Reformation: Europe’s House Divided 1490-1700 (2003), chs. 13 and 14
P. Marshall, The Reformation: A Very Short Introduction (2009)
H. Parish and W. Naphy (eds), Religion and Superstition in Reformation Europe (2002)
A. Pettegree, Reformation and the Culture of Persuasion (2005)
R. Scribner ‘Cosmic Order and Daily Life: Sacred and Secular in Pre-Industrial German Society’, in
Kaspar von Greyerz (ed.), Religion and Society in Early Modern Europe 1500-1800 (1984)
[reprinted in his Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany (1987)]
* ------ ‘The Reformation, Popular Magic and the “Disenchantment of the World”’, Journal of
Interdisciplinary History, 23 (1993), pp. 475-94; reprinted in C. Scott Dixon (ed.), The German
Reformation: the Essential Readings (1999), pp. 262-79.
------ ‘Reformation and Desacralisation: from Sacramental World to Moralised Universe’, in R. PoChia Hsia & R. Scribner (eds), Problems in the Historical Anthropology of Early Modern Europe
(Wiesbaden, 1997)
K. Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), chs. 1-2
J. D. Tracy, Europe’s Reformations 1450-1650 (1999)
Gary Waite, Heresy, Magic, and Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (2003)
* A. Walsham, ‘The Reformation and the Disenchantment of the World Reassessed’, Historical
Journal, 51 (2008).
M. Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (1930), ch. Iv, pp.
95-139.
Specifically on Witchcraft
Edward Bever, ‘Witchcraft, Female Aggression, and Power in the Early Modern Community’, Journal
of Social History, 35: 4 (2002): 955-988
Briggs, R., Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (1997)
* S. Clark, 'Inversion, Misrule and the Meaning of Witchcraft', Past and Present (1980)
S. Clark, Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1997)
S. Clark, 'Protestant Demonology: Sin, Superstition, and Society (c.1520-c.1630)', in Bengt Ankarloo
& Gustav Henningsen (eds), Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries (1990)
M Gaskill, ‘Witchcraft and Evidence in Early Modern England’, Past and Present, 198 (2008)
A. Gregory, 'Witchcraft, Politics and "Good Neighbourhood" in Early Seventeenth Century Rye', Past
and Present (1999)
Larner, C. Witchcraft and Religion: The Politics of Popular Belief (Oxford, 1984), chs.3 and 4
B. Levack, The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (latest edn)
G. Quaife, Godly Zeal and Furious Rage: The Witch in Early Modern Europe (1987)
L. Roper, ‘Witchcraft and Fantasy in Early Modern Germany’, History Workshop Journal 32 (1991),
19-43 and in her Oedipus and the Devil (1994).
Scarre, G. Witchcraft and Magic in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Europe (London, 1987)
J. Sharpe, Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550-1750 (1996)
Charles Zika, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe
(2007)
WEEK 3: RELIGION II: Religious Heterodoxy
Tutor: Naomi Pullin
Overview:
The rise of a multi-confessional society, progressing towards more religious tolerance has
traditionally been viewed as a product of the European Reformations. Ordinary men and women
openly questioned and debated the nature of salvation, which led to the emergence of new radical
denominations and confessional identities. In this session, we will explore the boundaries between
religious orthodoxy and heterodoxy, and tolerance and intolerance in the post-Reformation church.
We will also examine the suffering of specific groups of religious minorities and question the extent
to which deviance was a product of rather than a cause of persecution.
Seminar and Essay Questions:




How inclusive was the post-Reformation Church?
How much of a threat did religious separatism post to the post-Reformation church?
Did early modern religious minorities do more to promote religious tolerance or
intolerance?
How far was religious deviance a consequence or cause of persecution?
