Early Modern Notes

Well, I was a little cryptic the other week, but tomorrow it all goes public (and we kind of expect it to crash at some point - I’ll be almost disappointed if it doesn’t…),* and today there is a pretty nice feature in the Observer.

[Monday update… creak… groan… thud… Sorry, folks. It should get back to normal in a day or two…]

So here it is: the Proceedings of the Old Bailey Online 1674-1834 is now the Proceedings of the Old Bailey and Central Criminal Court 1674-1913.

This doesn’t only mean that you can now search for 200,000 trials held at the Old Bailey over a period of 2 and a half centuries. The other new set of goodies is the full text of (almost) every Ordinary of Newgate’s Account between 1690 and 1772 (in the next few months this should expand to a full archive of every known surviving Account from c.1674 onwards).

I’ve written here before about these grimly fascinating pamphlets. They’ve been used by a number of historians, including Andrea Mackenzie and Peter Linebaugh, but the surviving pamphlets have been scattered across a number of different libraries and archives. From now on they’ll be together in one fully searchable digital archive. Plus, I’m in the process of completing a database that links every convict mentioned in the Accounts to their trial, providing it has a surviving report (perhaps 3/4 of the links have already been made).

This should make for some interesting research possibilities. For example, historians often argue that women who successfully ‘pleaded their bellies’, ie had their death sentence postponed on grounds of being pregnant, usually escaped hanging. In fact, we say that in our own background section. But I’m not so sure. Through the process of cross-referencing trials and Ordinary’s Accounts, I’ve already discovered several women whose sentences were respited for pregnancy but subsequently carried out (eg in September 1695. So what I’ll be asking (once I’ve finished making the damned links) is: how many were executed and how many were permanently reprieved? Have we historians been getting it wrong? Answering those questions wasn’t impossible before now, but it would have been extremely difficult. And there will, no doubt, be many more possibilities like this.

***

The other news, because I haven’t been plugging it enough and you’ve probably all forgotten, is that we’re holding a conference in July to celebrate the relaunch: The Metropolis on Trial, in the throbbing metropolis of… Milton Keynes. If you’d like to attend, registration is open and you can download a booking form at the website. If you want to book the accommodation we’ve arranged at discount rates, you need to send the form in by the end of May at the latest and preferably as soon as possible. There is a 2 person room sharing option which is really good value (if you’re skint and looking for someone to share with maybe we can put people in touch here - leave a note in comments).

***

Linkage…

(Note that old links will continue to work for a few months, and we may well set up proper redirection at some point.)

Old stuff on OBP at this blog: Old Bailey category and the Old Bailey Symposium.

Old Bailey Files at The Head Heeb.

—

*Already this morning some searches have been very slow, which is not a good sign.

For those interested in the British Civil Wars, a symposium is being held next July in Hull.

In a lecture delivered to the Royal Historical Society in December 1983, John Morrill concluded with the observation that ‘The English civil war was not the first European revolution: it was the last of the wars of religion’. … This symposium aims to recognise the importance of Morrill’s interpretation, and to move it forward with reference to scholarship on political and religious thought that has emerged since 1983. While it will be partly concerned with the period of the 1640s, it also aims to draw out elements of the links and tensions between politics and religion that define the long seventeenth century. Central to the symposium will be a critical engagement with Morrill’s original argument: in what ways is it still persuasive, and in what areas might it be revised?

But what really struck me was that the organisers are using a Wordpress.com blog as a website for the symposium. A smart idea: it’s free and not dependent on a university department’s web space, so interesting material can be left up afterwards for as long as you want; it’s simple to set up and can be used to post news and information about the event quickly and easily (with RSS feeds, of course), as well as paper abstracts and even copies of the papers themselves for pre-circulation (though that’s not something we do that much in history usually…). And then, think about the possibilities for discussions with people who can’t actually attend the event. And podcasts! And…

It’s a really obvious thing to do with a blog, when you think about it, isn’t it?

Update: And so, of course… I have to have one too, don’t I?

