History@Portsmouth

University of Portsmouth's History Blog

Tag Archives | seventeenth century

John Lacy as Mr Scruple in the Cheats by John Michael Wright cropped

How people despised and feared the puritans

By on December 3, 2020 in Research in Focus

An article on animosity to puritans was published by history lecturer Dr Fiona McCall recently in The Conversation as part of the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower in the United States. She shows how puritans were often depicted as fools until they had a shot at government, and then the humour got darker. https://theconversation.com/mayflower-400-how-society-feared-and-ridiculed-puritans-144232   Fiona specialises in the religious and social history of seventeenth-century Britain, and is currently writing a book, Ungodly Religion in the English Parish, 1645-1660, looking at how and why English people rejected puritan religious extremism in the 1640s and 1650s.    

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MoorishAmbassador_to_Elizabeth_I cropped

Elizabeth I seeks friends amongst the Eastern Islamic powers

By on July 23, 2020 in Learning in Focus, Research in Focus

After a talk with his eventual dissertation supervisor Dr Katy Gibbons, third-year UoP student Richard Grainger was inspired to enrich his knowledge of twentieth-century orientalism in a dissertation which applied his theoretical understanding to the study of a period when Islamic nations were the more dominant powers. The university’s history department prides itself on delivering a socially and culturally favoured degree curriculum. The emphasis on ‘history from below’ has been particularly enjoyable from my view. One particular historical approach of interest is postcolonial studies, which focus on the cultural impact of empire on the colonised. Edward Said has been influential, and often controversial within this area of study. In Said’s […]

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Coping with epidemic disease in the seventeenth century

By on June 30, 2020 in Learning in Focus

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down like a flower [1] One of the first school history projects I can remember doing, before leaving Australia at the age of fourteen, was to create my own facsimile newspaper reporting on the great plague of 1665. Who would have thought at that stage that I would have ended up as a seventeenth-century historian? I spent hours poring over a London bill of mortality, copying the forms of 17th century handwriting and the strange unfamiliar fatal diseases: ‘apoplexie’, ‘ague’, ‘chrisomes’, ‘dropsie’, ‘griping’ in the […]

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Women in Totnes church 620 x 320

New conference: Disruptions and Continuities in Gender Roles and Authority, 1450-1750

By on January 31, 2020 in Events, Research in Focus

The new Disrupted Authority research group at the University of Portsmouth – SASHPL are organising an interdisciplinary conference linking issues of gender and authority in the early modern period, to be held at Portsmouth on the 29-30 June 2020.  One keynote speaker will be Professor Ann Hughes, from Keele University, whose book Gender and the English Revolution is essential reading for those wanting to understand issues of gender in the seventeenth century.  There is a call for papers for academics and postgraduates, across a range of disciplines, to send in abstracts for potential twenty-minute papers to present at the conference. If you want to know more, see the conference webpage […]

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st thomas cathedral

Students tour seventeenth-century Portsmouth

By on October 29, 2018 in Learning in Focus

In this blog, Dr Fiona McCall, senior lecturer in early modern history at the University of Portsmouth, reports on a field trip undertaken as part of her Special Subject Module ‘Britain Divided: The impact of the Civil War 1637-1662’. Fiona teaches units on the British Civil Wars, and Crime, Sin and Punishment in early modern Britain, amongst others.  Her current research project investigates religion in the English parish during the period of Godly rule of the 1640s and 1650s. On the 18th October, as part of their special subject on the British Civil Wars, third year history students went on a walking tour of Old Portsmouth, taking in the house […]

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milldam

History Research Seminars Autumn 2017

By on September 25, 2017 in Events, News

Every year, the History team at Portsmouth organise a series of research seminars that take place across the autumn and spring terms. Historians are invited from a range of institutions, both in Britain and abroad, to talk about their latest research projects. The subjects presented cover a broad historical timespan and offer insight into a diverse range of topics. This autumn features talks on society’s visions of future warfare, the representation of the 1549 Western Rebellion, and the role of clothing consumption in seventeenth century Sussex. All are welcome to attend. Autumn 2017 Wednesday 18th October, 3:30-5:00pm. Room: Burnaby Building 1.25 Sleepwalking to the Precipice: The failure to predict the nature of future […]

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