EMH EarlyModernHistory

  Careers and Crises in the Age of Charles I  is now published.    Contents: Sir John Ogle and the End of Ambition: A Commander Retires from the Field Captain Pennington’s Perplexity: Honour and Duty at Sea Hugh Pyne and John Poulet: Dangerous Words and Aristocratic Ambitions Alexander Leighton’s Troubles: Mutilation, Imprisonment, and Episcopacy Peter Smart and John Cosin: The Beauty of Holiness and its Detractors Lady Eleanor’s Kettle of Filth: Prophecy and Desecration in England’s Babylon Judith Calley’s Collared Brawn: Country, Court, and the Spanish Connection William Morton’s Barren Fruit: A Godly Lecturer’s Career and Contacts Henry Butts and the Frown of a King: The Death of a Vice-Chancellor Thomas Harrison’s Loyal Heart: The Price of Crying Treason Thomas Bushell’s Remarkable Rocks: A Projector in Peace and War Nicholas Crispe and the Gold of Africa: Tycoon, Slaver, and Spy Conclusion: Troubled People in Troubled Times

  Monday 10 November London time: on zoom and in person at the IHR in the Wolfson Suite, NB01, basement   Clare Egan (University of Lancaster) ‘Libel performance and Legal Literacies in the early-seventeenth century English Provinces’ Libels between private persons occurring in the English provinces during the early modern period took many forms – from verse and song to pictures and plays – and by the early seventeenth-century they were being tried at the court of Star Chamber. By exploring such libels as performances this paper argues that they reveal the creative and interpretative skill of provincial communities participating in long-standing theatrical cultures of insult. The paper will also consider, however, a distinct and previously under-examined form of libel referred to in the legal records as ‘libellous articles’, which further suggest a range of legal literacies in provincial settings. Such lists of false ‘articles’ were circulat...