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  3. Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social history

Edited by Tim Harris, Brown University, Stephen Taylor, Reading University and Andy Wood, University of East Anglia. This new series of monographs and studies covers a wide variety of historical themes from the sixteenth through to the early nineteenth century. It aims to publish intellectually stimulating works of scholarship that will make a major original contribution to the field, whether through innovative conceptual, theoretical or methodological approaches or groundbreaking work on hitherto unexplored sources. By publishing work on cultural and social as well as political history, the series aims to break down some of the barriers that have traditionally existed between these various subfields. In addition, the series particularly welcomes studies which set the past in a more international or global context, such as for example works that link the histories of early modern Britain and Ireland to Europe, to the Americas or to the British empire.

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39 results in Studies in Early Modern Cultural, Political and Social history

Page 2 of 2

Visualising Protestant Monarchy
  • Ceremony, Art and Politics after the Glorious Revolution (1689–1714)
  • Julie Farguson
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    13 April 2021
    Print publication:
    16 April 2021
  • The first comprehensive, comparative study of the visual culture of monarchy in the reigns of William and Mary and Queen Anne

Age Relations and Cultural Change in Eighteenth-Century England
  • Barbara Crosbie
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    21 October 2020
    Print publication:
    15 May 2020
  • Interactions between age groups were central to major social and cultural developments in eighteenth-century England, and this book serves as a powerful reminder that people lived through not in the past.

The National Covenant in Scotland, 1638–1689

The Hanoverian Succession in Great Britain and its Empire

Stuart Marriage Diplomacy
  • Dynastic Politics in their European Context, 1604-1630
  • Volume 31
  • Edited by Valentina Caldari, Sara J. Wolfson
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    24 October 2019
    Print publication:
    19 October 2018
  • Dynastic marriages mattered in early modern Europe: the creation of alliances and the outbreak of wars were tied to continental dynastic politics.

Roguery in Print
  • Crime and Culture in Early Modern London
  • Volume 33
  • Lena Liapi
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    24 October 2019
    Print publication:
    20 September 2019
  • The first comprehensive analysis of an extensive body of rogue pamphlets published in early modern London.

National Identity and the Anglo-Scottish Borderlands, 1552–1652
  • Volume 32
  • Jenna M. Schultz
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    06 September 2019
    Print publication:
    15 March 2019
  • A detailed examination of the March system - the special administrative arrangements which applied on both sides of the border - how it was applied and how it evolved as national political circumstances changed.

Accidents and Violent Death in Early Modern London
  • 1650-1750
  • Craig Spence
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    29 July 2017
    Print publication:
    17 November 2016
  • Between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries more than 15,000 Londoners suffered sudden violent deaths. While this figure includes around 3,000 who were murdered or committed suicide, the vast majority of fatalities resulted from accidents. In the early modern period, accidental and 'disorderly' deaths - from drowning, falls, stabbing, shooting, fires, explosions, suffocation, animals and vehicles, among other causes - were a regular feature of urban life and left a significant mark in the archival records of the period.
    This book provides the first substantive critical study of the early modern accident, revealing and chronicling the lives - and deaths - of hundreds of otherwise unknown Londoners. Drawing on the weekly London Bills of Mortality, parish burial registers, newspapers and other related documents, it examines accidents and other forms of violent death in the city with a view to understanding who among its residents encountered such events, how the bureaucracy recorded and elaborated their circumstances and why they did so, and what practical responses might follow. Through a systematic review of the character of accidents, medical and social interventions, and changing attitudes toward the regulation of hazards across the metropolis, it establishes the historical significance of the accident and shows how, as the eighteenth century progressed, providential explanations gave way to a more rational viewpoint that saw certain accident events as threats to be managed rather than misfortunes to be explained. Additionally, the book explores how knowledge of such incidents was transformed to become a recurring cultural trope in oral, textual and visual narratives of metropolitan life, thereby opening a window to the way in which sudden death and violent injury was understood by early modern mentalities.

    CRAIG SPENCE is Senior Lecturer in History at Bishop Grosseteste University.

