Tudor England Research Articles

When Did Growth Begin? New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870

We provide new estimates of the evolution of productivity in England from 1250 to 1870. Real wages over this period were heavily influenced by plague-induced swings in the population. We develop and implement a new methodology for estimating productivity that accounts for these Malthusian dynamics. In the early part of our sample, we find that productivity growth was zero. Productivity growth began in 1600—almost a century before the Glorious Revolution. Post-1600 productivity growth had two phases: an initial phase of modest growth of 4% per decade between 1600 and 1810, followed by a rapid acceleration at the time of the Industrial Revolution to 18% per decade. Our evidence helps distinguish between theories of why growth began. In particular, our findings support the idea that broad-based economic change preceded the bourgeois institutional reforms of 17th century England and may have contributed to causing them. We also estimate the strength of Malthusian population forces on real wages. We find that these forces were sufficiently weak to be easily overwhelmed by post-1800 productivity growth.

Lessons not yet learned: legacies of colonialism and slavery

FOCUS | FORCED LABOUR – THE WORLD TODAY AND THE LEGACIES OF COLONIALISM AND SLAVERY 7 28/3-4 | International Union Rights | Lessons not yet learned: legacies of colonialism and slavery Six European countries were responsible for the overwhelming majority of transportation of enslaved Africans to the New World colonies Daniel Blackburn is Director of ICTUR in London As many as 24 million diverse peoples are believed to have been enslaved across Africa for the purposes of supplying the transatlantic slave trade, which was active from the 16th to the 19th Centuries. Around 10 million survived the brutal process from initial capture, through the slave markets, transportation across the Atlantic, and, on arrival in the New World, exposure to unfamiliar diseases1. Those who survived the passage were sold into gruelling forced labour regimes, mostly in agricultural and agroindustrial plantations, in the economies that surrounded these industries, and in the households of the European planters. Many of those transported landed in Brazil, which was a major hub for slavery throughout the Americas, others were taken to sugar and tobacco plantations in the Caribbean and along the east coast of North America. The surge in the cotton trade from America to Europe began in the late 18th Century and drove the further internal forced migration of enslaved peoples from the east to the south. Conditions for the enslaved varied over time and between locations and crops, but generally consisted of long, exhausting, and (in sugar cutting in particular) dangerous work, in which they would be trapped for the duration of their lives. For pioneers of colonialism the slave trade brought wealth and power Six European countries were responsible for the overwhelming majority of transportation of enslaved Africans to the New World colonies during the era of the transatlantic slave trade. Portugal established an empire in the 15th and 16th Centuries and, in doing so, it became powerful on the world stage. Portugal’s domination and exploitation of its overseas colonies and its pivotal role in the transatlantic slave trade (Portuguese ships carried more than 4 million enslaved peoples - amounting to just under 40 percent of all those who were transported across the Atlantic) helped it to acquire vast wealth and power. Brazil, a Portuguese possession, was the main gateway for enslaved peoples brought to the Americas. Britain built the largest Empire in history, covering much of the world’s territory at its height. The colonial project involved the disenfranchisement of indigenous peoples, the appropriation of resources, and exploitation of conquered peoples on an industrial scale. Britain transported up to 3 million enslaved Africans to its plantations in the New World. Despite this grim record, in the early 19th Century Britain became the leading industrial nation lobbying for an end to the trade worldwide; the Royal Navy patrolling the Atlantic and forcefully boarding and diverting slaving ships. Spain established a vast and sophisticated Empire throughout the Americas from as early as the 16th Century. Much of this territory was acquired through military conquest. The indigenous peoples who inhabited these lands were displaced, killed in battle, and drawn into forced labour systems to work on Spanish industry and agriculture, including mining for precious metals. Huge numbers died from European diseases. Spain then transported more than one and a half million enslaved peoples from Africa to work in forced labour conditions in its New World colonies. France transported more than one million enslaved peoples to work across its colonies and plantations, and bitterly resisted the efforts of enslaved peoples to obtain liberation and independence. France was technically the first European power to abolish slavery throughout its territories, but re-instated the institution and attempted militarily to prevent the independence drive in Haiti. France later joined the mid-19th Century phase of abolition. Holland transported enslaved peoples from Africa to northern Brazil, to the Spanish colonies, and later to Suriname and Guyana. The Dutch part in the transatlantic trade is estimated at 5-7 percent (comprising at least half a million people), and the Netherlands was one of the last countries to abolish slavery in 1863. Freedom in Suriname only came ten years later, in 1873. Long after this, indentured servants in Dutch plantation colonies were still legally...