Reading (* Set reading)
General
A. Hughes, Gangraena and the Struggle for the English Revolution (2004)
B. S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (1999)
K. von Greyerz, Religion and Culture in Early Modern Europe (2008), esp. chs. 1, 3, 4, & 5
* B. Kaplan, Divided by Faith: Religious Conflict and the Practice of Toleration in Early Modern Europe
(2007), esp. introduction [available as a library e-resource]
M. Knights, The Devil in Disguise: Deception, Delusion, and Fanaticism in the Early English
Enlightenment (2011),
J. F. MacGregor and B. Reay (eds), Radical Religion in the English Revolution (1984).
J. W. Martin, Religious Radicals in Tudor England (1989)
N. McDowell, The English Radical Imagination: Culture, Religion and Revolution 1630-1660 (2003)
[available as a library e-resource]
O.P. Grell and B. Scribner (eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (1996)
* A. Walsham, Charitable Hatred: Tolerance and Intolerance in Early Modern England (2005), esp.
introduction
P. Zagorin, Ways of Lying: Dissimulation, Persecution and Conformity in Early Modern Europe (1990)
Catholicism and anti-Catholicism
J Bossy, The English Catholic Community 1570-1850 (1985)
N. Carlin, ‘Toleration for Catholics in the Puritan Revolution’, in Ole Peter Grell and Bob Scribner
(eds), Tolerance and Intolerance in the European Reformation (1996), 216-230
Anne Dillon, The Construction of Martyrdom in the English Catholic Community 1535-1603 (2002)
C Haigh ‘From Monopoly to Minority: Catholicism in Early Modern England’, Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society, 31 (1981), 129-47
G. Glickman, The English Catholic Community 1688-1745 (2009)
A. Milton, ‘A Qualified Intolerance: the Limits and Ambiguities of Early Stuart Anti-Catholicism’, in A.
Marotti (ed.), Catholicism and Anti-Catholicism in Early Modern English Texts (1999)
M. Questier, 'Catholic Loyalism in Early Stuart England', English Historical Review, 123 (2008), 11321165
M Rowlands, ‘Recusant Women 1569-1640’, in Mary Prior, ed., Women in English Society 1500-1800
(1985), 112-135
A. Walsham, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic (1993)
Puritans
J. Coffey, ‘Puritanism and Liberty Revisited: The Case for Toleration in the English Revolution’,
Historical Journal, 41 (1998), 961-85
P. Collinson, The Elizabethan Puritan Movement (1967).
D. Como, Blown by the Spirit: Puritanism and the Emergence of an Antinomian Underground in PreCivil War England (2004)
P. Haigh, ‘The Character of an Antipuritan’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 35 (2004)
P. Lake, ‘Anti-Puritanism: The Structure of a Prejudice’, in K. Fincham and P. Lake (eds), Religious
Politics in Post-Reformation England (2006)
The radical sects
B. Adams, ‘The Experience of Defeat Revisited: Suffering, Identity & the Politics of Obedience among
Hertford Quakers 1655-1665’, in C. Durston & J. Maltby (eds), Religion in Revolutionary England
(2006)
B. S. Capp, The Fifth Monarchy Men: A Study in Seventeenth-Century English Millenarianism (1972)
B. S. Capp, ‘Transplanting the Holy Land: Diggers, Fifth Monarchists and the New Israel’, Studies in
Church History, 36 (2000)
A. C. Davies, The Quakers in English Society 1655-1725 (2000)
J. C. Davis, Fear, Myth and History: The Ranters and the Historians (1986)
J. Friedman, Blasphemy, Immorality and Anarchy: The Ranters and the English Revolution (1987)
R. L. Greaves, ‘Seditious sectaries or “sober and useful inhabitants”? Changing conceptions of the
Quakers in Early Modern Britain’, Albion, 33 (2001)
C. Hill, The World Turned Upside Down: Radical Ideas during the English Revolution (1991)
D. Loewenstein, ‘The King among the Radicals: Godly Republicans, Levellers, Diggers, and Fifth
Monarchists’, in T. Corns (ed.), The Royal Image: Representations of Charles I (1999).
