The execution of Charles I in 1649, followed by the proclamation of a Commonwealth, was an extraordinary political event. It followed a bitter Civil War between parliament and the king, and their total failure to negotiate a subsequent peace settlement.

Why the king was defeated and executed has been a central question in English history, being traced back to the Reformation and forward to the triumph of parliament in the eighteenth century. The old answers, whether those of the Victorian narrative historian S.R. Gardiner or of Lawrence Stone's diagnosis of a fatal long-term rift in English society, however, no longer satisfy, while the newer ones of local historians and 'revisionists' often leave readers unclear as to why the Civil War happened at all.

In "Why Was Charles I Executed?" Clive Holmes supplies clear answers to eight key questions about the period, ranging from why the king had to summon the Long Parliament to whether there was in fact an English Revolution.

Reformation Fictions rehabilitates some twenty polemical dialogues published in Elizabethan England, for the first time giving them a literary, historicist and, to a lesser extent, theological reading. By juxtaposing these Elizabethan publications with key Lutheran and Calvinist dialogues, theological tracts, catechisms, sermons, and dramatic interludes, Antoinina Bevan Zlatar explores how individual dialogists exploit the fictionality of their chosen genre.
Writers like John Veron, Anthony Gilby, George Gifford, John Nicholls, Job Throckmorton, and Arthur Dent, to name the most prolific, not only understood the dialogue's didactic advantages over other genres, they also valued it as a strategic defence against the censor. They were convinced, as Erasmus had been before them, that a cast of lively characters presented antithetically, often with a liberal dose of Lucianic humour, worked wonders with carnal readers. Here was an exemplary way to make doctrine entertaining and memorable, here was the honey to make the medicine go down. They knew too that these dialogues, particularly their use of manifestly imaginary interlocutors and a plot of conversion, licensed the delivery of singularly radical messages.
What comes to light is a body of literature, often scurrilous, always serious, that gives us access to early modern concepts of fiction, rhetoric, and satire. It showcases the imagery of Protestant polemic against Catholicism, and puritan invective against the established Elizabethan Church, all the while triggering the frisson that comes from the illusion of eavesdropping on early modern conversations.

Camillo Agrippa's widely influential "Treatise on the Science of Arms" was a turning point in the history of fencing. The author - an engineer by trade and not a professional master of arms - was able to radically re-imagine teaching the art of fencing. Agrippa's treatise is the fundamental text of Western swordsmanship. Just as earlier swordsmanship can be better understood from Agrippa's critiques, so too was his book the starting point for the rapier era. Every other treatise of the early-modern period had to deal explicitly or implicitly with Agrippa's startling transformation of the art and science of self-defense with the sword. Likewise, all of the fundamental ideas that are still used today - distance, time, line, blade opposition, counterattacks and countertime - are expressed in this paradigm-shifting treatise. This is a work that should be on the bookshelf of anyone interested in the history, practice or teaching of fencing. His treatise was also a microcosm of sixteenth-century thought. It examines the art, reduces it to its very principles, and reconstructs it according to a way of thinking that incorporated new concepts of art, science and philosophy. Contained within this handy volume are concrete examples of a new questioning of received wisdom and a turn toward empirical proofs, hallmarks of the Enlightenment. The treatise also presents evidence for a redefinition of elite masculinity in the wake of the military revolution of the sixteenth century. At the same time, is offers suggestive clues to the place of the hermetic tradition in the early-modern intellectual life and its implications for the origins of modern science. Camillo Agrippa's "Treatise on the Science of Arms" was first published in Rome in 1553 by the papal printer Antonio Blado. The original treatise was illustrated with 67 engravings that belong to the peak of Renaissance design. They are reproduced here in full. "Mondschein has at last made available to English-speaking readers one of the most important texts in the history of European martial arts. Agrippa marks a turning point in the intellectual history of these arts.... Mondschein's introduction to his work helps the reader understand Agrippa - and the martial practices themselves - as pivotal agents in the evolving cultural and intellectual systems of the sixteenth century. Above all, Mondschein's translation is refreshingly clean and idiomatic, rendering the systematic clarity of the Italian original into equally clear modern English - evidence of the author's familiarity with modern fencing and understanding of the physical realities that his author is trying to express. Mondschein's contextualization of his topic points the way for future scholarly exploration, and his translation will doubtless be valued by both students of cultural history and practitioners of modern sword arts." - Dr. Jeffrey L. Forgeng, Paul S. Morgan Curator -Higgins Armory Museum, Adj. Assoc. Prof. of Humanities, Worcester Polytechnic Institute First English translation. Hardcover, 234 pages, 67 illustrations, introduction, bibliography, glossary, appendix, index."

