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Showing posts from November, 2025

John Gallagher's review in History Today of Hilary Taylor's book on Language and Social Relations in early modern England

 This interesting review can be read  here  . 

Leiden University Ph.D. opportunities (just spotted and pasted here) in the early modern language area

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  Leiden University Leiden, The Netherlands PhD position, project: LangProProfessional Opportunities in the Early Modern Language Sector ...

My comments on Ariel Hessayon's 'Witnesses against the Beast'

 For the events of the 1640s and 1650s in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales, I have come in recent years to prefer the French term 'les grand soulevements'. I do not think that Marxist or quasi-Marxist terminology about a 'bourgeois revolution' or even an 'English Revolution' is helpful, especially since they entail imposing anachronistic economic and social categories on the participants in these struggles and attempting to justify forcing the narratives into conformity with these concepts. I ought to add that comparisons with mid-17th century continental risings against established regimes are more productive than much of the predominant historiography allows.                                                                   Christopher Thompson

Christ's College, Cambridge seminar tonight (pasted)

  Guy Erez (NYU):  Animal Experiments and the Environmental Foundations of Seventeenth-Century Science Kenneth Novis (Oxford):  The Politics of Environment in Spinoza and Montesquieu For those who can't make it in person, please find the link to join via Teams below! https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OWVhYzJjNWYtMDFlMi00YzgyLTk2ZmUtNTAzNGIzNzczNTA5%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%2249a50445-bdfa-4b79-ade3-547b4f3986e9%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22a7865b8d-236d-4786-9f4a-d48f46159434%22%7d

Tudor and Stuart seminar at the IHR on 10th November (pasted notice)

  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 circulated in comm...

Early Modern British and Irish History seminar at the University of Cambridge on Wednesday, 5th November

  Imogen Peck (Birmingham) will be giving a paper on ‘ Family Archives in England, 1650–1838: Manuscripts, Memory, and the Making of History ’ .  The seminar will meet at 5:15pm in the Graham Storey Room at Trinity Hall .

David Cressy, Careers and Crises in the Age of Charles I

  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

IHR's Tudor and Stuart seminar programme ahead

  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...