J.F. MacGregor et al, ‘Fear, Myth and Furore: Reappraising the Ranters’, Past & Present, 140 (1993)
B. Reay, The Quakers in the English Revolution (1985)
P. Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (1994)
J. Miller, 'A Suffering People': English Quakers & Their Neighbours', Past & Present, 188 (2005), 71103
K. Peters, Print Culture and the Early Quakers (2005)
S. Wright, The Early English Baptists 1603-1649 (2006)
WEEKS 4 AND 5: Cultural Histories of Early Modern Europe: the Culture of
Drinking and the Tavern and the Visual Culture of Medicine and Science
Tutors: Beat Kumin and Claudia Stein
The sessions in week 4 and 5 will introduce us to the ‘new cultural history’, a form of
history writing that emerged during the 1980s. The ‘new’ cultural history – to be
distinguished from an ‘older’ form of cultural history practiced around the turn- of-the
twentieth century – was inspired by research methods and theories in anthropology (e.g.
Clifford Geertz) and the so-called ‘linguistic’ turn in the human sciences. Historians
increasingly moved away from understanding the past as predominantly economically
determined and began to explore its ‘symbolic meanings’. The new cultural historians
turned their attention to rituals and language, its signs, metaphors, and rhetoric. But
they began to be interested in the question how the visual world shaped the production
of knowledge in the past. 'Culture' in its multifarious ways became to be seen as intrinsic
to social practice, and therefore at the heart of society itself.
We will look at two flourishing research areas in this area, i.e. the cultural history of
drink and the visual culture of science and medicine. Week 4 is dedicated to introductory
surveys, week 5 features short student presentations and a general discussion.
General Readings about Cultural History (* = required text):
Burke, Peter, What is Cultural History? Cambridge (Polity Press, 2004)
Hunt, Lynn (ed.), The New Cultural History (Berkeley, 1989)
* Rigby, Anne, ‘Being an Improper Historian’, in Keith Jenkins, Sue Morgan, and Alun
Munslow (eds), Manifestos for History (London, 2007), pp. 149-159.
Case Study 1: Drinking Cultures
Seminar Readings (* = required text):
Brennan, T. E. (ed.), Public Drinking in the Early Modern World 1500-1800: Voices from
the Tavern (4 vols, 2011) [source collection]
Clark, P., The English Alehouse: A Social History (1983)
Cowan, B., The Social Life of Coffee: The Emergence of the British Coffee House (2001)
Kümin, B. / Tlusty, B.A. (eds), The World of the Tavern: Public Houses in Early Modern
Europe (2002)
Martin, L., Alcohol, Violence and Disorder in Traditional Europe (2009)
Scott, J. C., ‘Social Sites’, in his Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden
Transcripts (1990), 108-35
Tlusty, B.A., ‘Crossing gender boundaries. Women as drunkards in early modern
Augsburg’, in: Sybille Backmann et al. (eds), Ehrkonzepte in der frühen
Neuzeit (1998), 185-198
Warwick Drinking Studies Network: http://go.warwick.ac.uk/wdsn
* Withington, P., 'Company and Sociability in Early Modern England', in Social History 32
(2007), 291-307
Seminar Questions / Presentation Topics:
1.
2.
3.
To which extent was early modern drinking culture socially exclusive?
Did drinking affirm or challenge the existing order?
What can drinking studies teach us about early modern culture more generally
Case Study 2: Visual Culture of Medicine and Science
Seminar Readings (* = required text):
Clark, Stuart, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture (Oxford,
2007), see also my essay review on his book Stein, Claudia, ‘Insights on Sight’,
History Workshop Journal 69, 1 (2010): 245-253.
Dear, Peter, Revolutionizing the Sciences: European Knowledge and Its Ambitions, 15001700 (chapter 1-2) -- very good intro into the ‘cultural history’ of medicine and
science.
