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Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
Historian article
Much research has been devoted in recent years to Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People (EH), completed in 731 at the joint monastery of Monkwearmouth-Jarrow; but in one crucial respect little progress has been made: the editing of the text. The excellent edition published by Charles Plummer in 1896...
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People
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The Historian 153: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 153: The Baltic
It once seemed natural for anyone leaving Britain to go south, rather than north. There were practical reasons for this. British tourists understandably wanted sunshine, and a sea they could swim in without first taking a deep breath: the Mediterranean provided both. If they...
The Historian 153: Out now
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My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
Historian feature
A Secret Uncovered, A Mystery Unsolved
Sutton Hoo is a sandy heathland overlooking the estuary of the River Deben in Suffolk. In Old English a ‘hoo' is a promontory, ‘sutton' is southern, and ‘tun' is a settlement. Historians have known for years that the fields were farmed in the Iron...
My Favourite History Place: Sutton Hoo
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The Uses of History in the Twenty First Century
Historian article
During the last century or so there has developed a new ‘public role’ for history: the past as personal history, a vital element in the nourishing of people in society. During the past decades a new perception of what history is has manifested itself on two levels: first a shift of...
The Uses of History in the Twenty First Century
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The Historian 152: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 152: Built environment
From its inception The Historian has been built on the voluntary efforts of both its editorial leadership and also its contributors. This voluntary context has been delivered in as professional a manner as possible. One of our recent strategies has been to identify a...
The Historian 152: Out now
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The Historian 148: Out now
The magazine of the Historical Association
Read The Historian 148
How many times are we all going to write ‘it’s been an odd year’? – I know I have now written it many times, yet it has affected schedules and output here at the HA. So I am very sorry that this edition of The Historian...
The Historian 148: Out now
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From Norwich to Nara
Historian article
Simon Kaner explores the fascinating parallels revealed by the international research project From Nara to Norwich between life and religious belief at the ends of the Silk Roads.
Nara is the ancient capital region of Japan. The eighth century imperial treasury, the Shōsōin, with its treasures from China and central Asia, is...
From Norwich to Nara
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Protestantism and art in early modern England
Article
“I am greatly honoured to receive the Medlicott medal and I thank the President for his much-too-kind remarks. It is fifty years since I attended my first meeting of the Historical Association and heard a lecture by Professor Medlicott himself, no less. The Association does a wonderful job in encouraging...
Protestantism and art in early modern England
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Cartooning King Cotton
Historian article
While cartoons have been widely used by historians of ‘High Politics’ or diplomacy, they have been used less often by social historians. Alan Fowler and Terry Wyke examine a source for the social history of the Lancashire cotton industry. Cartoons have long held a fascination for historians, though when using...
Cartooning King Cotton
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Historical Diary: An Eighteenth-Century Gap Year
Historian article
Historical diaries written by children are rare and only seven from England and the United States written before 1800 are known to have survived. One of these, found tucked away in the London Metropolitan Archive, is the diary of William Hugh Burgess, a fifteen year-old boy who grew up in...
Historical Diary: An Eighteenth-Century Gap Year
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More than skin deep: unmasking the history of cold cream
Historian article
From the ancient Mediterranean to the shelves of twenty-first century pharmacies and cosmetic counters, cold cream has a long history. In this article, Farhana Qayoom Shaikh explores how Galen’s simple formula for treating skin complaints transitioned over the centuries into a luxury beauty product.
More than skin deep: unmasking the history of cold cream
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Doing history: reconstructing the life of physician, psychiatrist and anthropologist James Cowles Prichard
Historian feature
Margaret Crump’s Doing History explains how she went about researching the life of a Victorian scientist, gathering material about the man himself from a variety of sources including newspapers, genealogical databases, and archives, supplemented by contextual knowledge of the period.
Doing history: reconstructing the life of physician, psychiatrist and anthropologist James Cowles Prichard
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My Favourite History Place: The Great House of Mercers Creek
Historian feature
The tropical island of Antigua is a tourist heaven, but Gabriella Howell’s research into her family property, the Great House of Mercers Creek, shows how over the centuries, a varied history has shaped the experience of visitors and residents alike. From the enslaved and missionaries to admirals and film stars,...
My Favourite History Place: The Great House of Mercers Creek
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From our branches: Conwy Borough Branch
Historian feature
A new branch of the Historical Association has recently opened in North Wales. In this article, branch founders Morgan Ditchburn and Gemma Campbell introduce themselves and provide an exciting account of the present and future activities of the Conwy Borough Historical Association Branch...
