Category: Early Modern

The Archive Closes for Lunch

If you want to do research in Switzerland, you better learn to get up early. I always thought I was an early riser, but compared to the average Swiss person I’m clearly a sleepy head. Arriving at the Berne State Archive just after 8am on a Tuesday morning, I found that most of the other… Continue reading The Archive Closes for Lunch

Elizabeth Ludlow: The Exile’s Wife

As I am doing my research on the English republican exiles in Europe, I notice more and more what an important role was played by their wives. In particular the regicide Edmund Ludlow (1617-92), who fled to Switzerland after the Restoration of Charles II, on many occasions relied on the help of his wife Elizabeth… Continue reading Elizabeth Ludlow: The Exile’s Wife

The First Actresses and some of Charles II’s mistresses

I finally managed to see the First Actresses exhibition on a late Friday evening trip to the National Portrait Gallery after a hard day’s work at the British Library. It was entirely worth it. The NPG has a number of beautiful pictures of Nell Gwyn, Moll Davis, Hester Booth, Lavinia Fenton, Sarah Siddons, Mary Robinson… Continue reading The First Actresses and some of Charles II’s mistresses

The Fascination of The Isle of Pines (1668)

Henry Neville’s utopian travel narrative The Isle of Pines (1668) is one of my favourite pieces of literature. It tells the story of the shipwreck of an English trading vessel during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and  of the subsequent survival of one man and four women on a lonely island near terra Australis… Continue reading The Fascination of The Isle of Pines (1668)

God Save the Queen in Gotha: Early Modern Research in a German Town

The brass band on the market square is playing God Save The Queen. It’s Gotha on a Saturday night, a sleepy little German town in the former East. Overlooking the town, just up the hill from the  market, is Friedenstein Castle. Built during the Thirty Years’ War by Ernest the Pious (1601- 1675), the Lutheran… Continue reading God Save the Queen in Gotha: Early Modern Research in a German Town

Property and Power: On James Harrington’s 400th birthday

Power is founded on property. Few people nowadays would deny this doctrine. The political philosopher James Harrington formulated it in the mid-seventeenth century. Living in per-industrial England he still considered land, not money, the most important form of property. The social group that held most of the country’s land also held the largest amount of… Continue reading Property and Power: On James Harrington’s 400th birthday

Eric Nelson’s Hebrew Republic and the Importance of Jewish Sources

In his book on The Hebrew Republic, Eric Nelson sets out to refute the commonly held assumption in early modern historiography that political science came to be separated from religion over the course of the seventeenth century. Instead, he argues that the concept of the respublica Hebraeica was seen as authoritative by many political thinkers,… Continue reading Eric Nelson’s Hebrew Republic and the Importance of Jewish Sources

Charitable Hatred, or the Trouble with Tolerance in Early Modern England

In her book on ‘tolerance and intolerance’ in early modern England Alex Walsham takes a swipe at the Whiggish notion of the ‘rise of toleration’ (7) and the domination of the field by the history of ideas. Emphasisng the point that it was the moral duty of every good Christian at the time to correct… Continue reading Charitable Hatred, or the Trouble with Tolerance in Early Modern England

Shakespeare, Chaucer and Joyce: A Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Authorship

If it has never occurred to you that Chaucer might have influenced Joyce as much as Homer then you should read more medieval literature – or listen to Helen Cooper (Cambridge). Even though Joyce decided to name his Ulysses after Homer’s classical Odyssey, Cooper argues, his true ‘poetic father’ in the English language was Chaucer,… Continue reading Shakespeare, Chaucer and Joyce: A Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Authorship