*Kusukawa, Sachiko, ‘The Uses of Pictures in the Formation of Learned Knowledge: the
Cases of Leonhard Fuchs and Andreas Vesalius', in Transmitting Knowledge: Words,
images, and instruments in early modern Europe, ed. by Sachiko Kusukawa and Ian
Maclean, Oxford, 2006), pp. 73-96.
Kusukawa, Sachiko, Picturing the Book of Nature (Chicago, 2012)
Ogilvie, Brian, The Science of Describing: Natural History in Renaissance Europe
(Chicago, 2006).
Siraisi, Nancy, and Pomata, Gianna (eds), Historia: Empiricism and Erudition in Early
Modern Europe (Cambridge 2005).
Stein, Claudia [?], ‘Images and Meaning-Making in a World of Resemblance: The
Bavarian-Saxon Kidney Stone Affair of 1580’, European History Quarterly 43,2
(2013): 205-234.
Useful websites:
Research Project ‘The Origins of Science as a Visual Pursuit’ (organised by Sachiko
Kusukawa (http://picturingscience.wordpress.com/) - lots of new literature and research
projects
Also very useful is ‘historical Anatomies on the web by the National Library of Medicine
(NLM) http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/historicalanatomies/vesalius_home.html
Seminar Questions / Presentation Topics:
1. Does Vesalius discover the ‘real’ body?
2. How do images fit into the production of scientific knowledge in the early modern
period?
3. Did sixteenth-century anatomists or botanists ‘revolutionise’ their fields?
WEEK 7 SOCIETY I: SOCIAL ORDER AND SOCIAL PROTEST
Tutor: Bernard Capp
Seminar and Essay Questions:


What can popular protests (petitioning, riots, rebellions) tell us about social order
in early modern England?
Could riots and rebellions in early modern Europe achieve any gains?
Required Reading:
Bercé, Y.-M., Revolt and Revolution in Early Modern Europe (1987)
Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England, 1550-1750 (London, 1998), pp.168-97.
Thompson, Edward. ‘The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eighteenth
Century’, Past & Present 50 (1971), 76-136, reprinted as Thompson, Customs in
Common (London, 1991), ch.4.
Further Reading:
Walter, John, & Wrightson, Keith. ‘Dearth and the Social Order in Early Modern
England’, Past & Present 71 (May 1976), 22-42.
Fletcher, Anthony and MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Tudor Rebellions, 5th edn. (2005)
Blickle, Peter (ed.), Resistance, Representation and Community (1998)
Beik, William, Urban Protest in Seventeenth-Century France (1997)
Davis, N.Z., Society and Culture in Early Modern France (1975), ch. 6.
Sharp, Buchanan. In Contempt of All Authority: Rural Artisans and Riot in the West of
England, 1586-1660 (Los Angeles, 1980).
Walter, John. ‘Grain Riots and Popular Attitudes to the Law: Maldon and the Crisis of
1629’, in John Brewer & John Styles (eds.), An Ungovernable People: The English
and their Law in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (London, 1980),
pp.47-84.
Te Brake, Wayne, Shaping History: Ordinary People in European Politics 1500-1700
(1998)
Sharp, Buchanan. ‘Popular Protest in Seventeenth-Century England’, in Barry Reay
(ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1985), pp.271308.
Manning, Roger B. Village Revolts: Social Protest and Popular Disturbances in England
1509-1640 (Oxford, 1988).
Walter, John. ‘The Social Economy of Dearth in Early Modern England’, in John Walter &
Roger Schofield (eds.), Famine, Disease and the Social Order in Early Modern
Society (Cambridge, 1989), pp.75-128.
Wood, Andy. ‘The Place of Custom in Plebeian Political Culture: England, 1550-1800’,
Social History 22:1 (January 1997), 46-60.
Wood, Andy. ‘“Poor Men Woll Speke One Day”: Plebeian Languages of Deference and
Defiance in England, c.1520-1640’, in Tim Harris (ed.), The Politics of the
Excluded, 1500-1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), pp.67-98.