This book examines the political and social impact of English overseas merchants during the upheavals of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. It explores the merchant societies of London, York, and Liverpool, and illuminates the growing prominence of the overseas trader in the press and in Parliament.

Ddie vierde van vyf boeke oor vroeë blanke vestiging aan die Kaap. Hier word die vestigingsjare van die Nederlandse kolonie aan die Kaap beskryf. Die kommandeurs wat op Jan van Riebeeck gevolg het, staan in sy skadu en kry gewoonlik nie baie aandag in die geskiedenisboeke nie.

In die eerste hoofstukke van hierdie boek val die kollig egter op Zacharias Wagenaer, Cornelius van Quaelberg, Isband Goske en Joan Bax en hulle span VOC-amptenare. In die laaste deel van die boek kom die uitbreiding van die blanke nedersetting na die binneland en die totstandkoming van ’n klas gegoede en gevestigde vryburgers, onder die aandag. Die eerste vryburgers het mense ingesluit soos Steven Jansz Botma, W.C. Mostaert en die Duitser Jacob Cloete, wie se nasate vandag bekende Afrikaanse families vorm. Schoeman beskryf hoe hierdie vryburgers naas hulle boerderybedrywighede ook ander klein ondernemings begin het, soos taphuise, steenmakery en kleremakery.

Aan die hand van boedelinventarisse word nagegaan hoe party van die eens arm vryburgers geleidelik meer grond, vee, implemente en meubels kon bekom, ’n aanduiding van die toenemende welvaart van wat sou uitgroei tot ’n Kaapse elite.

Greece Reinvented discusses the transformation of Byzantine Hellenism as the cultural elite of Byzantium, displaced to Italy, constructed it. It explores why and how Byzantine migrants such as Cardinal Bessarion, Ianus Lascaris, and Giovanni Gemisto adopted Greek personas to replace traditional Byzantine claims to the heirship of ancient Rome. In Greece Reinvented, Han Lamers shows that being Greek in the diaspora was both blessing and burden, and explores how these migrants' newfound 'Greekness' enabled them to create distinctive positions for themselves while promoting group cohesion. These Greek personas reflected Latin understandings of who the Greeks 'really' were but sometimes also undermined Western paradigms. Greece Reinvented reveals some of the cultural tensions that bubble under the surface of the much-studied transmission of Greek learning from Byzantium to Italy.

This volume presents one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship: The Compendium of Chronicles, written by the vizier to the Mongol Ilkhans of Iran, Rashiduddin Fazlullah. It includes a valuable survey of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples, a history of Genghis Khan's ancestors, and a detailed account of his conquests. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler M. Thackston, provides a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

This volume explores the transition from the old regime to modern forms of sovereignty in the Middle East. By rereading Tocqueville's classic, "The Old Regime and the French Revolution," through an Ottoman prism this study probes the unresolved paradoxes in his analysis of institutional change while documenting an old regime that has remained in the shadows of modern history. Each section of the book explores a specific dimension of Ottoman sovereignty - space, hierarchy, and vernacular governance - through a detailed examination of a particular 18th century document. An Ottoman perspective on the eighteenth century not only furnishes critical pieces of the old-regime puzzle. It also illustrates how an uncritical reception of Tocqueville's model of modernization has obscured the ongoing interaction between the "Eurasian" and Westphalian state systems and parallel processes of sociopolitical change.

From 1649-1660 England was ruled by a standing army for the only time in its history. In The Army in Cromwellian England Henry Reece describes, for the first time, the nature of that experience, both for members of the army and for civilian society.
Split into three parts, the first section looks at the size of the army, its material needs, promotion structure, and political engagement to provide a sense of the day-to-day reality of being part of a standing army. The second part considers the impact of the military presence on society by establishing where soldiers were quartered, how they were paid, the material burden that they represented, the divisive effects of the army's patronage of religious radicals, and the extensive involvement of army officers in the government of the localities. The final section re-evaluates the army's role in the political events from Cromwell's death to the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, and explains why the army crumbled so pitifully in the last months of the Commonwealth.

Music and the Commedia dell'Arte narrates the story of the most famous commedia dell'arte troupe of the late Renaissance, focusing in particular on the representation of women on stage and on the role of music-making in their craft. It provides a rich context for the study of musical-theatrical performance before the advent of opera and re-defines our perceptions of women, music and theatre in the Renaissance.

