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“By the Numbers” Review – Matt Zilic

Posted on by Matt Zilic

[HIST635: Early Modern England] By the Numbers Review

Matt Zilic

4/30/2026

In By the Numbers: Numeracy, Religion, and the Quantitative Transformation in Early Modern England (2024), Jessica Marie Otis examines how numbers became central to the ways sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English men and women understood faith, society, and governance. This transformation, which she describes as something that “completely reconfigured the way English men and women understood the world around them” (2), can be broadly understood as the transition from Roman numerals and other older systems of calculation to the widespread adoption of Arabic numerals. While Otis ultimately traces how Arabic numerals became dominant, she emphasizes that it is necessary to examine numbers “through the lens of early modern English culture—and, crucially, [to] defamiliarize the Arabic numeral numeracy we so often take for granted” (13).

Jessica Otis is a dual-trained scholar with degrees in both mathematics and history. She earned her PhD from the University of Virginia in 2013 and now focuses on the cultural history of early modern England. As a digital historian, she has also worked to make historical scholarship more accessible to wider audiences. Her “Death by Numbers” project reflects this commitment to digital history and public scholarship.

By the Numbers effectively combines both her mathematical and historical training, though the book leans more heavily toward cultural and social history. It is divided into two parts: part one “establishes the variety of early modern English number symbols,” while part two “consists of three case studies that place numbers in conversation with broader developments in English history” (11).

The first two chapters provide an overview of the broader cultural shift in numeracy as older systems such as Roman numerals and tally sticks gradually became less central. Chapter 1 examines the symbolic numerical systems used by early modern English men and women, dividing them into three categories: performative, object-based, and written (14). Otis makes an important distinction regarding the adoption of Arabic numerals: it was not a sudden or wholesale transformation, but rather a gradual process as trust in the system developed over time. A mixture of Roman and Arabic numerals was common, as shown in Thomas Hassall’s account book, which used both systems until 1636 (38). Although the use of Arabic numerals increased significantly after the Restoration, Otis notes that they did not become standard until the eighteenth century (41). She also reminds readers that numbers carried political and cultural meanings. One telling example is Oliver Cromwell’s insistence that tally sticks be written in English rather than Latin in order “to make them more widely legible” (24).

Trust in numbers plays a central role in Chapter 2. Otis argues that “symbolic systems were differentiated from each other by their material characteristics, which helped form the basis for people’s trust judgments” (43). Arabic numerals were especially vulnerable to mistrust because they could be easily altered or misread due to poor handwriting. Even early adopters often continued to use Roman numerals for sensitive financial information. While Otis does not present a single definitive reason for the triumph of Arabic numerals, she concludes that “the advantages of the system’s versatility outweighed the potential security risk” (62).

Chapter 3 focuses on the teaching of mathematics outside England’s elite, Latin-based schools, particularly among “those merchants, craftsmen, and other account-keepers” (63). It was this group of “middling men” who drove the expansion of numeracy and created a strong market for mathematical textbooks as literacy rates increased. This point is especially important because it highlights the close relationship between literacy and numeracy.

Chapter 4 examines how early modern English people perceived and quantified time. Otis identifies an increasingly personal relationship with time during the seventeenth century, as calendars entered the household through almanacs and “encouraged people to place themselves at the center of their own personal calendars” (90). She contrasts this with older religious calendars, where feast days such as the Feast of Saint Thomas functioned as both sacred observances and chronological markers, “a date in itself, but also the twenty-first day of December” (89). This chapter also engages strongly with historiography, particularly the work of historians such as Keith Wrightson and Mark Hailwood.

In Chapter 5, Otis explores how early modern England quantified risk. She traces the development of the concept of “odds” and shows how people increasingly understood uncertainty in terms of chances and probability. This “probabilistic mode of thought” (115) was closely tied to gambling, and the chapter features significant discussion of religious responses to games of chance. One especially engaging example is the dispute between the Puritan preachers James Balmford and Thomas Gataker over the morality of gambling. God’s providence, a theme that runs throughout the book but becomes especially prominent in the later chapters, often stood in tension with gambling practices.

This chapter also explores the rise of insurance schemes, particularly for maritime cargo. Otis shows how insurance expanded rapidly in both England and continental Europe, but rather than viewing insurance strictly as protection against loss, she frames it as a form of structured betting. The most fascinating examples come from the eighteenth century, when “it was possible to purchase insurance on the likelihood of births, marriages, cuckoldry, highway robbery, the fall of a besieged city, and even death by drinking gin” (103–131). These policies may remind modern readers of prediction markets such as Polymarket or Kalshi.

The final chapter connects mathematics to both religious and secular life through parish registers, which “became the foundation for…more general seventeenth-century attempts to use demographic data for social analysis” (141). Here, Otis examines the quantification of the English people themselves. She argues that by the end of the seventeenth century, bureaucrats had increasingly divorced demographic data “from any particular political agenda,” transforming censuses from tools of government administration into broader methods for understanding populations and society (141).

Otis draws from an extensive range of primary sources throughout the book, including mathematics textbooks, account books, insurance records, almanacs, parish registers, and mortality bills. These are supported by an impressive body of secondary scholarship, reflected in nearly forty pages of bibliography.

One of the most compelling ways Otis engages with her sources is through marginalia, which she calls “the surest indicator of the symbolic system used for calculation” (59). In the context of mistrust toward Arabic numerals, marginal notes reveal how readers actually performed calculations. Beyond mathematics, marginalia also helps track the ownership and use of specific books across generations. Otis uses these annotations to show how textbooks passed “through the hands of at least half a dozen annotators” (69). She argues that such books remained in use for decades, particularly among female students, who “had less access to institution-based education and were more likely to be taught arithmetic at home” (69). This evidence is further supported by graphs in the appendices, particularly a table contrasting the total number of arithmetic textbooks with the number containing annotations.