Commerce and Politics in Hume's History of England
  • Jia Wei
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    20 May 2017
    Print publication:
    17 March 2017
  • David Hume's six-volume History of England: From the Invasion of Julius Caesar to the Revolution in 1688 (1754-61) is probably his most important work as a constitutional historian and political theorist. Jia Wei's book shows that the History can be understood in two ways: firstly, as Hume's own narrative of England's state formation, and secondly, as his answer to the question of how eighteenth-century Britain could cope with the challenges of commercial revolution. It illuminates the relationship between Hume the political thinker, Hume the historian, and Hume the political economist and highlights the social, economic and institutional changes which he wove into an innovative theory of causation.
    The first part of the book considers Hume's account of the fundamentalrationale of maritime trade and England's unique approach to liberty in the modern era. The second part looks at his views concerning the profound impact of maritime trade on English politics. From his perspective, the problem of how to cope with the challenges posed by the commercial revolution in eighteenth-century Britain was closely linked to the question of how transoceanic trade had fundamentally recast English politics from the sixteenth century onwards. This study shows how these two narratives were interwoven into Hume's History and will be of interest to scholars and studentsnot only of David Hume and political theory but of historiography, eighteenth-century British history and Enlightenment studies.

    JIA WEI received her PhD from the University of Cambridge.

Popular Culture and Political Agency in Early Modern England and Ireland
  • Essays in Honour of John Walter
  • With contributions by Alexandra Shepard , Amanda J. Flather , Andy Wood , Clodagh Tait , Colin Davis , John Morrill , Keith Thomas , Keith Wrightson , Mark Knights , Michael Braddick , Paul Slack , Richard Smith , Steve Hindle and Phil Withington
  • Edited by Michael J. Braddick, Phil Withington
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    09 May 2017
    Print publication:
    17 March 2017
  • One of the most notable currents in social, cultural and political historiography is the interrogation of the categories of 'elite' and 'popular' politics and their relationship to each other, as wellas the exploration of why and how different sorts of people engaged with politics and behaved politically. While such issues are timeless, they hold a special importance for a society experiencing rapid political and social change, like early modern England. No one has done more to define these agendas for early modern historians than John Walter. His work has been hugely influential, and at itsheart has been the analysis of the political agency of ordinary people. The essays in this volume engage with the central issues of Walter's work, ranging across the politics of poverty, dearth and household, popular political consciousness and practice more broadly, and religion and politics during the English revolution. This outstanding collection, bringing together some of the leading historians of this period with some of the field's rising stars, will appeal to anyone interested in the social, cultural and political history of early modern England or issues of popular political consciousness and behaviour more generally.

    MICHAEL J. BRADDICK is professor of history at the University of Sheffield. PHIL WITHINGTON is professor of history at the University of Sheffield.

    CONTRIBUTORS: Michael J. Braddick, J. C. Davis, Amanda Flather, Steve Hindle, Mark Knights, John Morrill, Alexandra Shepard, Paul Slack, Richard M. Smith, Clodagh Tait, Keith Thomas, Phil Withington, Andy Wood, Keith Wrightson.

Britain, Hanover and the Protestant Interest, 1688–1756
  • Andrew C. Thompson
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    08 April 2017
    Print publication:
    17 August 2006
  • Religious ideas and power-politics were strongly connected in the early eighteenth century: William III, George I and George II all took their role as defenders of the protestant faith extremely seriously, and confessional thinking was of major significance to court whiggery. This book considers the importance of this connection. It traces the development of ideas of the protestant interest, explaining how such ideas were used to combat the perceived threats to the European states system posed by universal monarchy, and showing how the necessity of defending protestantism within Europe became a theme in British and Hanoverian foreign policy. Drawing on a wide range of printed and manuscript material in both Britain and Germany, the book emphasises the importance of a European context for eighteenth-century British history, and contributes to debates about the justification of monarchy and the nature of identity in Britain.
    Dr ANDREW C. THOMPSON is Lecturer in History, Queens' College, Cambridge.

The King's Irishmen
  • The Irish in the Exiled Court of Charles II, 1649-1660
  • Mark R. F. Williams
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 August 2014
    Print publication:
    18 September 2014
  • King Charles I's execution in January 1649 marked a moment of deliverance for the victors in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, but for thousands of Royalists it signaled the onset of more than a decade of penury and disillusionmentin exile. Driven by an enduring allegiance to the Stuart dynasty, now personified in the young King Charles II, Royalists took up residence among the courts, armies, and cities of Continental Europe, clinging to hopes of restoration and the solace of their companions as the need to survive threatened to erode the foundations of their beliefs. The King's Irishmen vividly illustrates the experience of these exiles during the course of the 1650s,revealing complex issues of identity and allegiance often obscured by the shadow of the Civil Wars. Drawing on sources from across Britain, Ireland, and Continental Europe, it looks at key Irish figures and networks in Charles II's court-in-exile in order to examine broader themes of memory, belief, honour, identity, community, dislocation and disillusionment. Each chapter builds upon and challenges recent historical interest in royalism, providing new insights into the ways in which allegiances and identities were re-fashioned and re-evaluated as the exiles moved across Europe in pursuit of aid. The King's Irishmen offers not only a vital reappraisal of the nature of royalism within its Irish and European dimensions but also the nature of 'Irishness' and early modern community at large. MARK WILLIAMS is Lecturer in Early Modern History at Cardiff University.

