WRITING ABOUT VIOLENCE IN THE TUDOR KINGDOMS

Abstract

ABSTRACTDespite differing historiographical traditions, the histories of Tudor England and Ireland often face similar problems, not least how best to narrate and analyse episodes of state and non-state violence in a satisfying way. Latterly, sophisticated models for dealing with this have emerged in treatments of English popular politics. These works succeed in eschewing both inherited ideas of English exceptionalism and the ‘enclosure’ of social history. They also offer a compelling and holistic view of social and political interactions in the past from a number of vantage points. Many recent treatments of sixteenth-century Irish history, by contrast, have centred on atrocity and even genocide. This narrower focus does not preclude important scholarship, but its thematic and methodological limitations hamper that scholarship's broader non-polemical value. The appreciation of Tudor Ireland's status as a political society and the close scrutiny of that political society and its actors is a necessity. It offers just as promising an embarkation point for sophisticated and interesting studies as the study of Tudor English popular politics.