History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | seventeenth century

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Homosexual relationships in the time of King James I

By on March 6, 2024 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

A blog on homosexual relationships in the time of King James I was published today by our own Dr Fiona McCall in the Conversation. https://theconversation.com/mary-and-george-homosexual-relationships-in-the-time-of-king-james-i-were-forbidden-but-not-uncommon-223522 Fiona teaches the second year UoP option Underworlds: Crime, Deviance and Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900 which looks at sexual offences and attitudes in the early modern period.  Her research looks at the relationship between sex and religion during the interregnum (amongst other things).

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Criminal punishments in Devon, 1598-1638

By on January 31, 2024 in Learning in Focus

In the second-year UoP history module, Underworlds:  Crime, Deviance & Punishment in Britain, 1500-1900, taught by Dr Fiona McCall and Professor Brad Beaven, students study the history of crime and punishment between 1500 and 1900. Students can take this option on a range of courses at Portsmouth, including History, Criminology and English Literature.  In this blog post, based on his work for the module, second year UoP history student Edward Sainsbury discusses what can be learned from a detailed table of statistics on sentences given to criminals at the Devonshire assizes and quarter sessions courts between 1598 and 1638. Over the course of an almost 30-year period almost 10,000 punishments […]

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Christmas under the puritans

By on December 13, 2023 in Research in Focus

Dr Fiona McCall is a Senior Lecturer in early modern history, teaching a third-year module on the British Civil Wars, the first-year Beliefs, Communities and Conflicts module and a second year option, Underworlds. Her research investigates traditionalist resistance to puritan values in English parish churches during the 1640s and 1650s, and in this post, updated with further research from an earlier one, 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 […]

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Disorderly baptisms in mid-seventeenth century England

By on November 23, 2023 in New Publications, Research in Focus

Baptism is as a rite of central importance within the Christian religion. Deriving from the Gospels, it was one of only two of the original seven Catholic sacraments retained by English Protestants.  In late-sixteenth and seventeenth century England, with high birth rates, and everyone required to attend church by law, it was a very familiar ritual, commonly performed before the congregation on a Sunday.  It also generated much controversy, over its precise theological meaning, as well as the way, time and place in which it should be conducted. During the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, many of the existing practices of the English Church was challenged and reformed, including […]

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Suggestions for summer reading, listening and thinking

By on August 12, 2022 in Learning in Focus, News

One of the questions we’re most frequently asked by students who will be joining us as first years in the autumn term is ‘”What reading do we need to do to prepare for the course?” All of the modules that you will be taking in the first year have reading lists, of course, but the vast majority of material on them is part of a publishers’ package purchased by the university library that you will only have access to after you start university. So, to get you going, our Admissions Tutor Dr Katy Gibbons has written the following blog offering guidance on things you can read or listen to to […]

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Don’t lose your head – surviving a dissertation on King Charles I’s killers

By on March 17, 2022 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus, Uncategorized

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 […]

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