This Further Subject offers students the opportunity to develop an interest in the culture of the English Reformation, and to deepen their understanding of gender, and of the ways in which historians can engage with popular literature to illuminate early modern society. It also offers undergraduates interested in gender their only opportunity to pursue this interest as the focus of a Further Subject. Although those who have studied British History IV may see this course as a natural extension of their interests, previous study of this period is not essential.
The texts selected for this course include broadsides, ballads, pamphlets, advice literature, sermons and drama and are arranged under eight broad headings:
1) Holy Maids: Elizabeth Barton and Anne Wentworth
2) Martyrs: brides of Christ and willful wives
3) Maternal instruction: upbringing and conversion
4) Catholicism: polemic and policy
5) Godly counsel: advice literature and funeral sermons
6) Marriage: expectations and tribulations
7) Unnatural transgressions: infanticide, murder, and witchcraft
8) Women-hating polemics and the praise of women
The primary focus of students’ work will be the cultural representations of women gender and religion within the prescribed texts. Issues of style and genre, and their evolution in this period, as well as the ‘marketplace of print’, will also be a matter of concern, especially where they have a bearing on how such literature can be interpreted as part of the historian’s task. Students will also be encouraged to explore the development of themes, including the presentation of authorship; strategies of conversion and persuasion; representations of the devil, temptation, providence and divine intervention; and the use of scriptural models in godly advice and the nature of women polemics.
Many of the set text resources for this course are drawn from the wide range of sources now available online, and there are many opportunities for students taking this course to develop thesis topics from the starting points it offers.