Locus, Sanctus, et Virtus: Monastic Surnaming in Late Medieval and Early Tudor England Reviewed

This article examines the apparent practice among monks and regular canons in England before the Dissolution of dropping their family surnames on admission/profession, and adopting instead a new ‘monastic byname’, derived from a place name (toponym) or, by the late fifteenth century onwards, from a saint’s name (hagionym) or a virtue. The article begins by reviewing evidence that this onomastic practice existed and determining how widespread it was. The nature and distribution of the toponymic, hagionymic, and virtue bynames are then examined in turn. The article concludes by considering the underlying reason for the adoption of monastic bynames and argues that this practice served as a means of reflecting symbolically the new monk’s or canon’s separation from lay society, and from his family in particular, and his incorporation into the monastic community.

William Lambard and the Сhorographic Еradition of Historical Writing in Early Modern England: Discourses of Land, Law and Language

The article considers the little-studied topic — the origin in the 16th century of the chorographic tradition in the English historical writing. This tradition had both a medieval genesis and actual relevance for Tudor England. In its entirety the chorographic tradition was evolved in William Lambard’s “Perambulation to Kent” (1576). The narrative structure of this book was developed in the form of a multi-leveled description of Kent, placed as a part of a larger panorama of the entire England based on three interdependent discourses — of land and, law and language consequently. Through this imaginary journey Lambard showed to the readers the peculiarities of geography and history of Kent. This lively journey made visible through geographic features both Kentish and English history. With the help of history, archeology, customs, law as well as description and classification of geographical space, Lambard gave readers an image of the English placed in time and space. This work has became a convincing example for the next generations of the British historians who ventured to describe particular counties of England. It also fulfilled an important goal as far as demonstrated the very ways of establishing power over the environment self-determination and reflection on one's own origin.

Rozum, wiara, tajemnica: Ralph Cudworth z angielskiej szkoły z Cambridge

The text introduces the figure of Ralph Cudworth, the leading representative of the Cambridge Platonist school. The presentation of the views of the English philosopher and theologian aims to draw attention to the original and almost completely forgotten intellectual tradition of 17th-century England – typically perceived as dominated wholly by the currents of empiricist and materialistic orientation.

Участие сословий в принятии аграрного законодательства в тюдоровской Англии середины XVI – начала XVII века

On the basis of parliamentary documents of the Tudor era the author attempts to find out the degree of participation of both direct and indirect representatives of the nobility, clergy and peasantry in the adoption of laws by parliament regarding enclosures. Analysis of the debates in the parliaments makes it possible to trace the position of the English nobility and the bourgeoisie regarding the process of enclosing the arable land of peasants. The estate of the nobility, with the support of deputies from the bourgeoisie, in fact, was able to significantly influence the content of agrarian bills. The agrarian bills prepared in government circles were significantly adjusted by the commoners, taking into account the specific interests of the gentry of individual counties. The position of the Anglican clergy boiled down to supporting the government’s point of view regarding the conversion of plowing to pasture. The peasantry declared their attitude to the process of enclosures both by sending complaints to the Privy Council, lawsuits in courts, as well as open social protests. As a result, it is noted that Elizabeth I Tudor, when adopting agrarian laws by parliament, showed political flexibility and repeatedly made concessions to the interests of the nobility. In the last parliament, her cabinet managed to reach a consensus of interests of the estates in the agrarian sphere. The results of the study allow us to better understand the mechanism of functioning of the absolute monarchy while maintaining the estate-representative body of power.