Really, it would be shockingly negligent of me not to plug our project conference here, now wouldn’t it? For all those of you interested in The Old Bailey Online, crime, justice and so on between the 18th and 20th centuries (not just in London - we’re looking out for comparative papers), the project conference will be next July, following the launch of the Proceedings of the Central Criminal Court in 2008.

In addition to the general descriptions in the CFP below, there are a couple of planned panels that might particularly interest you folks.

First, we’d like to have a panel specifically on teaching with the OBP. My friend Chris Williams at OU is in charge of this one: “I’m interested in finding out more about how they have been used, how they could be used, and what’s worked, as well as what hasn’t. The implications of the impact of this kind of resource on teaching might also be worth a look.” You can email him to find out more: Chris.Williams[AT]open.ac.uk

We also have in mind a possible panel on digitising history - practicalities and ideas, issues and agendas, whatever. If that interests you, you might perhaps contact Tim Hitchcock (t.hitchcock[AT]herts.ac.uk) for a chat before submitting a proposal.

The Metropolis on Trial
An International Conference at the Open University, Milton Keynes

10-12 July 2008

This conference heralds and celebrates the completion of the Old Bailey online project. From the early summer of 2008 it will be possible to consult at www.oldbaileyonline.org not only the Proceedings of the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1834 but also those of its successor, the Central Criminal Court, from 1834 to 1913. Papers at the conference will draw upon these proceedings, or those of similar courts in other metropolitan centres, to explore aspects of cultural, social or political life from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth centuries.

Clive Emsley, Open University
Tim Hitchcock, University of Hertfordshire
Bob Shoemaker, University of Sheffield

Proposals for papers, not more than 200 words please, should be sent by Friday 7 December 2007, to Sue Watkins, Dept of History, Open University, Milton Keynes MK7 6AA, United Kingdom. Email: S.Watkins[AT]open.ac.uk

(I’ll be keeping this somewhere near the top of the front page for a few weeks.)

This evening event in London on 27 June may be of interest to some readers: Who’s Creating Knowledge? The challenge of non-university researchers

Is the university the primary site for the creation and authorising of knowledge? That is commonly the conventional view. But in practice large numbers of independent and non-academic researchers are enthusiastically engaged in the production and establishment of knowledge outside university walls. The panel will discuss the issues raised by the work of these often ‘invisible’ creators of knowledge, operating as they do across a wide diversity of fields of research, from family history to ornithology, astronomy to biography, philosophy to archaeology - and much else. Do such researchers present a challenge to the still often-assumed monopoly of the university over the production and validation of knowledge? Despite the obstacles they face are they perhaps following a more open route to knowledge production than in the increasingly constrained setting of university research today? Do we need to rethink the central role of the university in the establishment of knowledge? And may important new processes of knowledge-creation be emerging through the interactive potential of the internet for bypassing established university controls and evading the traditional gatekeepers to the publication and dissemination of knowledge?

Attendance is free but space is limited and you need to book a place. (And apparently there are free drinks afterwards…)

I don’t think I’ll be able to travel down and attend, but it’d be great if it could be blogged, so if anyone who doesn’t have a blog would like to go along and report on it, I’d be willing to post their reports and/or provide an open comment thread for people’s thoughts (and for links to any discussions on other blogs).

I’ve recently added Renaissance Lit to my blogroll. This new blog is a nice idea, posting announcements of CFPs and upcoming conferences of interest to early modernists - especially, but not only, lit scholars.

A few upcoming early modern conferences:

“Wanton nights and riotous feasts”: Early Modern Representations of Virtue and Vice, 8 April 2006, University of Warwick.

Includes sessions on virtuous identities, sinful behaviour, sex, crime and punishment, ‘puritans and profanity’. (This is one for me…)

Exile in the English Revolution and its aftermath, 28-29 July 2006, London.

Includes sessions on ‘Royalist poetics’, the experiences of women, Milton, the regicides, and keynote sessions on the intellectual history of the royalist exile, the literary impact of exile in Europe during the English Revolution, and the print legacy of the Restoration exiles. (I have a copy of the full programme I can email to anyone who’s interested.)