Walter, John. ‘Public Transcripts, Popular Agency and the Politics of Subsistence in Early
Modern England’, in Michael Braddick and John Walter (eds), Negotiating Power in
Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland
(Cambridge, 2001), pp.123-48.
Wood, Andy. Riot, Rebellion and Popular Politics in Early Modern England (Basingstoke,
2001).
Wood, Andy. ‘Fear, Hatred and the Hidden Injuries of Class in Early Modern England’,
Journal of Social History 39:3 (Spring 2006), 803-82
WEEK 8 SOCIETY II: GENDER
Tutor: Bernard Capp
Seminar and Essay Questions:




‘The law was one thing, social practice quite another’. To what extent was this
true of marriage formation and marital separation in this period?
Were pre-industrial households ever a sphere of ‘rough and ready equality’ for
women?
Would you agree that the experience of women in early modern society was
characterised by ‘restrictive ideology’ coexisting with ‘permissive reality’?
How far were there multiple understandings of ‘masculinity’ in this period?
Required Reading:
Capp, B., ‘Gender and Family’, in: B. Kümin (ed.), The European World: An Introduction
to Early Modern History (2009), 33-43
Wiesner, Merry, Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (1993)
Further Reading:
Hufton, Owen, The Prospect Before Her: A History of Women in Western Europe 15001800 (1995)
Ozment, Steven, When Fathers Ruled (1983)
Amussen, S.D. ‘Gender, Family and the Social Order, 1560-1725’, in Anthony Fletcher
and John Stevenson (eds), Order and Disorder in Early Modern England (1985),
pp.196-217.
Fletcher, Anthony, Gender, Sex and Subordination (1995)
Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England, 1550-1750 (1998), pp.4-35.
Wrightson, Keith, English Society 15801680 (2nd edn, 2003), pp.74-126
Underdown, David. ‘The Taming of the Scold: The Enforcement of Patriarchal Authority
in Early Modern England’, in Anthony Fletcher and John Stevenson (eds), Order
and Disorder in Early Modern England (1985), pp.116-36
Ingram, Martin. ‘Ridings, Rough Music and Mocking Rhymes in Early Modern England’,
in Barry Reay (ed), Popular Culture in Seventeenth Century England (1985),
pp.166-97.
Hindle, Steve. ‘The Shaming of Maragret Knowsley: Gossip, Gender and the Experience
of Authority in Early Modern England’, Continuity & Change 9:3 (1994), 391-419.
Fletcher, Anthony. ‘Men’s Dilemma: The Future of Patriarchy in England, 1560-1660’,
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 6th ser., 4 (1994), 61-81.
Walker, Garthine. ‘Expanding the Boundaries of Female Honour in Early Modern
England’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society sixth ser. 6 (1996), 235-46.
Ingram, Martin J. ‘Juridical Folklore in England Illustrated by Rough Music’, in C.W.
Brooks & Michael Lobban (eds.), Communities and Courts in Britain, 1150-1900
(1997), pp.61-82.
Capp, Bernard. ‘The Double Standard Revisited: Plebeian Women and Male Sexual
Reputation in Early Modern England’, Past & Present 162 (February 1999), 70100.
Capp, Bernard. When Gossips Meet: Women, Family and Neighbourhood in Early
Modern England (2003).
Gowing, Laura. Common Bodies: Women, Touch and Power in Seventeenth-Century
England (2003).
Shepard, Alexandra. Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England (2003), chs.3 & 6
Griffiths, Paul, Youth and Authority: formative experiences in England, 1560-1640
(1996), ch. 4 (on male subcultures).
Shepard, Alexandra. ‘Honesty, Worth and Gender in Early Modern England’, in Henry
French and Jonathan Barry (eds.), Identity and Agency in England, 1500-1800
(2004), pp.87-105.