William Harrison's Garden as an Example of 16th Century English Garden

The article is devoted to the study of the features of the English garden of the 16th century. In the center of attention is the text of the third chapter “On gardens and vegetable gardens” of William Harrison’s work “Description of England” in 1577, where he shares his arguments about what the gardens of the English — his contemporaries are. In his opinion, gardens were an important part of the life of his countrymen. They consisted of an orchard, a kitchen garden where garden and green plants were grown, spicy herbs used in cooking and in home medicine, and a flower garden. William Harrison noted that the British in their gardens grew not only local plants, but spent huge amounts of money to purchase and grow in their gardens plants that had their homeland of origin in other countries, and even continents. William Harrison believes that there are both positive and negative sides to this. On the positive side, he refers to the fact that in this way the introduction of plants occurs. And the negative side is that many local plants can be put out of use in this way. In addition, he expresses concerns that not always imported plants can be useful to local residents. William Harrison shows his awareness of how to grow different plants, although he does not consider himself a professional botanist. The author of the article believes that William Harrison himself is proud to have a garden with a variety of plants, both local and not, that his garden is a typical example of an English Renaissance garden of the late 16th century, the subject of care on the part of an English writer of the Tudor era. Although the text of the «Description of England» by William Harrison is difficult to imagine a detailed layout of his garden, to find out the exact range of his plants, to determine the presence of decorative buildings and fountains in his garden.

The Lost Works of Thomas Becon

Abstract This article attributes four lost works to the literary corpus of the English clergyman and bestselling Tudor devotional author Thomas Becon (1512–1567): The Shelde of Saluacion, An Heauenly Acte, Christen Prayers and Godly Meditacions, and The Resurreccion of the Masse. It ascribes these texts to Becon in light of three types of corroborating evidence: contemporary attribution, parallels of content, and early publication history. These four lost works not only furnish a fuller picture of his literary output, but also provide new insights into his career, rhetoric, and theology. As Becon was the most popular evangelical devotional author writing in English during the sixteenth century, this analysis of his hitherto unattributed books makes a valuable contribution to the bibliography of Tudor England, especially during the transformative years of the Henrician, Edwardine, Marian, and Elizabethan Reformations.

Samson, Mary and Philip: The Marriage of Tudor England and Habsburg Spain (Manchester University Press, 2020)

The Royal Studies Journal has developed as an offshoot of the successful Kings & Queens conference series and the Royal Studies Network. The Network has provided a framework for researchers in the field to share news and information and make contacts with potential collaborators or to find scholars with similar interests. The Kings & Queens conference series has provided a yearly event for scholars to share their research in the field. However, while both the Network and conference series have drawn attention to the developing and thriving interdisciplinary field of Royal Studies, to date there has not been a dedicated publishing outlet for research in this area. The Royal Studies Journal aims to fill this gap and provide a venue for academic research from all disciplines, areas and periods across the field. The RSJ was founded in 2013 by a group of international researchers and postgraduate students with the support of the University of Winchester. It was decided that the publication should be multi-language, online only and fully open-access with no charges for either readers or contributors in order to make the research as accessible as possible.

Oscar Wilde’s Reading of Zhuangzi in ‘A Chinese Sage’

Abstract In 1889 the sinologist Herbert A. Giles published his English translation Chuang Tzŭ: Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer. The following year, Oscar Wilde wrote his long book review ‘A Chinese Sage’. This article analyses Wilde’s review and explores how Giles’ translation influences Wilde’s understanding of Zhuangzi. The article also considers the influence of Aubrey Moore, who provided some of the notes for Giles’ translations, on Wilde’s reception of Zhuangzi. Because Wilde is neither a sinologist nor a researcher of Taoism, his interpretation of Zhuangzi in ‘A Chinese Sage’ is mediated by Giles and Moore, and might be seen as a ‘misunderstanding of a misunderstanding’. Yet the influence of Zhuangzi can still be seen in Wilde’s review, and the episode raises interesting questions about the reception of Taoism in late 19th-century Britain.

Recovering the Urban Past for Equitable Present and Future Social Recovery

A multitude of determinants influence the urban planning process. Yet, in the contemporary context of an ongoing pandemic causing infirmity and death in more than 1,500 cities, how can examples of urban planning from history, namely ones that sought to boost public health, (re)shape the current urban planning paradigm? Is there a need in the light of the global impact of Covid-19 to re-evaluate the value of past planning models and so, in accordance, rethink present-day urban density management and public space creation? In consequence, this paper puts forward an overview of how city planning and public health have historically interlinked, albeit with reference to 19th century Britain and the establishment of public parks. Used communally by assorted social groups such green spaces were considered to be crucial for physical and mental health. Crucially too, these open areas are still a fundamental element of the 21st century British cityscape and, arguably, as part of the present and future social recovery from Covid-19, will play a vital role in public life and well-being.