William Stephens was Secretary of the Province of Georgia from 1737 to 1750 and was President from 1741 for ten years. He was sent to America by the Trustees of Georgia, who resided in London, to keep them informed on conditions in the colony. Besides writing numerous letters to the Trustees, Stephens kept a journal which he sent to them periodically. The journal down to 1741 was printed by the Trustees. Here in this volume (and the volume for 1743-1745) the continuation of the journal is published for the first time. Through his journal Stephens undertook to inform the Trustees of everything which happened in Georgia, from the most trivial to the most important. This close-up view of Georgia, the details of the everyday life of the people, and the record of significant development in the colony all make his journal a valuable document in American colonial history.

In medieval and early modern Britain, people would refer to their local district as their 'country', a term now largely forgotten but still used up until the First World War. Core groups of families that remained rooted in these 'countries', often bearing distinctive surnames still in use today, shaped local culture and passed on their traditions. In The Grass Roots of English History, David Hey examines the differing nature of the various local societies that were found throughout England in these periods. The book provides an update on the progress that has been made in recent years in our understanding of the history of ordinary people living in different types of local societies throughout England, and demonstrates the value of studying the varied landscapes of England, from towns to villages, farmsteads, fields and woods to highways and lanes, and historic buildings from cathedrals to cottages. With its broad coverage from the medieval period up to the Industrial Revolution, the book shows how England's socio-economic landscape had changed over time, employing evidence provided by archaeology, architecture, botany, cultural studies, linguistics and historical demography. The Grass Roots of English History provides an up-to-date account of the present state of knowledge about ordinary people in local societies throughout England written by an authority in the field, and as such will be of great value to all scholars of local and family history.

This pioneering study is the first to examine all the English settlements attempted in Ireland during the years 1580-1650. The author looks at the arguments in favour of a "plantation" policy and Irish responses to it in practice. He places what happened in Ireland in the context of events in England, Scotland, Continental Europe, and England's Atlantic colonies.

This volume presents one of the most important historical sources for medieval Islamic scholarship - Khwandamir's "The Reign of the Mongol and the Turk". It covers the major empires and dynasties of the Persianate world from the 13th to the 16th century, including the conquests of the Mongols, Tamerlane, and the rise of the Safavids. Distinguished linguist and orientalist, Wheeler M. Thackston, provides a lucid, annotated translation that makes this key material accessible to a wide range of scholars.

This book explores the strengths and weaknesses of the English state in the sixteenth century. It examines the relationship between monarchy and people in Cornwall and Devon, and the complex interaction between local and national political culture. Popular resistance to the Reformation, and the rebellions of 1497 and 1548-9, are set against the strategies employed by the crown to cultivate the allegiance of its subjects. Royal propaganda, both literary and visual, is identified as a key factor in the development of patriotism and the nation state. This book offers a fresh understanding of government at the allegedly dangerous edges of Tudor England.

A large number of enciphered documents survived from early modern Hungary. This area was a particularly fertile territory where cryptographic methods proliferated, because a large portion of the population was living in the frontier zone, and participated (or was forced to participate) in the network of the information flow. A quantitative analysis of sixteenth-century to seventeenth-century Hungarian ciphers (300 cipher keys and 1,600 partly or entirely enciphered letters) reveals that besides the dominance of diplomatic use of cryptography, there were many examples of YprivateOE applications too. This book reconstructs the main reasons and goals why historical actors chose to use ciphers in a diplomatic letter, a military order, a diary or a private letter, what they decided to encrypt, and how they perceived the dangers threatening their messages.

This book contains twenty essays on Italian Renaissance humanism, universities, and Jesuit education by one of its most distinguished living historians, Paul. F. Grendler. The first section of the book opens with defining Renaissance humanism, followed by explorations of biblical humanism and humanistic education in Venice. It concludes with essays on two pioneering historians of humanism, Georg Voigt and Paul Oskar Kristeller. The middle section discusses Italian universities, the sports played by university students, a famous law professor, and the controversy over the immortality of the soul. The last section analyzes Jesuit education: the culture of the Jesuit teacher, the philosophy curriculum, attitudes toward Erasmus and Juan Luis Vives, and the education of a cardinal. This volume collects Paul Grendler's most recent research (published and unpublished), offering to the reader a broad fresco on a complex and crucial age in the history of education.

