Dr Fiona Mccall was interviewed in December for the 1984 Today! podcast on all things dystopian, being intrigued by the concept of thinking about the 1640s and 1650s, in this way. How did the strictures of the real puritan regime of mid-17th century Britain compare with fictional dystopias like those of Orwell, Huxley, John Wyndham, Margaret Atwood and John Christopher? There were certainly incidents that strike us today as dystopian: the execution of women (but not men) for adultery; the rise in witch hunting for example. But the theme encouraged reflection on whether we would understand these times as dystopian in the same way as those who lived through them […]
Tag Archives | interregnum
Too close for comfort: the relationship between the Church and the military during the Interregnum
UoP Senior Lecturer in history Dr Fiona McCall had the following post published today on the website of the Ecclesiastical History Society, in which she discusses the extraordinary role of the military in Interregnum religious life.
Don’t lose your head – surviving a dissertation on King Charles I’s killers
Below, one of last year’s third-year students, Alex Symonds, gives some timely advice on how to survive writing your dissertation. Alex’s dissertation was entitled “‘Cruel Necessity’: Understanding the Influences on the Commissioners in the Trial of Charles I”. As Alex’s supervisor, I knew she had it in her to do very well, but my mouth dropped to floor once I began reading her work. The dissertation was very bold in its arguments with an original central focus on humanising the regicides, as well as those chosen commissioners who chose not to sign the death warrant, who have been far less studied. Alex developed some sophisticated arguments around the role of […]
Church and People in Interregnum Britain
In this post, UoP senior lecturer in history Dr Fiona McCall talks about her new book Church and People in Interregnum Britain, bringing together new research from scholars across Britain and further afield on the profound religious changes which took place after the British Civil Wars and how people responded to them. From 1642-5, England, Ireland, Wales and Scotland, endured the first in a series of devastating civil wars, which split communities ideologically, politically and religiously. These wars have been termed ‘the last of the wars of religion’ by leading Civil War historian John Morrill.[1] In 1645, as the first Civil War approached its end, and the religious reformists gained […]
Have yourself a puritan Christmas
Dr Fiona McCall is a lecturer in early modern history, teaching units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others. Her current research project investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this blog she discusses how Christmas was banned during this period. Christmas was officially banned during the late 1640s and 1650s along with the rest of the church calendar. But the interdict was widely ignored. Trawling through various counties’ quarter sessions depositions for the period, I have found frequent references to Christmas, Easter, Whitsun, and various saints days, the witnesses (even those testifying […]