c.1480-c.1715
Oxford has long been a leading centre for the study of early modern history, and recent developments in the Faculty have renewed and diversified this tradition. Ground-breaking work on the Reformation and the Civil War continues, along with new research into social structure, the law, and the relations between literature, religion and politics. Irish history is a major interest. Oxford’s early modernists are also leaders in the study of French, German, Central European and Mediterranean history: among their current interests are the Reformation, witchcraft, warfare, dynastic courts and their patronage, religious heresy, and the inter-relation of religious, scientific and political thought. The Modern European History Research Centre and the Centre for Early Modern British and Irish History act as catalysts for research initiatives, and they are backed by a range of seminars, several of them initiated and run by the graduate students. As a library opened in 1602 to gather the fruits of European letters and of contact with the non-European world, the Bodleian is an outstanding resource for early modernists, its holdings of manuscripts and early printed books reinforced by new electronic resources.
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