Shepard, Alexandra. ‘”Swil-Bols and Tos-pots”: Drink Culture and Male Bonding in
England, c.1560-1640’, in Laura Gowing, Michael Hunter & Miri Rubin (eds), Love,
Friendship and Faith in Europe, 1300-1800 (2005), pp.110-30.
McIntosh, Marjorie, Working Women in English Society 1300-1620
WEEK 9: EUROPE AND THE NEW WORLD
Tutor: Julia McClure
Seminar and essay questions:
Questions
How did Europeans interpret the ‘New World’?
What is the history and politics behind the name ‘the New World’?
What was the indigenous response to conquest?
Who were the winners and losers in the emergence of early-modern Atlantic empires?
Core Readings
Dussel, Enrique, The invention of the Americas : eclipse of “the other” and the myth of
modernity (New York: Continuum, 1995).
Mignolo, Walter, The Darker Side of the Renaissance (Michigan, 1998).
Rediker, Marcus, Outlaws of the Atlantic: sailors, pirates, and motley crews in the age of sail
(Boston, 2014).
Further reading:
Elliott, J.H., Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in America 1492-1830 (New
Haven and London, 2006).
Pagden, A., European Encounters with the New World: from Renaissance to Romanticism
(1993)
Cañizares-Esguerra, How to write a history of the new World: histories, epistemologies, and
identities in the eighteenth-century Atlantic world (Stanford, 2001).
de Acosta, José, Natural and moral history of the Indies, Jane E. Mangan and Frances M.
López-Morillas eds (Durham: S.C., 2002).
Seed, Patricia, Ceremonies of possession in Europe's conquest of the New World, 1492-1640
(Cambridge 1998).
Iberian colonisation
Clendinnen, I., Ambivalent Conquests (1987).
Elliott, J.H., Imperial Spain, 1469-1715 (1963).
Elliott, J.H., Spain and its World, 1500.-700 (1989).
Greenleaf, R.E., The Mexican Inquisition 1536-1543 (1961).
Kamen, H., Spain, 1469-1714: A Society of Conflict (1983).
Lynch, J., Spain 1516-1598: From Nation State to World Empire (1991).
Lynch, J., The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598-1700 (1991).
Kagan, R. and Parker, G., (eds.), Spain, Europe and the Atlantic World (1995)
Thomas, H., The Conquest of Mexico (1993).
Gruzinski, S., Painting the Conquest (1992).
Hemming, J., The Conquest of the Incas (1972).
Liss, P.K., Mexico Under Spain (1975).
Lockhart, J., Spanish Peru, 1532-1560 (1968).
Lockhart, J., and Schwartz, S.B., Early Latin America (1993).
McAlister, L.N., Spain and Portugal in the New World 1492-1700 (1984).
MacCormack, S., ‘The Heart has its Reasons: Predicaments of Missionary Christianity in
Early Colonial Peru’, Hispanic American Historical Review 1985.
MacLachan, C.M., Spain’s Empire in the New World (1988).
Parry, J.H., The Spanish Seaborne Empire (1966).
Phelan, J.L., The Millenial Kingdom of the Franciscans in the New World (1970).
Ricard, R., The Spiritual Conquest of Mexico (1966).
Simpson, L.B., The Encomienda in New Spain (1966).
Stern, S.J., Peru’s Indian Peoples and the Challenge of Spanish Conquest (1982).
English colonisation
Andrews, K.R., Canny, N.P., and Hair, P.E.H., (eds.), The Westward Enterprise: English
Activities in Ireland, the Atlantic, and America, 1450-1650 (1978).
Jennings, F., The Invasion of America (1975).
Armitage, D., The ideological origins of the British Empire (2000)
Armitage, D., and Braddick, M.J., (eds.) The British Atlantic World, 1500-1800 (2002) –
essays by Games, Zahedieh, Pestana, Braddick, Mancke.
Armitage, D., Greater Britain, 1516-1776: Essays in Atlantic history (2004) – chapters
III, IV, VII, VIII.
