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Although by 1681 Edmund Hickeringill could complain ‘that every Book-sellers Stall groans under the burthen of Sermons, Sermons’ (The Horrid Sin of Man-Catching, 1681 ‘Epistle to the Reader’), many more early modern sermons were preached than printed. Consequently, the print record tells an incomplete story of preaching in early modern Britain, one that generally favours […]

An online roundtable hosted by the Society for Renaissance Studies on 4th May 2021   Participants: Maria Shmygol (University of Leeds), Harry McCarthy (University of Cambridge), Kareen Seidler (ex. Université de Genève), Lucy Askew (Creation Theatre), and Ryan Duncan (Creation Theatre)   This event brought together scholars, translators, and theatre practitioners for a discussion of

Sir Keith Thomas on the fiftieth anniversary of his Religion and the Decline of Magic   A speech given at All Souls College on Friday 3 September 2021 by Sir Keith Thomas reflecting on the fiftieth anniversary of his ground-breaking Religion and the Decline of Magic, introduced by Alan Macfarlane. Due to a technical difficulty

Just over 400 years ago Sir Thomas Roe, England’s first official ambassador to the Mughal Empire of India, returned after four years at the court of the Emperor Jahangir. Sent by King James I in 1615 to secure favourable trading terms for the fledgling East India Company, Roe would return to London in late 1619

Report of online event, held on April 29 2020 ‘Thou paper-faced villain’, (Doll Tearsheet, 2 Henry IV, 5.2) Rebecca Carnevali (Warwick University), on a printed licence for carrying weapons, Bologna post-1640 Jonathan Patterson (St. Hilda’s College, Oxford), on the Registres des Deliberations du Bureau de la ville de Paris, Paris 1735, recording late seventeenth-century practice

As the ailing Richard Baxter waited in the dock, physically propped up by his friends, during his trial for sedition in 1685, he was excoriated by his judge, the notorious Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys: Richard, thou art an old fellow, and an old knave – thou hast written books enow to load a cart, every

Rachel Willie discusses the songs of the street and introduces a new research network, ‘Soundscapes in the Early Modern World’.

You can find this treasure in the Folger archives – a photograph of a soldier marching through Vietnam, a copy of Taming of the Shrew stuck in his helmet (Fig. 1). The photo might recall the poster for Kubrick’s 1987 war film Full Metal Jacket, featuring a helmet emblazoned with both the peace symbol and

A dense work of early English prose, strewn throughout with serious and teasing marginalia from its author, might not be the most likely candidate for stage adaptation – but this project has just been undertaken by a team of artists and academics in Sheffield. William Baldwin’s Beware the Cat, written in 1553, will be performed