Open Yale Courses
HIST 251: Early Modern England: Politics, Religion, and Society under the Tudors and Stuarts
Mirrored from oyc.yale.edu · CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0 · Keith E. Wrightson Randolph W. Townsend Jr. Professor Emeritus of History
Mirrored from: oyc.yale.edu · Yale University · History
Instructor: Keith E. Wrightson Randolph W. Townsend Jr. Professor Emeritus of History · License: CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0
About this course
This course is intended to provide an up-to-date introduction to the development of English society between the late fifteenth and the early eighteenth centuries. Particular issues addressed in the lectures will include: the changing social structure; households; local communities; gender roles; economic development; urbanization; religious change from the Reformation to the Act of Toleration; the Tudor and Stuart monarchies; rebellion, popular protest and civil war; witchcraft; education, literacy and print culture; crime and the law; poverty and social welfare; the changing structures and dynamics of political participation and the emergence of parliamentary government.
Course details
Course Structure
This Yale College course, taught on campus twice per week for 50 minutes, was recorded for Open Yale Courses in Fall 2009.
Texts
Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power . New York: Routledge, 1989.
Canny, Nicholas, ed. The Oxford History of the British Empire: Origins of Empire . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Cust, Richard and Ann Hughes, eds. The English Civil War . London: Arnold, 1997.
Gunn, S.J. Early Tudor Government, 1485-1558 . New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1995.
Guy, John, ed. The Tudor Monarchy . London: Arnold, 1997.
Haigh, Christopher. English Reformations. Religion, Politics and Society under the Tudors . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Kishlansky, Mark. A Monarchy Transformed: Britain, 1603-1714 . New York: Penguin, 1996.
Reay, Barry. Popular Cultures in England, 1550-1750 . New York: Longman, 1998.
Slack, Paul. "The English Urban Landscape" in The Urban Setting (English Urban History 1500-1780). Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1977.
Slack, Paul. Poverty and Policy in Tudor and Stuart England . New York: Longman, 1988.
Wrightson, Keith. English Society, 1580-1680 . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1982.
Requirements
One five-page paper, one ten-page paper, and a final examination.
Grading
Short paper: 20% Long paper: 40% Final exam: 25% Participation in discussion section: 15%
Syllabus
1 section · 25 lectures · links open at oyc.yale.edu.
Course sessions
- General Introduction
- "The Tree of Commonwealth": The Social Order in the Sixteenth Century
- Households: Structures, Priorities, Strategies, Roles
- Communities: Key Institutions and Relationships
- "Countries" and Nation: Social and Economic Networks and the Urban System
- The Structures of Power
- Late Medieval Religion and Its Critics
- Reformation and Division, 1530-1558
- "Commodity" and "Commonwealth": Economic and Social Problems, 1520-1560
- The Elizabethan Confessional State: Conformity, Papists and Puritans
- The Elizabethan "Monarchical Republic": Political Participation
- Economic Expansion, 1560-1640
- A Polarizing Society, 1560-1640
- Witchcraft and Magic
- Crime and the Law
- Popular Protest
- Education and Literacy
- Street Wars of Religion: Puritans and Arminians
- Crown and Political Nation, 1604-1640
- Constitutional Revolution and Civil War, 1640-1646
- Regicide and Republic, 1647-1660
- An Unsettled Settlement: The Restoration Era, 1660-1688
- England, Britain, and the World: Economic Development, 1660-1720
- Refashioning the State, 1688-1714
- Concluding Discussion and Advice on Examination