The Nature of the English Revolution Revisited
  • Edited by Stephen Taylor, Grant Tapsell
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 July 2013
    Print publication:
    20 June 2013
  • The nature of the seventeenth-century English revolution remains one of the most contested of all historical issues. Scholars are unable to agree on what caused it, when precisely it happened, how significant it was in terms of political, social, economic, and intellectual impact, or even whether it merits being described as a 'revolution' at all. Over the past twenty years these debates have become more complex, but also richer. This volume brings together new essays by a group of leading scholars of the revolutionary period and will provide readers with a provocative and stimulating introduction to current research. All the essays engage with one or more of three themes which lie at the heart of recent debate: the importance of the connection between individuals and ideas; the power and influence of religious ideas; and the most appropriate chronological context for discussion of the revolution. STEPHEN TAYLOR is Professor in the History of Early Modern England at the University of Durham. GRANT TAPSELL is Lecturer in Early Modern History, University of Oxford and Fellow and Tutor at Lady Margaret Hall.

The Final Crisis of the Stuart Monarchy
  • The Revolutions of 1688-91 in their British, Atlantic and European Contexts
  • Edited by Tim Harris, Stephen Taylor
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 July 2013
    Print publication:
    20 June 2013
  • There has been an explosion of interest in the 'Glorious' Revolution in recent years. Long regarded as the lesser of Britain's seventeenth-century revolutions, a faint after tremor following the major earthquake of mid-century, it is now coming to be seen as a major transformative episode in own right, a landmark event which marked a distinctive break in British history. This collection sheds new light on the final crisis of the Stuart monarchy by re-examining the causes and implications of the dynastic shift of 1688-9 from a broad chronological, intellectual and geographical perspective. Comprising eleven essays by specialists in the field, it ranges from the 1660s to the mid-eighteenth century, deals with the history of ideas as well as political and religious history, and covers not just England, Scotland and Ireland but also explores the Atlantic and European contexts. Covering high politics and low politics, Tory and Whig political thought, and the experiences of both Catholics and Protestants, it ranges from protest and resistance to Jacobitism and counter-revolution and even offers an evaluation of British attitudes towards slavery. Written in a lively and engaging style and designed to be accessible to a broader audience, it combines new research with the latest scholarship to provide a fresh and invigorating introduction to the revolutionary period that transformed Britain and its empire. TIM HARRIS is Munro-Goodwin-Wilkinson Professor in European History at Brown University. STEPHEN TAYLOR is Professor in the History of Early Modern England at Durham University.

The Civil Wars after 1660
  • Public Remembering in Late Stuart England
  • Matthew Neufeld
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 July 2013
    Print publication:
    20 June 2013
  • This book examines the conflicting ways in which the civil wars and Interregnum were remembered, constructed and represented in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. It argues that during the late Stuart period, public remembering of the English civil wars and Interregnum was not concerned with re-fighting the old struggle but rather with commending and justifying, or contesting and attacking, the Restoration settlements. After the return of King Charles II the political nation had to address the question of remembering and forgetting the recent conflict. The answer was to construct a polity grounded on remembering and scapegoating puritan politics and piety. The proscription of the puritan impulse enacted by the Restoration settlements was supported by a public memory of the 1640s and 1650s which was used to show that Dissenters could not, and should not, be trusted with power. Drawing upon the interdisciplinary field of social memory studies, this book offers a new perspective on the historical and political cultures of early modern England, and will be of significant interest to social, cultural and political historians as well as scholars working in memory studies. Matthew Neufeld is Lecturer in early modern British history at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Remaking English Society
  • Social Relations and Social Change in Early Modern England
  • Edited by Steve Hindle, Alexandra Shepard, John Walter
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    16 May 2013
  • A tribute to the work of Keith Wrightson, Remaking English Society re-examines the relationship between enduring structures and social change in early modern England. Collectively, the essays in the volume reconstruct the fissures and connections that developed both within and between social groups during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Focusing on the experience of rapid economic and demographic growth and on related processes of cultural diversification, the contributors address fundamental questions about the character of English society during a period of decisive change. Prefaced by a substantial introduction which traces the evolution of early modern social history over the last fifty years, these essays (each of them written by a leading authority) not only offer state-of-the-art assessments of the historiography but also represent the latest research on a variety of topics that have been at the heart of the development of 'the new social history' and its cultural turn: gender relations and sexuality; governance and litigation; class and deference; labouring relations, neighbourliness and reciprocity; and social status and consumption. STEVE HINDLE is W. M. Keck Foundation Director of Research at the Huntington Library, San Marino, California. ALEXANDRA SHEPARD is Reader in History, University of Glasgow. JOHN WALTER is Professor of History, University of Essex.