Plus, I’ve had a paper on violent gentlemen accepted for the seventeenth-century conference in sunny Aberdeen in July. My bum is cringing at the prospect of the train journey (9 hours each way) already.

And while I’m blowing my own trumpet, I’ll be appearing to talk about much the same topic at the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Symposium at the British Academy in London on 26 April. (Free entry but you need to register in advance.) Mind you, it might not be particularly new to anyone who’s already read my posts on the topic here…

An announcement from Suzanne Lipscomb: Conference in honour of Meeto Malik, Balliol College, Oxford

A one-day conference on 27 April, investigating the themes of religion, syncretism, gender, sexuality and violence.

We are seeking people who would like to contribute a 20-30 minute paper. As the day is primarily thematic, we do not have any specifications for historical period or region, but the paper should be able to comment intelligently on one or more of the themes of religion, syncretism, gender, sexuality and violence. Papers chosen will be coupled another paper exploring the same theme, possibly from a very different perspective, and there will be an opportunity for discussion.

Juvenile Rescue and Reform: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives
Monday, April 10th 2006
The European Centre for the Study of Policing, Open University, Milton Keynes

‘From Refuge to Reformatory. The Evolution of Britain’s First State-funded Juvenile Reformatory – the London Refuge for the Destitute 1805-1830’ - Peter King, The Open University
‘Strategies of Resistance within English Residential Institutions for Juvenile Delinquents 1950-1970’ - Abi Wills, Oxford University
‘Girls and the Politics of Protection: Historical and Contemporary Comparisons’ - Pam Cox, Essex University

£10 for the day including lunch; contact Valerie Humphrey (V.F.Humphrey@open.ac.uk) for a booking form.

That is, a one day conference on Puritanism on 25 February. It sounds a good one for those interested in the subject (and for postgrads in particular).

Because they keep coming to my inbox and somebody might be interested…

Gender and popular culture 1650-1750, 21-22 October, University of Michigan, USA.

CFP: Elias in the 21st century, April 2006, Leicester University, UK. Deadline for abstracts: 30 November 2005.

Urban Renewal 1666-2000, March 2006, Reading University, UK. Deadline for proposals: 1 December 2005.

CFP: International Conference on Welsh Studies, July 2006, Swansea University, UK. Deadline for abstracts: 23 December 2005.

CFPs

British Society for Eighteenth-century Studies 2006 Conference, January 2006, Oxford, UK.
“We invite proposals for individual papers and especially for full panels of three (or, exceptionally, four papers) on any aspect of the long 18th century, not only in Britain but throughout Europe and the wider world.” Submit 200-word abstracts (for 20-minute papers), via the web site by 30 September 2005

Early American Cartographies, March 2006, Chicago, US.
“This cross-disciplinary conference investigates the enduring significance of space and place in scholarship of the early Americas”. 350-word abstracts, by 1 October 2005.

21st Annual Conference on Music in 18th-century Britain, 25 November 2005, London, UK.
“We encourage proposals for papers focusing on all aspects of music in 18th-century Britain.” Proposals should be approximately 250 words, for 30 minute papers. Collaborative or related topic papers welcome. Further information/Submit abstracts by e-mail: c.sharpe@ram.ac.uk or csharpe@camberwell.free-online.co.uk. Please include your name, address or institution, telephone, and email address in the body of the message. Deadline: 7 October 2005.

Rethinking the Iberian Atlantic, April 2006, Liverpool, UK.
The “first in a series of colloquia and research seminars that offer the opportunity to explore the common ground shared by different and diverse approaches to the historical and cultural study of the Atlantic”. Proposals (about 300 words) by 15 October 2005. (Notes that postgraduates are welcome, possibility of financial aid for student participants.)