From our branches: Conwy Borough Branch
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Update: Space, place and social constructs: the Spatial Turn in history
Historian feature
Ryan Hampton explains how ‘things’ and people combine to make space an important consideration in human history. Focusing on the German Peasants’ War of 1524-26, he examines how advances in our understanding of space might affect our knowledge of this important conflict...
Update: Space, place and social constructs: the Spatial Turn in history
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History Abridged: American Policy: theory and practice over 200 years
Historian feature
History Abridged: In this feature we take a person, time, theme or event and tell you the vast rich history in small space. A long dip into history in a shortened form. See all History Abridged articles
The ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in 1825 provided a cornerstone for future United States foreign policy. Drafted...
History Abridged: American Policy: theory and practice over 200 years
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My Favourite History Place: The Tenement Museum, New York
Historian feature
The Tenement Museum is not remotely like any museum I had previously visited. It is an old tenement building where generations of New York migrants lived and loved, worked and had families before moving both on and out. The Tenement Museum tells the story of the Lower East Side through the...
My Favourite History Place: The Tenement Museum, New York
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My Favourite History Place: Berwick-upon-Tweed railway station
Historian feature
Glimpsed from the window of a speeding train, as it hurtles north across the Royal Border Bridge and towards Edinburgh, the modest station at Berwick-upon-Tweed would seem an unlikely spot for one of the most momentous episodes in British history; but step off the train, walk up the stairs, and allow...
My Favourite History Place: Berwick-upon-Tweed railway station
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Building new futures by rewriting the past: how operas have recreated history
Historian article
Simon Banks investigates how the past has been presented in European opera, revealing intriguing insights into the development of the modern world.
The way a civilisation views its past shapes the way it acts in the present. Over the 400-year history of opera, opera plots have re-told, re-invented and re-evaluated...
Building new futures by rewriting the past: how operas have recreated history
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The portrayal of historians in fiction: people on the edge?
Historian article
In novels featuring history teachers and lecturers, the main characters are usually male, unmarried and with poor mental health. This article provides a rough classification of the different types of pathology displayed, and suggests why this characterisation might be the case.
Of all the texts, Graham Swift’s Waterland (1983) is...
The portrayal of historians in fiction: people on the edge?
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My Favourite History Place: St James Church, Gerrards Cross
Historian feature
Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, is a well-to-do town in the Chilterns and a wealthy commuter dormitory for London. It also harbours what might be one of the most remarkable, under-appreciated churches of the mid-nineteenth century. St James, the parish church, was built for the ‘unruled and unruly’ agricultural labourers and traders who inhabited...
My Favourite History Place: St James Church, Gerrards Cross
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70 years – 70 ‘things’ that tell our story
Historian article
As part of the Historical Association’s recognition of our patron the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, The Historical Association asked our members and followers to put together a collection of 70 ‘things’ that tell the story of the last 70 years: how the UK and the world have changed; how they have developed;...
70 years – 70 ‘things’ that tell our story
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My Favourite History Place: The Chantry Chapel of St Mary on Wakefield Bridge
Historian feature
Wakefield Bridge Chapel, by the River Calder, is thought by many to be the finest of four bridge chantries, the others being Bradford-on-Avon, Derby and Rotherham. The chapel at Wakefield was originally founded and endowed by the people of Wakefield and district between 1342 and 1359.
In 1397 Edmund de Langley,...
My Favourite History Place: The Chantry Chapel of St Mary on Wakefield Bridge
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Out and About: exploring Black British history through headstones
Historian feature
In what has become a very a topical article that was commissioned in late 2019, Jill Sudbury explores some of the known graves of the enslaved and formerly enslaved throughout Britain, and asks for help in recording others as yet unknown.
Along the bleak shore of Morecambe Bay, beyond the...
Out and About: exploring Black British history through headstones
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Britain and Brittany: contact, myth and history in the early Middle Ages
Historian article
Fiona Edmonds evidences the enduring links between Brittany and Britain throughout the early Middle Ages.
Every year many thousands of British holidaymakers travel to Brittany in search of beaches, bisque and bonhomie. As they board the ferry, they may notice that they are travelling from one Bretagne to another. The names...
Britain and Brittany: contact, myth and history in the early Middle Ages