Kıyamet sonrası zombiler dünyasını uyarlamak: Aşk ve Gurur + Zombiler (2016)

The growing number of zombie narratives across diverse media indicate a revival of the zombie genre in the early twenty-first century, in particular in the United States. These narratives deal with not only the fight for survival but also with the consequences of the global zombie outbreak as in Seth Grahame-Smith’s 2009 zombie mash-up novel, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Adhering closely to the plot of Austen’s 1813 novel, Grahame-Smith nevertheless transforms early 19th-century England into a place menaced by a plague of the undead where the five Bennet sisters are accomplished martial arts warriors and Fitzwilliam Darcy is a monster-hunter possessing superior Oriental fighting skills. It is clear that both literary and filmic rewritings of Jane Austen’s canonical work, Pride and Prejudice (1813) still find large and enthusiastic audiences: Grahame-Smith’s book immediately became a New York Times bestseller, with more than 700,000 copies sold worldwide while the film rights were quickly acquired by Hollywood. Director Burr Steers, who also wrote the screenplay of the post-apocalyptic Pride and Prejudice + Zombies (2016), inserts a prologue and a final zombie attack into the narrative and yet, as this paper argues, successfully preserves the essence of the story as well as the formal elements of theme, characterization, style, and tone from the Graham-Smith novel.

Machines as manifestations of global systems: Steps toward a sociometabolic ontology of technology

Anthropologists have generally found it reasonable to understand the Industrial Revolution in Britain as a product of global historical processes including colonialism and the structure of world trade. The extent to which the industrialization of British textile production was contingent on global processes has been illuminated in detail by historians such as Joseph Inikori. Andre Gunder Frank proposed that we should reconceptualize technological development as a ‘world economic process, which took place in and because of the structure of the world economy’. Yet the theoretical implications of understanding industrial technological systems as global and unevenly distributed phenomena have, by and large, not contaminated mainstream conceptions of technologies as politically neutral and fundamentally innocent manifestations of enlightenment, detachable from the societal contexts in which they have emerged. Social theory nevertheless offers perspectives for a radical rethinking of this conventional ontology of modern technology. If the premises of actor–network theory, material culture studies, Marxism and poststructuralist critiques of power and inequalities are combined with the perspectives of ecological economics on global social metabolism, the fossil-fuelled textile factories of 19th-century Britain can be reinterpreted as social instruments for appropriating embodied human labour and natural space from elsewhere in the global system. A renewed ‘anthropology of technology’ might focus on the observation that technology is not simply a matter of putting nature to work, but a strategy of putting other sectors of global society to work.1

Audrey M. Thorstad, The Culture of Castles in Tudor England and Wales

Audrey M. Thorstad, <i>The Culture of Castles in Tudor England and Wales</i>

Inns, Taverns and Alehouses in Hampshire 1300–1600

In late-medieval and Tudor England inns, taverns and alehouses were perceived to be three classes of building that could be distinguished one from another. In a Privy Council Certificate of 1577 regarding Hampshire, such distinctions and differences were tacitly understood rather than explicitly defined. This study seeks to identify these defining characteristics: specifically, the plan-forms and typical locations in which inns, taverns and alehouses were to be found. To this end the physical remains of some Hampshire buildings are analysed and documentary evidence is assessed. The year 1300 has been set as a start-date for this study because it was in the 14th century that inns in England were emerging as public, commercial enterprises and the year 1600 has been set as an end-date because around this time the distinction between inns, taverns and ale-houses was beginning to blur to such an extent that their study becomes problematic.

From Written Record to Bureaucratic Mind: Imagining a Criminal Record*

Abstract In 1518 the chief justice of King’s Bench initiated an attempt to track successful claims of benefit of clergy on the assize circuits to ensure that laymen could make such claims only once, as mandated by a statute dating from 1490. By doing so he was the first to attempt to create a criminal record in England, where an individual felon’s crimes were recorded with the expectation that an earlier crime would have implications for the punishment of a subsequent one. Both this attempt and a later statutory attempt in 1543 were largely unsuccessful, however. They failed, not because of principled opposition or even inertia, but because the well-established bureaucratic structures of the early Tudor period struggled to keep up with the bureaucratic imagination of those who sought to reform or extend the reach of government. The failed attempt to construct a criminal record demonstrates that as the development of print changed information cultures, and the policies of the Tudors led to an intensification of governance, legal records remained profoundly limited by the intellectual and administrative structures within which they operated. Masters of the gathering of information, Tudor governors struggled to adapt old documents to new purposes or to manage information dynamically.

