Portsmouth was strategically important in the seventeenth century, but relatively little has been written on it. For their second-year Working with the Past project a group of UoP history students tried to discover more about three key Portsmouth figures from this time. In this first post in a series, Callum Ireland writes about the Dutch engineer who rebuilt the fortifications which shaped the Portsmouth seafront today. Portsmouth, the maritime capital of England. We all know at least one fact about the deep and rich naval history of this island off the South coast, whether it’s the mighty Mary Rose and its short tenure under Henry VIII or the long and […]
Tag Archives | seventeenth century
Why the Polish Reformation deserves to be remembered
For his dissertation, third-year UoP history student Jacob Canavan chose to focus on Polish Protestantism which, while largely forgotten and repressed at home, proved to have a significant influence abroad, in spreading ideas which were to influence enlightenment thought across Europe. Jacob’s supervisor was Dr Fiona McCall. Jacob has been accepted to continue on to study for a Master’s degree at the University of York, the alma mater of our own Drs Katy Gibbons and Mike Esbester and Professor Dave Andress and a great place to study religious history. When one thinks about Poland and its history, one rarely conjures the image of a Protestant church, with its pristine white […]
Students visit 17th century Portsmouth
For the third-year UOP history specialist option Britain in Revolution, students are taken on a visit round Old Portsmouth to see some evidence of Portsmouth’s 17th century history. Portsmouth was strategically important in the Britain’s Civil Wars and also famously the place where the Duke of Buckingham was stabbed to death by John Felton. Here are some of this year’s students outside the house where this happened on the High Street, which was followed by a visit to Buckingham’s elaborate tomb in the cathedral including a memento mori skull. The cathedral itself lost its tower during the siege of 1642, thanks to the parliamentary gunners firing from Gosport.
Histories of Adulthood in Britain and the United States
In November 2024 our own Dr Maria Cannon published an edited collection Adulthood in Britain and the United States from 1350 to Generation Z in the Royal Historical Society’s New Historical Perspectives series published by the University of London Press. Laura Tisdall, Senior Lecturer at Newcastle University, was Maria’s co-editor. The collection looks at how ideas of adulthood have changed over the centuries and addresses two central questions: who gets to be an adult, and who decides? The chapters in the collection cover more than 600 years and two continents and are focused around four key themes: adulthood as both burden and benefit; adulthood as a relational category; collective versus individual […]
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.
Getting creative with early modern history
In a previous post, Dr Katy Gibbons looked at how second-year students studying the Debating the Past module, translated Natalie Davis’s book The Return of Martin Guerre into other media: emojis, memes and poetry. Our first-year students in the Beliefs, Communities and Conflicts: Europe 1400-1750 module are also set an assessment asking them to employ the imaginative use of media to explore a theme relating to their studies on the module. Below we look at two great responses to this. Having initially thought about crocheting an item or artwork from the early modern period (!), Megan Conway decided to produce a comic. Visual formats often make it easier to take in […]