-
Update: Revisiting the Court of King Charles I
Historian feature
The reputation of kings, as with all political figures, is problematical. It would be surprising if it were any other way. Yet, the monarchy of Charles I remains as controversial as ever. In this article, Michael Questier looks at two diametrically opposed contemporary accounts of monarchical authority in the Stuart...
Update: Revisiting the Court of King Charles I
-
Piecing together the life and times of Charles I
Historian article
In this article, Chris R. Langley discusses the sources we use to reconstruct the life and times of Charles I. He explains how historians can use a wide range of sources in creative ways to understand different aspects of political, cultural and religious change in the mid-seventeenth century...
Piecing together the life and times of Charles I
-
Mercurial justice: a Jesuit chaplain’s view of life in the prisons of sixteenth-century Seville
Historian article
Justice in the early modern period was discretionary, which meant it could be both violent and deeply unfair. Elites often escaped the most severe punishments inflicted on the poor and minoritised groups. Clare Burgess shows how a Jesuit chaplain in sixteenth- century Seville used his spiritual discretion and zealous belief...
Mercurial justice: a Jesuit chaplain’s view of life in the prisons of sixteenth-century Seville
-
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
Historian article
Hulks – former naval ships used as prisons for those convicted of serious crime and sentenced to transportation – were intended to be a temporary solution to a penal crisis caused by the American Revolutionary Wars. These ‘schools of vice’, or ‘floating hells’ lasted 80 years, casting a shadow over...
Schools of Vice: how a medical scandal led to the dismantling of Britain’s last prison hulks
-
Finding Bad Bridget: the lives and crimes of Irish immigrant women in America
Historian article
From the early nineteenth century until the First World War, millions of Irish women emigrated to North America in search of better lives. Elaine Farrell and Leanne McCormick, co-leads for the AHRC-funded Bad Bridget research project, tell us how poverty, discrimination, isolation from family as well as greed and opportunism...
Finding Bad Bridget: the lives and crimes of Irish immigrant women in America
-
Doing history: Contemporary narratives and the legacy of the Dagenham Ford Factory Strike of 1968
Historian feature
In this article, Zubin Burley looks at how a visit to the local archive can transform our understanding of an important event in British social history...
Doing history: Contemporary narratives and the legacy of the Dagenham Ford Factory Strike of 1968
-
Using financial records to gain insights into medieval society
Historian article
While conceding that medieval accounting and tax records can appear to be dull at first sight, Alisdair Dobie demonstrates here how they can provide fascinating insights into many aspects of life at the time. Not only do these records teach historians about economic and financial affairs: they also enhance our...
Using financial records to gain insights into medieval society
-
Female protagonists in early East India Company history
Historian article
Traditional histories of the East India Company have had a focus on the largely male characters who were involved as merchants, politicians and soldiers. Here Karin Doull considers the significance of the women who were part of the company’s story, discussing some of the issues encountered in researching and retelling...
Female protagonists in early East India Company history
-
Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
Historian article
In this article Folusho Alabi reveals a relatively unknown story from the history of the British Empire. She analyses the issues and strategic manoeuvres in an ongoing struggle between Nigerian market women and the British colonial authorities in the early twentieth century. Despite an innate imbalance of power in this struggle,...
Eastern Nigeria market women and European businesses in colonial Nigeria 1900–29
-
Out and About in Cairo
Historian feature
Nicolas Kinloch guides us round the fascinating city of Cairo.
Cairo has always been a traveller’s destination. That indefatigable explorer, ibn Battuta, arrived there in 1326, and declared that it was ‘boundless in its multitude of buildings, peerless in beauty and splendour...extending a friendly welcome to strangers’. Most of this is...
Out and About in Cairo
-
Kangxi and Louis XIV
Historian article
Recently the French and Chinese governments have joined together in a nostalgic reflection on cultural interactions between King Louis XIV and Emperor Kangxi in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As Sean Heath explains here, these modern reflections are particularly interesting for an aspect of the relationship which they...
Kangxi and Louis XIV
-
In conversation with Ayoush Lazikani
Historian feature
Ayoush Lazikani’s The Medieval Moon follows the moon between roughly 700 and 1600, tracing how it became a meeting-place for prophecy, medicine, devotion, and art across a globally conceived Middle Ages. Carolin Gluchowski met with Ayoush Lazikani to explore the many moons of the Middle Ages...
