Titus Oates and the Popish Plot
Edited, with thanks to Dr. Jonathan Oates for comments and corrections. One of the ironies of English history is that the landmark 1689 Bill of Rights, with its prohibition of “cruel and unusual” punishment, was prompted, in part, by the ill-treatment of one of the great villains of the seventeenth century. In 1678, for want…
Sadomasochism and Christianity
This is a post on a website entitled "Bad News about Christianity". The name gives a fairly good indication of what it's all about, and there's certainly a lot of detailed information on the website, but unfortunately there is no indication of the identity of the author[s]. This seems to be intentional. Anyway, the post…
International Society for Intellectual History
International Society for Intellectual History "The ISIH was created in 1994 to promote the study and teaching of intellectual history in all its forms and to foster communication and interaction among the global community of scholars in the field." Among other projects, it is developing a database of twentieth-century authors whose work has shaped…
TIDE (Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England, c. 1500-1700)
Travel, Transculturality and Identity in England is a project funded by the ERC (European Research Council), exploring issues relating to strangers, travellers, migrants and so on. The website is an open-access resource consisting (at present) of some 40 essays contributed by Nandini Das, JoĂŁo Vicente Melo, Haig Smith, and Lauren Working based on k…
The hurt(ful) body
The hurt(ful) body Performing and beholding pain, 1600–1800 Edited by Dr Tomas Macsotay, Cornelis van der Haven and Karel Vanhaesebrouck Manchester University Press, July 2017 I know! It has been too long - far too long - since I updated this blog! Nothing could illustrate that more clearly than the fact that this book came…
The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes
Kudos to Andrew Kahn, Jamelle Bouie and Tim Jones for this graphic depiction of 20,528 voyages over 315 years, transporting some 12,500,000 Africans out of Africa and into slavery in the Americas. Read the accompanying article here: The Atlantic Slave Trade in Two Minutes It's not a new thing - it dates from 2015 -…
Medieval spat
When you have an argument with your partner and you both insist that you are the one suffering the most. #medievaltwitter #medieval pic.twitter.com/pcNl4G2izO— Francois Soyer (@FJSoyer) December 15, 2016…
All those buttons – enough to make you want to end it all!
'All this buttoning and unbuttoning' (anonymous suicide note, 18th century)(Oh, and Merry Christmas)— Early Modern Death (@EarlyModDeath) December 23, 2016…
Death in Medieval Europe
Death in Medieval Europe I haven't been keeping up with posts over the last few months - too many other things going on! I'll try to remedy that and catch up on interesting developments in the field (suppose I should make that my New Year's resolution!). Anyway, here's a new publication that may be of…
“Jesus wept: and no wonder by Christ!”
"Jesus wept" - the shortest verse in the Bible (John 11:35) and the subject of a short piece on by Thomas Dixon on Umberto Eco and John Donne in the History of Emotions blog. The post makes the point that "Donne is one of a very few sermon writers to discuss Christ’s tears", though I…