Common Law and Enlightenment in England, 1689-1750
  • Julia Rudolph
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 May 2013
    Print publication:
    16 May 2013
  • This book explores how English legal culture, deeply imbued with the ideas and practices of common law, engaged with the new intellectual, institutional and cultural changes of the Enlightenment. It argues that common law survived as an important part of English legal culture because it was able to meet the various challenges posed by Enlightenment rationalism and civic and commercial discourse. Drawing on works of jurisprudence, legal histories, manuals of law and notebooks of legal practice, and looking in detail at four pivotal, widely-discussed cases, the book illuminates the ways in which common law custom and tradition continued to be valued foundations for the authority of law, even during a period of political change, commercial growth and philosophical rationalism. Exploring the challenges to and adaptations within common law thinking in England in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the book reveals that the common law played a much wider role beyond the legal world in shaping Enlightenment concepts. JULIA RUDOLPH is Associate Professor of History at North Carolina State University. She is the author of 'Revolution by Degrees: James Tyrrell and Whig Political Thought in the Late Seventeenth Century' (Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), and of various articles on gender, crime, and the history of the book in early modern England. She has also edited a collection of theoretical and interdisciplinary essays entitled 'History and Nation' (Bucknell University Press, 2006).

Commune, Country and Commonwealth
  • The People of Cirencester, 1117-1643
  • David Rollison
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    20 October 2011
  • Commune, Country and Commonwealth' suggests that towns like Cirencester are a missing link connecting local and national history, in the immensely formative centuries from Magna Carta to the English Revolution. Focused on a town that made highly significant interventions in national constitutional development, it describes recurring struggles to achieve communal solidarity and independence in a society continuously and prescriptively divided by gross inequalities of class and status. The result is a social and political history of a great trans-generational epic in which local and national influences constantly interacted. From the generation of Magna Carta to the regicides of Edward II and Richard II, through the vernacular revolution of the 'long fifteenth century' and the chaos of state reformations to the great revival that ended in the constitutional wars of the 1640s, the epic was united by strategic location and by systemic, 'structural' inequalities that were sometimes mitigated but never resolved. Individual and group personalities emerge from every chapter, but the 'personality' that dominates them all, Rollison argues, is a commune with 'a mind of its own', continuously regenerated by enduring, strategic realities. An afterword describes the birth and development of a new, 'rural' myth and identity and suggests some archival pathways for the exploration of a legendary English town in the modern and postmodern, industrial and post-industrial epochs. DAVID ROLLISON is Honorary Research Associate in History, University of Sydney.

God, Duty and Community in English Economic Life, 1660-1720
  • Brodie Waddell
  • Published by:
    Boydell & Brewer
    Published online:
    05 February 2013
    Print publication:
    18 October 2012
  • The English economy underwent profound changes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, yet the worldly affairs of ordinary people continued to be shaped as much by traditional ideals and moral codes as by material conditions. This book explores the economic implications of many of the era's key concepts, including Christian stewardship, divine providence, patriarchal power, paternal duty, local community, and collective identity. Brodie Waddell draws on a wide range of contemporary sources - from ballads and pamphlets to pauper petitions and guild regulations - to show that such ideas pervaded every aspect of social and economic relations during this crucial period. Previous discussions of English economic life have tended to ignore or dismiss the influence of cultural factors. By contrast, Waddell argues that popular beliefs about divine will, social duty and communal bonds remained the frame through which most people viewed vital 'earthly' concerns such as food marketing, labour relations, trade policy, poor relief, and many others. This innovative study, demonstrating both the vibrancy and the diversity of the 'moral economies' of the later Stuart period, represents a significant contribution to our understanding of early modern society. It will be essential reading for all early modern British economic and cultural historians. Brodie Waddell is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Cambridge. He has published on preaching, local government, the landscape and other aspects of early modern society.

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