Reformation Studies Colloquium, April 2006, Oxford, UK
The conference meets biennially and the papers address a number of aspects of the European and English Reformations. If you would like to offer a twenty-minute communication, please send a title and an abstract to the organisers by 30 November 2005: Dr Andrew Spicer or Dr Judith Pollmann, aspicer@brookes.ac.uk or j.pollmann@let.leidenuniv.nl

Lines of Amity, Lines of Enmity: War and Peace in the Eighteenth Century, fifth Bloomington Eighteenth-Century Workshopthe Center for Eighteenth-Century Studies at Indiana University, May 2006. 20-30 scholars will present and discuss pre-circulated papers, most expenses covered. Applications deadline: 5 January 2006 (to consist of a two-page description of the proposed paper as well as a current CV).

Conference on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments, May 2006, New York, US.
Submissions in the form of either papers or extended abstracts by 17 February 2006.

Icons and Iconoclasts: 1603-1714,
July 2006, Aberdeen, UK. “Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers on any aspect of British and Continental literature, philosophy, culture, and history during the period of Stuart rule in Britain”. Deadline: 28 February 2006.

Announcements of conferences, seminars etc

Beyond Shakespeare’s Globe: People, Place and Plays in the Middlesex suburbs 1400–1700, 15 October 2005, London, UK.

Symposium: Membership in Communities and States in the Early Modern Atlantic World: Legal Rules, Social Judgments, and the Negotiation of Citizenship, 14 October 2005, Chicago, US.

Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682): A Celebration of his Quater-Centenary, 19-20 October 2005, Norwich, UK.

Renaissance Lives, 22 October 2005, Roehampton, UK.

Connection, contingency and chance in the early Republic’s economy, Annual conference of the Program in Early American Economy and Society, Philadelphia, US, 28 October 2005.

The Lisbon Earthquake of 1755: an interdisciplinary workshop, 28-9 October 2005, Bristol, UK.

Early Modern Terrorism, 5-6 November 2005, Manchester, UK.

Apothecaries, art and architecture: interpreting Georgian medicine, 24-5 November 2005, London, UK.

New Perspectives in British cultural history, 1600-2000: A Conference for Graduate Students and Junior Academics, Cambridge, 8-9 December 2005. Will include a plenary session on ‘The career implications of studying cultural history’. (Possibility of assistance with travel expenses.)

New Worlds Reflected: Representations of Utopia, the New World and Other Worlds, 1500-1800, 9-10 December 2005, London, UK.

(Further updates possible in the next day or so…)

In the next couple of days I’m going to do a conference bulletin (like this one) for conferences/CFP deadlines in the next 3 months or so (and brief advance notices of conferences next spring if I have time).

If you’re involved with a conference (or colloquium, workshop, etc) on an early modern or 18th-century topic, especially if it has a webpage I can link to, I’ll be happy to consider it for inclusion. If you don’t have a webpage, send a brief (one paragraph) announcement with contact details which I can paste in.

Conferences for post-grad students are particularly welcome!

Email me at sharon@earlymodernweb.org.uk, preferably by the end of Monday 26 September.

Call for Papers

Straws in the Wind: Ballads and Broadsides, 1500-1800, February 2006, University of California at Santa Barbara.

An interdisciplinary conference: “How do [ballads] function as cultural artifacts or as indicators of their historical moments? What are the lasting impacts and legacies of ballad culture? If ballads and broadsides have the capacity to show trends of popular culture, do they also have the potential to change them?” (See also the UCSB ballad archive.)

CFP Deadline: September 15th, 2005 (electronic submissions)

.

Conference notice

Theatrical Patronage in Early Modern Europe, Keele University, 10-11 September 2005 - this weekend! (I meant to post this earlier and forgot…)

“This two-day conference will draw together scholars working on early modern patrons of theatre and patronage networks. In addition to re-investigating traditional subjects within patronage studies, such as royal and noble patrons, it will seek to extend the focus of such studies, considering, for example, wider metropolitan and print-related networks.”

I’ve already noted that there is to be a conference on early modern terrorism and political violence in Manchester in November to mark the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot.

