Through a study of horses, the book reveals how an important and growing aristocratic estate was managed, where the aristocrat at the centre of it - William Cavendish - travelled and how he spent his time, and how horses were oneof the means by which he asserted his social status. This book, by a leading authority on early modern social and cultural history, examines in detail how an important English aristocrat managed his horses. At the same time, it discusses how horses and the uses to which they were put were a very significant social statement and a forceful assertion of status and the right to political power. Based on detailed original research in the archives of Chatsworth House, the book explores the breeding and rearing, the buying and selling, and the care and maintenance of horses, showing how these activities fitted in to the overall management of the earl's large estates. It outlines the uses of horses as the earl and his retinue travelled to and from family, the county assizes and quarter sessions, social visits and London for "the season" and to attend Court and Parliament. It also considers the use of horses in sport: hawking, hunting, racing and the other ways in which visitors were entertained. Overall, the book provides a great deal of detail on the management of horses in the period and also on the yearly cycle of activities of a typical aristocrat engaged in service, pleasure and power. PETER EDWARDS is an Emeritus Professor of Early Modern British Social History at the University of Roehampton. He has published numerous books including The Horse Trade of Tudor and Stuart England and Horse and Man in Early Modern England.

The essays in this volume contribute to a new understanding of the second half of the sixteenth century when England experienced the unprecedented rule of two successive queens regnant. Focusing on a diverse range of issues, from politics and personnel to ceremony and costume, and from a range of perspectives," Tudor Queenship" demonstrates that thinking about both queens at the same time can be highly suggestive, and propels us to revise, develop and understand, and to contextualize, traditional interpretations. From what Elizabeth learnt from Mary, assessments of political acumen and the significance of confessional differences this is the first volume to focus on both Mary and Elizabeth, and to consider them as Renaissance monarchs a European stage.

This volume of original essays is designed to be of interest to students not only of Bunyan, but of the history, religion and literature of the seventeenth century

This collection offers a timely reappraisal of the origins and nature of the first British empire, in response to the 'cultural turn' in historical scholarship and the 'new imperial history'. It addresses topics that have been neglected in recent literature, providing a series of political and institutional perspective; at the same time it recognises the importance of developments across the empire, not least in terms of how they affected imperial 'policy' and its implementation. It analyses a range of contemporary debates and ideas - political and intellectual as well as religious and administrative - relating to political economy, legal geography and sovereignty, as well as the messy realities of the imperial project, including the costs and losses of empire, collectively and individually. -- .

Mary I, eldest daughter of Henry VIII, was Queen of England from 1553 until her death in 1558. For much of this time she ruled alongside her husband, King Philip II of Spain, forming a co-monarchy that put England at the heart of early modern Europe. In this book, Alexander Samson presents a bold reassessment of Mary and Philip's reign, rescuing them from the neglect they have suffered at the hands of generations of historians. The co-monarchy of Mary I and Philip II put England at the heart of early modern Europe. This positive reassessment of their joint reign counters a series of parochial, misogynist and anti-Catholic assumptions, correcting the many myths that have grown up around the marriage and explaining the reasons for its persistent marginalisation in the historiography of sixteenth-century England. Using new archival discoveries and original sources, the book argues for Mary as a great Catholic queen, while fleshing out Philip's important contributions as king of England. -- .

The American press played a significant role in the transference of European civilization to America and in the shaping of American society. Settlement entrepreneurs used the press to persuade Europeans to come to America. Immigrants brought religious tracts with them to spread Puritanism and other doctrines to Native Americans and the white population. The colonists used the press to openly debate issues, print advertisements for business, and as a source of entertainment. But what did the colonists actually think about the press? The author has gathered information from primary sources to explore this question. Diaries and journals reveal how the colonists valued local news, often preferring American news to European news. This concentrated focus upon colonial attitudes and thoughts toward the press covers the period of colonial settlement from the 1500s through 1765.

This book will appeal to scholars and students of American history and communication history. Primary documents expressing the colonists' thoughts will also be of interest to scholars and students of American thought, American philosophy, and early American literature and writing.

The authors in this volume analyze spiritual kinship in Europe from the end of the Middle Ages to the Industrial Age. Uniquely comparing Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox views and practices, the chapters look at changes in theological thought over time as well as in social customs related to spiritual kinship, including godparenthood.

Church and Culture in Seventeenth-Century France brings together the social, religious and intellectual history of the Grand Siecle and focuses on the involvement of the Church in a variety of cultural domains, including literature, art, censorship and ideas. It explores the limits as well as the extent of the Church's influence, especially in its attempt to impose orthodoxy in all areas and on all sections of society. Given that orthodoxy determines the believer's inclusion or exclusion from the Church, thus implying the notion of boundaries in a context of constraint, the study is conceived according to a number of spaces. The notion of space is sometimes interpreted literally, e.g. Port-Royal, the school and the church building, and sometimes metaphorically, e.g. orthodoxy itself, science and theology. The book also deals with religious attitudes to libertinage, atheism and deism, and with aspects of French Protestantism.