In conversation with Ayoush Lazikani
-
Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
Historian article
‘Social Darwinism’ has been associated in academia and popular consciousness with negative concepts such as hyper-nationalism and eugenics. Geoffrey M. Hodgson challenges the notion that Social Darwinism or its proponents were ever well-defined. By tracing the use of ‘Social Darwinism’ across academic disciplines and globally over a long period, Hodgson...
Social Darwinism: the myth and its reinvention
-
Edgar Ætheling: what happened to the boy who never became king?
Historian article
Edgar Ǣtheling, grandson of Edmund Ironside, was the last serious Anglo-Saxon claimant to the throne of Edward the Confessor. In this article, Jamie Page explores how his long life after 1066 sheds a fascinating light on the emerging Anglo-Norman world and its significant impact in Europe and the Middle East.
Edgar Ætheling: what happened to the boy who never became king?
-
Shadow states and armed struggle
Historian article
How did groups resisting the creation of new borders after 1947 use shadow state structures? Luke Rimmo Lego, Abigail Tamang and Sneha Singh with Laishram Bullion and Chinglai Ngamba Moirangthem explore the history of these structures and their development over the past half century.
Shadow states and armed struggle
-
Update: The Princes in the Tower
Historian feature
A subject of endless fascination for the historian, the story of the ‘princes in the Tower’ hit the news again recently, following the discovery of Richard III’s body in Leicester and Philippa Langley’s ensuing quest to show that the much-maligned king was not responsible for the princes’ deaths. In this...
Update: The Princes in the Tower
-
In conversation with Elizabeth King
Historian feature
Elizabeth King’s Miracles and Machines (2023) is a vivid, searching account of a small sixteenth-century automaton – a robed figure, nicknamed ‘the monk’ – that walks, beats its breast, turns its head, and appears to pray. Co-authored with clockmaker David Todd, the book is at once a material history of an extraordinary...
In conversation with Elizabeth King
-
Why was it so important to see Dunkirk as a triumph rather than a disaster in 1940?
Historian article
Karin Doull investigates the perceptions of the outcome of the Dunkirk evacuation within the contextual framework of the time at which it occurred.
In May 1940 the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and a proportion of the French First Army group had withdrawn, under heavy fighting to the port of Dunkirk on the...
Why was it so important to see Dunkirk as a triumph rather than a disaster in 1940?
-
German universities under the Nazis
Historian article
In this article A.D. Harvey draws out the influence that Nazism and Nazi practices had on German universities and their staff. He explores how some university professors were active members of the party while others saw a chance of advancement by becoming conduits of the Nazi ideas. Finally he considers...
German universities under the Nazis
-
Coroners, communities, and the Crown: mapping death and justice in late medieval England
Historian article
Life in medieval cities could be violent and dangerous, and the records generated by state officials charged with regulating that violence offer invaluable insight into everyday life. Stephanie Emma Brown takes us behind the scenes of the recently launched Medieval Murder Map project, which was based on coroners’ rolls, to...
Coroners, communities, and the Crown: mapping death and justice in late medieval England
-
James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
Historian article
James Macpherson led a notorious gang of robbers in late seventeenth-century Scotland, and he became infamous for robbing rich lairds to give to the poor. Anne-Marie Kilday explains how his notoriety is also significant for revealing how people in early modern Scotland could hold complex attitudes towards the Gypsy Roma...
James Macpherson: a Scottish Robin Hood
-
Out and About: Locating the Local Lockup
Historian feature
If you are arrested for a crime today, you will very likely be taken to a police station and locked in a cell while officers decide if they have enough evidence to charge you. But have you ever wondered what happened to criminals and other disorderly folk – roughs, drunks...
Out and About: Locating the Local Lockup
-
Decoding medieval pilgrimage
Historian article
Pilgrimage played a significant role in medieval life and belief. Pilgrims travelled far and wide to express their devotion to saints and their cults. Who were the pilgrims and what did pilgrimage involve? Luke Daly makes sense of this fascinating and complex phenomenon...
Decoding medieval pilgrimage
-
In conversation with Lyndal Roper
Historian feature
This year is the 500th anniversary of the German Peasants’ War (1524–25), the largest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French Revolution. The Peasants’ War broke out a few years after Martin Luther published his Ninety-Five Theses (1517) that launched the Reformation and inspired the peasants’ demands, although Luther...
In conversation with Lyndal Roper
-
The Waggoners’ Memorial
Historian article
Paula Kitching introduces a very remarkable First World War memorial to a specific group of Yorkshire workers.
The Waggoners’ Memorial