The Folger Institute in Washington DC has also announced that it will be holding a weekend workshop on Early Modern Terrorism? The Gunpowder Plot of 1605 & its Aftermath, on Friday-Saturday 4-5 November.

Plenty of interesting conferences for early modern and eighteenth century types over the coming months…

CFPs

Rediscovering radicalism in the British Isles and Ireland, c.1550–c.1700: Movements of people, texts and ideas, London, June 2006. “This interdisciplinary conference sets out to explore the role of migration and the exchange of ideas, images and texts in the history of [radical] events, ideologies and movements (or moments).” Deadline for proposals: 31 July 2005.

Metropolis and State in Early Modern Europe, London, March 2006. “The conference aims to investigate, from a comparative point of view, the peculiar relationship between European metropolises (not necessarily all serving as capital cites) and the central state during the early modern period.” Deadline: 31 July 2005.

The Twentieth Annual DeBartolo Conference: THE BOOK, Tampa, February 2006. Deadline: 30 September 2005.

(Re)Collecting British Women Writers, Gainesville, March 2006. Deadline: 30 September 2005.

Rethinking the Iberian Atlantic 1500-1800, Liverpool, April 2006. The “first in a series of events… that aim to explore the common ground shared by different and diverse approaches to the historical and cultural study of Iberian interventions in the Atlantic”. Deadline: 15 October 2005.

The Chevalier d’Eon and his Worlds: Gender, Espionage and Politics in the Eighteenth Century, Leeds, April 2006. Proposals in English or French, by 31 October 2005.

Single women in history 1000-2000, Bristol, June 2006. Deadline: 31 January 2006.

Icons and Iconoclasts: 1603-1714, Aberdeen, July 2006. “Proposals are invited for 20 minute papers on any aspect of British and Continental literature, philosophy, culture, and history during the period of Stuart rule in Britain”. Deadline: 28 February 2006.

Not particularly early modern, but I want to make a note of it to remind me to think about coming up with a proposal: Social History Society Annual Conference, Reading, March 2006. Deadline: 1 December 2005.

Conference notices

(De)materialising the early modern text: Early English Books Online in Teaching & Research, Bath, 8-9 September 2005. “The conference, the first to focus specifically on EEBO as a teaching and research tool, is aimed at anyone studying, teaching or researching the early modern period… or at anyone with an interest in the use of digital resources such as EEBO.”

Education and Culture in the Long 18th Century, Cambridge, 8-10 September 2005. (Notes that deadline for ‘applications’ was 10 May 2005, but you could see if you can still get in…)

Tudors and Stuarts on Film, London, 7-9 September 2005. (On 7 September “the conference will take place in the William III Banqueting Hall at Hampton Court.”) “Tudors and Stuarts on Film will be an interdisciplinary conference involving internationally recognised scholars from the fields of history and film studies.”

Port Histories: British Society and Maritime Culture, Bristol, 17 September 2005.

Ottoman and Atlantic Empires in the Early Modern World, Istanbul, 19-21 October 2005.

Renaissance Lives, London, 22 October 2005.

New Worlds Reflected: Representations of Utopia, the New World and Other Worlds 1500-1800, Birkbeck College, University of London, 9-10 December 2005. “The early modern period produced a wealth of travel writing, whether the travel in question was to the New World beyond the seas, a planet across the skies, or another imagined or idealised location. This conference will address the inter-related nature of utopia and travel-writing, and explore representations of other worlds from the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. ”

Witchcraft and Masculinities in the Early Modern World, Colchester, 21-23 April 2006. “This international conference seeks to redress the balance within the gender debate by reconsidering masculinity and its place within the broadest possible context of the magical worlds of the early modern period.”

Royalist Capital and Commonwealth Melting-Pot: Oxford in the 1640s and 1650s, Oxford, 21-23 July 2006.

Exile in the English Revolution and its Aftermath, 1640-1685, London, 28-29 July 2006. “The conference will explore the experiences of and responses to exile and defeat in the years 1640-1680, with reference both to physical displacement and inner withdrawal, retreat and retirement.”