This book explores the formation of the British state and national identity from 1603-1832 by examining the definitions of sovereignty and allegiance presented in treason trials. The king remained central to national identity and the state until Republican challenges forced prosecutors in treason trials to innovate and redefine sovereign authority. Although jurors resisted the change, by the 1790s parliament and prosecutors accepted that treason law protected all Britons and the general safety of the state.

Puppet, Protestant partisan, or Erasmian humanist: which, if any, was Thomas Cranmer? Although he was a key participant in the changes to English life brought about by the Reformation, his reticent nature and lack of extensive personal writings have left a vacuum. For the first time this book examines little-used manuscript sources to reconstruct Cranmer's personal and theological development.

This inter-disciplinary study is the first to consider how representations of pirates addressed both national political issues and the agenda of particular interest groups. Looking at a variety of well-known and neglected figures and texts, as well as canonical ones, it shows how attitudes to piracy and privateering were debated and contested between 1550 and 1650. This collection of broad-ranging essays by international figures offers a new perspective on an early modern cultural phenomenon, and satisfies the need for a scholarly, in-depth analysis of this important topic in Renaissance history.

Newly revised and updated, the second edition of English Catholicism 1558-1642 explores the position of Catholics in early modern English society, their political significance, and the internal politics of the Catholic community. The Elizabethan religious settlement of 1559 ostensibly outlawed Catholicism in England, while subsequent events such as the papal excommunication of Elizabeth I, the Spanish Armada, and the Gunpowder Plot led to draconian penalties and persecution. The problem of Catholicism preoccupied every English government between Elizabeth I and Charles I, even if the numbers of Catholics remained small. Nevertheless, a Catholic community not only survived in early modern England but also exerted a surprising degree of influence. Amid intense persecution, expressions of Catholicism ranged from those who refused outright to attend the parish church (recusants) to 'church papists' who remained Catholics at heart. English Catholicism 1558-1642 shows that, against all odds, Catholics remained an influential and historically significant minority of religious dissenters in early modern England. Co-authored with Francis Young, this volume has been updated to include recent developments in the historiography of English Catholicism. It is a useful introduction for all undergraduate students interested in the English Reformation and early modern English history.

A study of the life and career of one of Scotland's leading magnates during a turbulent period. George Keith, fifth Earl Marischal, is an outstanding example of long-term successful Protestant Lordship in the reign of James VI. The founder of Marischal College in Aberdeen and the towns of Peterhead and Stonehaven, reputed tobe the richest earl in Scotland, Marischal and his kindred were witness to a Scotland reeling from the consequences of the Protestant Reformation and coming to terms with their ambitious new king, who would be whisked away to England in 1603. This book explores Marischal's political struggles in the north east and at court, and his strategies in managing the kindred throughout these storms. He was economically active in estate improvement, shippingand finance, and was prominent in regional activities such as feuding and upholding local justice. An exploration of the Keiths' interaction with the Protestant Kirk redresses the notion of the "Conservative North East" of Scotland, but also reveals the conflict between earthly lordship and godly reform. Marischal, King James' "Little Fat Pork", is thus a perfect window into noble society, religion and politics in Jacobean Scotland. Dr MILES KERR-PETERSON is an affiliate in Scottish History at the University of Glasgow.

Sixteenth-century Europeans launched a struggle for order with an intensity and urgency that finds no parallels in modern European history. For the rural societies of Germany, the early sixteenth century brought massive upheavals that eroded the basis of social, political, economic, and religious life. In this probing study of village life, based on rich manuscript sources from the Old County of Hohenlohe, the author seeks to understand how petty German princes, Lutheran pastors, and villagers struggled to create order out of their confusing world. He shows that the foundations for social stability so evident in Germany after 1648 were laid in the forgotten era of German history, in the years after the early Reformation and before the Thirty Years' War.

In this book, Carl Goldstein examines the print culture of seventeenth-century France through a study of the career of Abraham Bosse, a well-known printmaker, book illustrator, and author of books and pamphlets on a variety of technical subjects. The consummate print professional, Bosse persistently explored the endless possibilities of print - single-sheet prints combining text and image, book illustration, broadsides, placards, almanacs, theses, and pamphlets. Bosse had a profound understanding of print technology as a fundamental agent of change. Unlike previous studies, which have largely focused on the printed word, this book demonstrates the extent to which the contributions of an individual printmaker and the visual image are fundamental to understanding the nature and development of early modern print culture.