Canny. N., ‘The ideology of English colonisation: from Ireland to America’,William and
Mary Quarterly, 3rd series, 30:4 (1973), p. 575-98.
Canny N., and Morgan, P., The Oxford handbook of the Atlantic world c.1450-c.1850
(2011) – introduction, chapters by Rodger, Whitehead, Schaub, Klooster, Chaplin,
O’Reilly, Hancock, Mancke, Mills.
Canny, N., ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol. 1 (1998) –introduction,
essays by Pagden, Armitage, Horn, Anderson, Mancall, Appleby, Rodger.
Canny, N., and Pagden, A., eds., Colonial identity in the Atlantic world: 1500-1800
(1987)- essays by Elliott, Zuckerman.
Games, A., The web of empire: English cosmopolitans in an age of expansion, 15601660 (2008) chapters 1-5.
Games, A., Migration and the Origins of the English Atlantic World (Harvard, 1999).
Kupperman, K.O., Settling with the Indians (1980).
Meinig, D.W., The Shaping of America, vol. I (Atlantic America, 1492-1800) (1986).
Middleton, R., Colonial America: A History, 1607-1760 (Oxford, 1992)
Quinn, D.B., and Ryan, A.N., England’s Sea Empire, 1550-1642 (1983).
Williamson, A., ‘An Empire to end Empire’, in Paulina Kewes, ed., The uses of history in
early modern England (Huntingdon Library Quarterly special edition, 2005) - available on
JSTOR.
Cultural impact of the New World
Andrien, K.J., and Adorno, R., Transatlantic Encounters: Europeans and Andeans in the
Sixteenth Century (1991).
Burke, P., The European Renaissance (1998)
Chiappelli, F., First Images of America (2 vols., 1976).
Elliott, J.H., The Old World and the New (1992)
Goddard, P., ‘Augustine and the Amerindian in Seventeenth-Century New France’,
Church History, 67 (1998).
Grafton, A., New Worlds, Ancient Texts. The Power of Tradition and the
Shock of Discovery (1992)
Greenblatt, S., Marvellous Possessions: the Wonder of the New World (1991).
Hale, J., The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance (1993)
Hale, J., ‘A World Elsewhere’ in D. Hay (ed.) The Age of the Renaissance (1967)
Hanke, L., The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (1965).
Hanke, L., Aristotle and the American Indian (1959).
Hay, D., Europe. The Emergence of An Idea (1957)
Kupperman, K.O., (ed.), America in European Consciousness 1493-1750 (1995).
Pagden, A., European Encounters with the New World: from Renaissance to Romanticism
(1993)
Pagden, A., The Fall of Natural Man: the American Indian and the Origins of
Comparative Ethnology (2nd. edn., 1982).
Pagden, A., ‘The Impact of the New World on the Old: the History of an Idea’,
Renaissance and Modern Studies 1986
Reinhard, W., ‘The Seaborne Empires’ in T. Brady et al. Handbook of
European History (1994) vol. I.
Ryan, M.T., ‘Assimilating New Worlds in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries’,
Comparative Studies in Society and History 23 (1981).
WEEK 10: WORKSHOP: WHAT’S NEW ABOUT THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD?
While arguably all historical is about assessing the balance between continuity and
change, the early modern period is often felt to present this dilemma in a particularly
acute form. Was it (as the very name ‘early modern’ might seem to imply) a seed-bed of
new developments that would burst into full flower in following centuries, or is it better
understood as a more stable, tradition-bound ancien regime?
This session will draw upon the themes and questions that have emerged earlier in the
module to reflect upon this very broad question.
In groups of about three, students will have prepared in advance a presentation, each
group selecting a particular theme, event, individual or artefact that can be regarded as
effecting or exemplifying significant historical change. The presentation can be
accompanied by hand-outs, power-point, overhead slides or circulation of a primary text.
Each group will defend ‘their’ exemplary case as the most important trajectory of
change, against queries and challenges from other students and module tutors.