If I’ve missed anything interesting, get in touch. I’ll probably do another of these in the autumn, unless I come across any CFPs with urgent deadlines.

Update

Celebrating Johnson’s Dictionary, Oxford, 26-28 August 2005.

Well, no matter what else was going on, it was a splendid conference. Mostly.

The trouble was that I was never happy with my paper. (I rewrote the entire conclusion before breakfast, which is never a good sign. And before you ask, I do tend to be self-critical, but not usually this much.) Interesting material of course, so I don’t think anyone was bored, and I got plenty of positive reactions, but one person hit it on the head when she said: you were just getting started when you had to stop. I misjudged my topic and what I could do with it in 30 minutes, basically. A lesson for the future. (And if I’d done the other topic I had in mind when I submitted my proposal, I think it might have fitted in better with a number of the other papers. Something you can’t know beforehand though, of course.)

But there were a lot of really great papers. And at least I came away with plenty of thinking-buzz and lots of references to read up on.

Plus, I met some great new people and got to know some others better. Suck it most definitely did not.

(It’s always particularly nice to meet people who say, oh, are you the Sharon who does that terrific website?!)

If you’re organising a conference on anything early modern, I do try to do fairly regular notices of CFPs and upcoming conferences and I’ll always be glad to include yours (especially if it has a webpage I can link to. You can email me at: sharon@earlymodernweb.org.uk). I don’t know if this has any effect on readers, though: has anyone sent a proposal to or simply attended a conference after seeing it here? I’d be curious to know.

I forgot to mention that the programme is available for the Celtic Studies ‘Milestones’ conference, which is in Aber in late June (download at the webpage).

Quite a few history sessions that I’ll probably gatecrash, especially the one on Iolo Morganwg (think Welsh Romantic-era literary forger, opium addict, ethnographer, poet…) that includes the paper entitled “‘Infamy, infamy, they’ve all got it in for me’ – paranoia and persecution anxiety in Iolo Morganwg”…

Theatrical patronage in early modern Europe, Keele University, UK, September 2005. Deadline for abstracts: 30 April 2005.

ESSHC 2006 Elites Network, Amsterdam, spring 2006. Deadline: 1 May 2005.

Cartography and Cartographic Images 1000-2000AD: Interpreting Transatlantic Cultures and Consciousness, University of Texas, US, (date not stated). Deadline: 31 May 2005.

Tom Paine: Common Sense for the Modern Era, San Diego State University, US, October 2005. Deadline: 6 May 2005.

Children of Abraham: Christians, Jews and Muslims in the Middle Ages and Early Modern era, New York, US, October 2005. Deadline: 1 June 2005.

“Early Modern Terrorism: Atrocity and Political Violence 1500-1700″

5 November 2005, Imperial War Museum North, Manchester, UK

On the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes’ attempt to destroy the Houses of Parliament a conference to consider issues of politicised violence, terrorism and atrocity during the early modern period. How useful is a definition of ‘terror’ or ‘terrorism’ to our understanding of the period? How are incidents of political violence understood, interpreted or used? How does memory of violence and terror function? How do discourses of ‘terror’ intersect with the relationship between state and subject?

Papers might consider: Atrocity; torture; martyrdom; religious violence; extremism; fundamentalism; trade and colonialism; the staging of genocide and massacre; the performance of state violence; definitions of early modern terrorism; orientalism and crusading; European war and political violence; internment; conspiracy; the law; Islam, Christianity, Judaism; heresy; execution; regicide; technologies of terror; terror and the formation of the state; Hobbes, Machiavelli; Ireland; Empire; savagery; othering; ethnic cleansing; sacrifice; invasion; revenge; warfare; suppression; treason; barbarism; science and terrorism; trauma and memory; legal and illegal political acts.

Deadline for proposals: 3 June 2005

Contact: Dr. Jerome de Groot, jerome.degroot@man.ac.uk
Department of English and American Studies,
Arts Building,
University of Manchester,
Manchester M13 9PL