The Mediterranean World and the ‘Turk’ in Shakespeare’s Representation of the British Empire

This research explores Shakespeare’s representation of the so-called British Empire in its contact with other jostling empires, most notably the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean. To this end, four of Shakespeare’s Mediterranean plays Othello, the Moor of Venice (1603), The Merchant of Venice (1596), The Tempest (1611), and Cymbeline (1611) are taken understudy. By considering the Postcolonial historicist approach developed by literary scholars such as Stephen Greenblatt and Edward Said, the research argues that the issues of imperial relationships in Shakespeare are not solely centered on the transatlantic colony of Virginia, but it was also extended to the Mediterranean basin. The latter, during Tudor England and, later, Stuart Britain had much more trade and diplomatic activity than on the Atlantic seaboard. This economic activity created a cosmopolitan zone of contact wherein people of the Orient elbowed people from the West. This encounter gave rise to a pre-modern form of Orientalism, which is reflected in Shakespeare’s celebration of marital-cum-political endogamous relationships in his four plays mentioned earlier.

Hypocricy of the Rich vs Honesty of the Poor in the English Society of the 18$^\text{th}$ Century

During the 18th century, life was unpleasant and disturbing due to the Horrible Plague and the Great Fire that attacked England and turned the English society upside down. There was a big gap between the rich and the poor. Violence and crimes were everywhere. However, along with all the misfortunes, 18th century was also a period of elegance for England. Education flourished, and the novel genre developed impressively along with fine music and theatre performances. During these times, the rich led a luxurious life, while the poor in extreme poverty hardly preserved their miserable existence. The whole atmosphere was that of contrasts between brightness and staleness, wellness and sickness, abundance and insufficiency, virtue and vice, along with charity and selfishness which, combined with other characteristic features of the English society, created a chaotic situation. Henry Fielding’s novel, The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews and his Friend Mr. Abraham Adams, often called Joseph Andrews artistically mingles all these contrasts on different levels of different aspects of life, depicting the age he lived in while giving credit to the poor and the abandoned, making the good successfully triumphant and the bad miserably overwhelmed until at the end he makes his characters reach poetic justice punishing the vicious and rewarding the virtuous. The article aims at revealing the chaotic situation of the 18th century England through H. Fielding’s novel in question and the writer’s critical attitude to it.

Дом тюдоровской эпохи (по данным «Описания Англии» Уильяма Харрисона

Статья посвящена изучению повседневной жизни англичан елизаветинской эпохи и в частности их жилища, по свидетельству Уильяма Харрисона, автора «Описания Англии», 1577 г. С точки зрения Уильяма Харрисона, дом англичанина является объектом его гордости. По его мысли, дома в Англии различаются по материалу, из которого они построены. По мнению Уильяма Харрисона, различие в материалах для строительства домов определяется климатическими условиями местности, где они были возведены. Кроме того, разница в домах определяется и статусом их владельцев. Есть дома простолюдинов и аристократов. Особое место Уильям Харрисон отводит убранству домов, делая акцент на последних модных тенденциях в интерьере, а именно увеличение количества дымоходов и каминов, появление перин и столового серебра. Эти нововведения, по его данным, затронули все слои населения Англии. «Описание Англии» Уильяма Харрисона позволяет выяснить, что дом многое значит в менталитете англичан тюдоровской эпохи.

A Revival of the Romantic Era as seen through a Comparative Study of Auld Lang Syne and Sumer Is Icumen In

The Romantic Movement of 19th century Britain is often credited to William Wordsworth, while his predecessor, Robert Burns is regarded as the pioneer of the movement with his poetic themes of simplicity, friendship, and reverence for nature and rustic life, to name a few. Yet, on looking back at the medieval ages, one comes across the anonymous poem Sumer Is Icumen In that is centred around similar themes and ideas. This, thus, calls for a more nuanced analysis and understanding of the romantic ideologies that then do not appear to be new to the 19th century, but simply recurrent of what already existed. Therefore, through a comparative study of Robert Burns’ Auld Lang Syne and the medieval poem Sumer Is Icumen In, this paper will seek to place Burns either as the pioneer of the romantic movement or as a reviver of a medieval tradition. I will explore the themes, features, and form that persist in these poems.&#x0D;