Culture

The definitions of what is culture may change but the practice of understanding, and unpicking cultural history is an important dimension to understanding any historical period. In this section articles explore the way that definitions of culture have changed and how those changes have affected values and attitudes.  The impact of the written word on fashions and ideas and the role of historic movements such as the renaissance are all addressed in this section.

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  • The Venerable Bede: recent research

    Article

    The eighth-century monk is renowned as the ‘Father of English History’, but recent scholarship has demonstrated how important he was as a scientist and theologian and how his writings on the Bible can illuminate his famous history.

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  • Podcast: Medlicott Lecture 2018 - Justin Champion

    Article

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  • The Borgia: from fact to fiction

    Article

    For their meeting in September 2017 the Bolton Branch requested a talk on Renaissance Italy. What they heard dealt with the Italian portion of the Borgia family, led by Pope Alexander VI, though the topicality of Catalan nationalism meant that the principal figures were introduced with comment on the Italian,...

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  • My Favourite History Place: Lord Street, Southport

    Article

    Trevor James introduces an international dimension to local history, revealing how a future French Emperor interpreted his affection for Southport’s Lord Street into the extensive redesign of Parisian streets.

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  • ‘Our March’: art and culture in the Russian Revolution

    Article

    Peter Waldron explores the role of art in communicating to the masses the ideas of politics and change in Bolshevik Russia.

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  • King James’s Book of Sports, 1617

    Article

    Forty years after his higher degree research into the history of sport, Trevor James explores the much wider context in which that research now stands. Four hundred years ago, in 1617, James I made a decisive intervention into the simmering debate which had existed since the puritanical upsurge in Queen...

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  • A tale of two statues

    Article

    Dave Martin relates how the statue of one of our imperial ‘heroes’ prompted a campaign to have it taken down while the statue of another imperial ‘hero’ prompted a fund-raising campaign for its repair. As the tide of Empire ebbed across the globe vestiges of British rule remained, some great,...

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  • The Somme: a last innings for Yorkshire and England

    Article

    Ronan Thomas explores a tragic sporting outcome of the Battle of the Somme. At the centenary of the Battle of the Somme, the losses suffered by the British Army still have the power to shock. On 1 July 1916 alone nearly 60,000 men became casualties, of whom almost 20,000 were...

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  • Earth in vision: Enviromental Broadcasting

    Article

    Joe Smith, Kim Hammond and George Revill share some of the findings of their work examining what digital broadcast archives are available and which could be made available in future.  The BBC’s archives hold over a million hours of programmes, dating back to the 1930s (radio) and 1940s (television). It...

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  • Henry V in the cinema

    Article

    Public attitudes to Henry V are very much influenced by WilliamShakespeare's interpretation. Richard Inverne discusses howShakespeare's version has been translated into cinematic form byLaurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh. Shakespeare indulges himself considerably with his own relatively recent history - Richards II and III, Henrys IV, V and VI, for example....

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  • Podcast Series: The Spanish Golden Age

    Multipage Article

    An HA Podcasted History of the Spanish Golden Age featuring Dr Glyn Redworth of Manchester University and Dr Francois Soyer of the University of Southampton.

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  • Podcast Series: The Renaissance

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Gabriele Neher of the University of Nottingham provides an introduction to the Renaissance.

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  • Puritan attitudes towards plays and pleasure in the Age of Shakespeare

    Article

    In Twelfth Night Shakespeare gently mocked the Puritans, who objected to stage plays and other entertainments. Yet within four decades, the Puritans had closed the London theatres and were about to seize power from Charles I. Among their many reforms were the banning of Christmas celebrations and of Twelfth Night itself....

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  • Podcast: Ancient Greece & Rome - Similarities and Differences

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Ursula Rothe & Dr Colin Andrews of the Open University discuss how social, moral and religious life in Rome differed from that of ancient Greece.

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  • Podcast: Latin Poets and their Role in Roman Society

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Joanna Paul & Dr Paula James of the Open University discuss the role and significance of the Latin Poets in Roman society.

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  • Podcast: Ancient Greek Drama

    Multipage Article

    In this podcast Dr Fiona Hobden of the University of Liverpool discusses what Greek tragedy and comedy tell us about the society of Ancient Greece and what has been the legacy of the great writers of this period.

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  • Travel

    Article

    Perhaps I should start by saying what impels me to visit remote places, and that means saying what I'm not. I'm not an anthropologist: I have attempted to read anthropological texts, and confess to finding them amazingly dull when compared with what they're attempting to describe. There are exceptions: Piers...

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  • Historical Fiction: warts and all

    Article

    The perception is that, for historical fiction, this is the best of times. It has never been more popular: witness the 2012 Christmas day schedule-jostling between Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife. It has never been more literary: witness Hilary Mantel winning her second Man Booker prize for Bring Up the...

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  • Food, history and a sense of place?

    Article

    It ought to be possible to match many of the letters of the alphabet to an English place-name and its particular food-stuff. From Bath Buns to Yorkshire Pudding, this puzzle might go, by way of cakes from Eccles and Pontefract. Can you think of other letters of the alphabet and...

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  • Men's Beards and Women's Backsides

    Article

    Since the late Middle Ages periods in which it was fashionable for men to be clean-shaven have alternated in Europe with periods in which it was fashionable for men to wear beards. In some periods clean-shavenness went together with long hair, at others beards went together with short hair, and...

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