This title presents the European Reformation as seen through the life of an important but little-known participant-Philipp of Hesse, a nobleman who became a Reformation leader in Germany. The Reformation was the most cataclysmic event in Western Christianity. An ideal resource for undergraduate history students and general readers, this title provides an accessible human narrative through the complex events of the period that many find bewildering. History comes alive and events unfold through the eyes of Philipp of Hesse, a German nobleman who ascended to becoming a key Reformation leader. The book begins with a detailed survey of the Holy Roman Empire at the turn of the 16th century and provides chronological coverage of Philipp's life and role in the Reformation through to after his death in 1567, after which Calvinism rose within the empire. The chapters document how Philipp of Hesse knew every major figure of the German Reformation; participated in every major Reformation-era imperial diet; was present at every important event in the Lutheran-dominated, foundational period of 1521 to 1555; and became a leading Lutheran prince in the Holy Roman Empire. Additionally, the work thoroughly documents the connections between religion, politics, and society and explains the important role of the German nobility in the development of the Reformation. Provides a fresh approach to a curricular staple topic that is critical to the understanding of early modern history, the history of religion, and the current state of Christianity Enables readers to understand how the events of the Reformation unfolded by viewing the events through the perspective of one man central to the cause and demonstrating how certain individuals' convictions led to the theology that followed

Drugs and Theater in Early Modern England asks why Shakespeare and his contemporary playwrights were so preoccupied with drugs and poisons and, at a deeper level, why both critics and supporters of the theater, as well as playwrights themselves, so frequently adopted a chemical vocabulary to describe the effects of the theater on audiences. Drawing upon original medical and literary research, Pollard shows that the potency of the link between drugs and plays in the period demonstrates a model of drama radically different than our own, a model in which plays exert a powerful impact on spectators' bodies as well as minds. Early modern physiology held that the imagination and emotions were part of the body, and exerted a material impact on it, yet scholars of medicine and drama alike have not recognised the consequences of this idea. Plays, which alter our emotions and thought, simultaneously change us physically. This book argues that the power of the theater in early modern England, as well as the striking hostility to it, stems from the widely held contemporary idea that drama acted upon the body as well as the mind. In yoking together pharmacy and theater, this book offers a new model for understanding the relationship between texts and bodies. Just as bodies are constituted in part by the imaginative fantasies they consume, the theater's success (and notoriety) depends on its power over spectators' bodies. Drugs, which conflate concerns about unreliable appearances and material danger, evoked fascination and fear in this period by identifying a convergence point between the imagination and the body, the literary and the scientific, the magical and the rational. This book explores that same convergence point, and uses it to show the surprising physiological powers attributed to language, and especially to the embodied language of the theater.

Behemoth is Thomas Hobbes's narrative of the English Civil Wars from the beginning of the Scottish revolution in 1637 to the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1660, and is his only composition to address directly the history of the events which formed the context of his writings in Leviathan and elsewhere on sovereignty and the government of the Church. Although presented as an account of past events, it conceals a vigorous attack on the values of the religious and political establishment of Restoration England. This is the first fully scholarly edition of the work, and the first new edition of the text since 1889. Based on Hobbes's own presentation manuscript, it includes for the first time an accurate transcription of the passages which Hobbes had deleted in the text, and notes made by early readers.

Benjamin Franklin Morris' monumental work on the Christian roots of America.

Universities were driving forces of change in late Renaissance Italy. The Gonzaga, the ruling family of Mantua, had long supported scholarship and dreamed of founding an institution of higher learning within the city. In the early seventeenth century they joined forces with the Jesuits, a powerful intellectual and religious force, to found one of the most innovative universities of the time.

Paul F. Grendler provides the first book in any language about the Peaceful University of Mantua, its official name. He traces the efforts of Duke Ferdinando Gonzaga, a prince savant who debated Galileo, as he made his family's dream a reality. Ferdinando negotiated with the Jesuits, recruited professors, and financed the school. Grendler examines the motivations of the Gonzaga and the Jesuits in the establishment of a joint civic and Jesuit university.

The University of Mantua lasted only six years, lost during the brutal sack of the city by German troops in 1630. Despite its short life, the university offered original scholarship and teaching. It had the first professorship of chemistry more than 100 years before any other Italian university. The leading professor of medicine identified the symptoms of angina pectoris 140 years before an English scholar named the disease. The star law professor advanced new legal theories while secretly spying for James I of England. The Jesuits taught humanities, philosophy, and theology in ways both similar to and different from lay professors.

A superlative study of education, politics, and culture in seventeenth-century Italy, this book reconsiders a period in Italy's history often characterized as one of feckless rulers and stagnant learning. Thanks to extensive archival research and a thorough examination of the published works of the university's professors, Grendler's history tells a new story.