What holds these essays together is the rejection of the idea of 'the birth of the modern world'. England before the Civil War was not a country welcoming a brave new world but one clinging fearfully to an old one. Change, where it happened, was not the result of a deliberate striving for 'progress', and the polity of pre-Civil War England was not on the point of collapse. Parliaments were not dominated by two 'sides' in training for a Cup Final at Naseby, but were groups of people struggling with limited success to reach agreement.

This book presents the first study of music in convent life in a single Hispanic city, Barcelona, during the early modern era. Exploring how convents were involved in the musical networks operating in sixteenth-century Barcelona, it challenges the invisibility of women in music history and reveals the intrinsic role played by nuns and lay women in the city's urban musical culture. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources, this innovative study offers a cross-disciplinary approach that not only reveals details of the rich musical life in Barcelona's nunneries, but shows how they took part in wider national and transnational networks of musical distribution, including religious, commercial, and social dimensions of music. The connections of Barcelona convents to networks for the dissemination of music in and outside the city provide a rich example of the close relationship between musical networks, urban society, and popular culture. Addressing how music was understood as a marker of identity, prestige, and social status and, above all, as a conduit between earth and heaven, this book provides new insights into how women shaped musical traditions in the urban context. It is essential reading for scholars of early modern history, musicology, history of religion, and gender studies, as well as all those with an interest in urban history and the city of Barcelona. The book is supported by additional digital appendices, which include: Records of inquiries into the lineage of Santa Maria de Jonqueres nuns Development of the collections of choir books belonging to the convents of Santa Maria de Jonqueres and Sant Antoni i Santa Clara.

As cultural practice, the early modern duel both indicated and shaped the gender assumptions of wealthy young men; it served, in fact, as a nexus for different, often competing, notions of masculinity. As Jennifer Low illustrates by examining the aggression inherent in single combat, masculinity could be understood in spatial terms, social terms, or developmental terms. Low considers each category, developing a corrective to recent analyses of gender in early modern culture by scrutinizing the relationship between social rank and the understanding of masculinity. Reading a variety of documents, including fencing manuals and anti-dueling tracts as well as plays by Shakespeare, Jonson, Middleton, and other dramatists, she demonstrates the interaction between the duel as practice, as stage-device, and as locus of early modern cultural debate.

Patrick Collinson is the leading historian of English religion in the years after the Reformation. The topics covered by this collection of essays ranges from Thomas Cranmer, who was burnt at the stake after repeated recantations in 1556, to William Sancroft, the only other post-Reformation archbishop of Canterbury to have been deprived of office. Patrick Collinson's work explores the complex interactions between the inclusive and exclusive tendencies in English Protestantism, focusing both on famous figures, such as John Foxe and Richard Hooker, and on the individual reactions of lesser figures to the religious challenges of the time. Two themes throughout are the importance of the Bible and the emergence of Puritanism inside the Church of England.

The Greek Revolution in the Age of Revolutions (1776-1848) brings together twenty-one scholars and a host of original ideas, revisionist arguments, and new information to mark the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution of 1821. The purpose of this volume is to demonstrate the significance of the Greek liberation struggle to international history, and to highlight how it was a turning point that signalled the revival of revolution in Europe after the defeat of the French Revolution in 1815. It argues that the sacrifices of rebellious Greeks paved the way for other resistance movements in European politics, culminating in the 'spring of European peoples' in 1848. Richly researched and innovative in approach, this volume also considers the diplomatic and transnational aspects of the insurrection, and examines hitherto unexplored dimensions of revolutionary change in the Greek world. This book will appeal to scholars and students of the Age of Revolution, as well as those interested in comparative and transnational history, political theory and constitutional law.

The House of Lords presented the stage on which some of the critical confrontations in English and British constitutional and political history were played out in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Published for the History of Parliament Trust. Condemned as 'useless and dangerous', the House of Lords was abolished in the revolution of 1649, shortly after the execution of King Charles I. Reinstated, along with the monarchy, at the Restoration of 1660, the House of Lords vigorously renewed its involvement in the political life of the nation. This highly illustrated book presents the first results from the research undertaken by the History of Parliament Trust on the peers and bishops between the Restoration and the accession of George I. It shows them as politicians at Westminster; as members of an elite intensely conscious of their honour and status; as a class apart, always devising new schemes - successful and unsuccessful - to increase their wealth and 'interest'; and as local grandees, to whom local society looked for leadership and protection. From the proud duke of Somerset to the beggarly Lord Mohun, from the devious earl of Oxford to the disgruntled Lord Lucas, the material here presents initial insights into the nature of the Restoration House of Lords and the men who formed it, showing them in their best moments, when they vigorously defended the law and the constitution, and in their worst, as they obsessively concerned themselves with honour and precedence and indefatigably pursued private interests. RUTH PALEY is editor, and BEVERLY ADAMS, ROBIN EAGLES and CHARLES LITTLETON are senior research fellows, for the House of Lords, 1660-1832 section of The History of Parliament. PAUL SEAWARD is director of The History of Parliament.