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Journals of the natural world reveal fascinating details of life at
the time. These two journals, kept by Quakers in north-east and
north-west England respectively, record in careful detail weather
and agricultural events of their time and regions. But they also
observe all manner of other things and events. The journal of John
Chipchase, schoolmaster of Stockton-upon-Tees, recently came to
light for the very first time in a Montreal university library. It
has much to say about weather and crops, but also meteor showers
and the aurora borealis, lightning strikes, fatal diseases, fishing
and fishkills, the homing instincts of cats, the life cycle of
snails, fierce gales and consequent shipwrecks, and both the causes
and local reactions to the near-famine of 1795. Elihu Robinson's
record of weather, crops and prices has only been known in
manuscript form to a few specialists. Possessed of both a barometer
and thermometer, his sometimes even daily observations are
remarkably meticulous. As an active Quaker, he also offers a rich
description of their life and organization in the Northwest. Taken
together, these journals suggest something of the intellectual and
cultural bent of two publicly engaged menof their time, both of
middling status and informal education, living far from the
cosmopolitan world of London and the universities. ROBERT TITTLER
is Distinguished Professor of History Emeritus at Concordia
University in Montreal, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of
Canada.
A rare examination of the political, social, and economic contexts
in which painters in Tudor and Early Stuart England lived and
worked While famous artists such as Holbein, Rubens, or Van Dyck
are all known for their creative periods in England or their
employment at the English court, they still had to make ends meet,
as did the less well-known practitioners of their craft. This book,
by one of the leading historians of Tudor and Stuart England, sheds
light on the daily concerns, practices, and activities of many of
these painters. Drawing on a biographical database comprising
nearly 3000 painters and craftsmen - strangers and native English,
Londoners and provincial townsmen, men and sometimes women,
celebrity artists and 'mere painters' - this book offers an account
of what it meant to paint for a living in early modern England. It
considers the origins of these painters as well as their
geographical location, the varieties of their expertise, and the
personnel and spatial arrangements of their workshops. Engagingly
written, the book captures a sense of mobility and exchange between
England and the continent through the considerable influence of
stranger-painters, undermining traditional notions about the
insular character of this phase in the history of English art. By
showing how painters responded to the greater political, religious,
and economic upheavals of the time, the study refracts the history
of England itself through the lens of this particular occupation.
Until recently, the reign of Mary Tudor was generally seen as a
'sterile interlude in the Tudor century, with Mary herself
dismissed asBloody Mary. Extensive research in the past several
decades has overturned these assumptions in almost every respect.
In this succinct and up-to-date introduction to Mary's reign,
Tittler and Richards provide new insight into the circumstances of
Mary's accession and go on to show that her reign was a lot more
stable, and her regime much more competent and innovative, than
once believed. This fully revised third edition includes a diverse
range of primary sources and sheds new light on a variety of
topics, such as: The complexities of Mary's relations with Philip
of Spain The restoration of Catholicism The use of visual as well
as literary means to legitimize and support Mary's rule The context
for the war with France This concise and thought-provoking
introduction is ideal for students and interested readers at all
levels.
Until recently, the reign of Mary Tudor was generally seen as a
'sterile interlude' in the Tudor century, with Mary herself
dismissed as 'Bloody Mary'. Extensive research in the past several
decades has overturned these assumptions in almost every respect.
In this succinct and up-to-date introduction to Mary's reign,
Tittler and Richards provide new insight into the circumstances of
Mary's accession and go on to show that her reign was a lot more
stable, and her regime much more competent and innovative, than
once believed. This fully revised third edition includes a diverse
range of primary sources and sheds new light on a variety of
topics, such as: * The complexities of Mary's relations with Philip
of Spain * The restoration of Catholicism * The use of visual as
well as literary means to legitimize and support Mary's rule * The
context for the war with France This concise and thought-provoking
introduction is ideal for students and interested readers at all
levels.
Our conventional understanding of English portraiture from the
age of Holbein and Henry VIII on to Reubens, VanDyck and Charles I
clings to the mainstream images of royalty and aristocracy and to
the succession of known practitioners of 'Renaissance'
portraiture.In almost every respect, the 'civic' portraits examined
here stand in sharp contrast to these traditional narratives.
Depicting mayors and aldermen, livery company masters, school and
college heads, they were meant to be read as statements about the
civic leaders and civic institutions rather than about the sitters
in their own right. Displayed in civic premises rather than country
homes, exemplifying civic rather than personal virtues, and usually
commissioned by institutions rather than their sitters, they have
yet to be considered as a type of their own, or in their
appropriate social and political context.This fascinating work will
appeal to both art historians and historians of early modern
Britain.
The century bounded by the Henrician Reformation and the Civil Wars
marked an important stage in the development of urban institutions,
culture, and society in England. At the outset of this period,
England was still very much an agrarian society; by its end, it was
well on the way to becoming an urban one as well. The complexity
and subtlety of those developments become especially vivid when we
experience them through the lives of more or less ordinary
townspeople, which Tittler allows us to do here.
These biographical studies not only have much to tell us about the
time and milieu, but also provide an array of interesting and
varied characters: Henry Manship, the historian of his native
Yarmouth; Henry Hardware, who removed "the giant, the naked boys
and the devil in feathers" from Chester's Midsummer Show; Robert
Swaddon the swindler and John Pulman the "thief-taker" of London;
Joyce Jeffries, the spinster money-lender of Hereford; John Brown,
the speculator in dissolved monastic lands in Boston; John Pitt,
the overseer of guildhall construction in Blandford Forum; John and
Joan Cooke, the Mayor and Mayoress of Gloucester, the subjects of a
most revealing posthumous portrait; and Sir Thomas White of London,
the philanthropist and "merchant hero." Tittler introduces these
studies with a comprehensive but succinct description of English
towns and cities of the time.
Robert Tittler investigates the growing affinity for secular
portraiture in Tudor and early Stuart England, a cultural and
social phenomenon which can be said to have produced a 'public' for
that genre. He breaks new ground in placing portrait patronage and
production in this era in the broad social and cultural context of
post-Reformation England, and in distinguishing between native
English provincial portraiture, which was often highly vernacular,
and foreign-influenced portraiture of the court and metropolis,
which tended towards the formal and 'polite'. Tittler describes the
burgeoning public for portraiture of this era as more than the
familiar court-and-London based presence, but rather as a
phenomenon which was surprisingly widespread both socially and
geographically throughout the realm. He suggests that provincial
portraiture differed from the 'mainstream', cosmopolitan
portraiture of the day in its workmanship, materials, inspirations,
and even vocabulary, showing how its native English roots continued
to guide its production. Innovative chapters consider the aims and
vocabulary of English provincial portraiture, the relationship of
portraiture and heraldry, the painter's occupation in provincial
(as opposed to metropolitan) England, and the contrasting
availability of materials and training in both provincial and
metropolitan areas. The work as a whole contributes to both art
history and social history; it speaks to admirers and collectors of
painting as well as to curators and academics.
This is an important new analysis of the secular impact of the Reformation on English towns. It shows how the transfer of property, coupled with new statutory responsibilities and the destruction of a doctrine-based political culture, enabled many towns to extend their holdings and increase their institutional authority. An altered civic ethos emerged, marking a significant new phase in urban history.
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