Another source the book uses particularlywell is the London Bills of Mortality, which quantified disease and death. Of all numerical records, these were among the most publicly accessible: “they could be purchased for a penny apiece, or families could purchase an annual subscription for 4s.” Interest in local mortality was driven by more than curiosity—it was also a practical tool for risk assessment. During plague outbreaks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Otis shows that people used the bills to decide whether they should leave the city. The diary of Samuel Pepys is especially useful in illustrating this behavior.

By the Number is an engaging and illuminating study of a subject that has received comparatively little attention. One area where the book could have gone further is in comparing England to mainland Europe. A lingering question is the extent to which this numerical transformation was uniquely English or part of a broader continental development occurring at roughly the same time. Nevertheless, Otis’s extensive research and clear writing make the book both compelling and accessible. It is a work that will appeal to both academic and general readers interested in the histories of religion, knowledge, and early modern society.

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700 – CHall Review

Posted on by Chappy Hall

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700: Turning Inside by Paul Griffiths is a comprehensive exploration of changes in local governance in early modern England towards greater exactitude in information and institutions. Griffiths is a historian of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England with a wide range of scholarship interests. He has worked on crime, punishment, urbanity, and government among other topics. Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700 looks to build on this research, but turns away from London, which Griffiths has previously written a considerable amount on, to focus on local governments across the country. It is an impressive and dense piece of historical scholarship.

In Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700, Griffiths argues that government in England in 1700 was markedly different from that in 1550 with a significant shift in the balance between public and private displays of authority towards the latter. This change was complex and multifaceted. Griffiths terms it as ‘turning inside’ which refers to “principles and practices of local government in which magistrates put their faith in information systems that in their procedures and range were innovative and developed institutions that were distinctive in their numbers and purpose” (Griffiths, 287). This was in turn matched by greater concerns and questions about the effectiveness of public displays of authority and public punishment of petty crime (‘manifestaccon’). Griffiths emphasizes time and again that this was not a replacement or sharp break, but rather a gradual shift in balance where both approaches coexisted throughout the period in question. This was the start of a process that continued after the seventeenth-century into the modern period in which “Important aspects of local government turned inside, where they have remained ever since” (Griffiths, 289).

A critical theme of the monograph, and concept which drove the ‘turn inside,’ is ‘precyson.’ This concept of exactitude, along with its opposite ‘mysprecyson,’ is the focus of Chapter 1. Griffiths argues that “Pursuing precision defined the art of local government” (Griffiths, 66). Local magistrates, almost exclusively from the ‘middling sort,’ were focused on eradicating ‘mysprecyson’ with collection of detailed, accurate information as an important part of local government. This pursuit, drawn both from governmental pragmatism and the growing commercial need for records of the ‘middling sort,’ was a key factor in the broader shift in governmental practice which Griffith’s tracks.

Chapters 2 and 3 deal with the public facing side of governance and authority. Chapter 2 addresses ‘manifestaccon’ more broadly and the increasing scrutiny of its effectiveness. Chapter 3 is more focused as it deals specifically with punishment as an aspect of ‘manifestaccon’ and how opinions advocating it be moved from public to private spaces gained traction. Griffiths shows that as part of ‘turning inside’ far fewer punishments were carried out in public at the end of the period in question than at the start. He claims that “the number of ‘publique’ whippings fell as whipping inside soared” and that the use of ducking stools and stocks almost vanished (Griffiths, 148). Public punishments did not entirely disappear, but they were significantly less common.

Griffiths’ final chapters deal with the private rather than the public. In Chapter 4 he explores the spread of bridewells, corrections houses, across England and their integral role in local government and the shifting of punishment to private spaces. The growth of the bridewell system was gradual like other changes Griffiths follows; however, he does argue that “The only possible watershed moment is the 1610 bridewell legislation” which mandated their establishment in every county (Griffiths, 287). In Chapter 5 Griffiths turns to the collection of information by local governments. He analyzes how contemporaries believed accurate information and surveillance were critical for ‘good government.’ He also connects this back to ‘precyson’ and examines the creation of archives through local governmental record keeping. In doing so, Griffiths problematizes the archives in the same fashion as scholars like Michel-Rolph Trouillot. He recognizes their constructed nature as products of history and those who created them as well as the contingent nature of what records survived. This theoretical approach to the archives strengthens his arguments as how governments created and organized record keeping is both telling of their own function and affects the kind of information available to Griffiths.

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700 is a longue durée history. As Griffiths argues, “The ‘turn inside’ was a time-consuming manoeuvre driven slowly in low gear over 150 years through experiential decision-making for the most part rather than by design” (Griffiths, 2). This was a gradual change driven by ‘middling sorts’ in response to the practical needs of local governance and society in the face of significant local and national challenges demographically, culturally, and economically. This extended, measured approach to change over time is foundational to the work as Griffiths looks to draw continuities from Tudor, particularly the number focused Elizabethan, England to the country at the heart of a global empire a century and a half later.

This approach places Griffiths in direct opposition to the arguments of Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Griffiths critiques Foucault’s approach, which eschews any of the connective tissue of change over time, instead characterizing different periods of penal practice as sharp breaks (Griffiths, 289). Furthermore, he claims that Foucault conflates punishment for felonies with general punishment and does not recognize the early modern coexistence of public and private punishment in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Griffiths claims that “Foucault’s grasp of early modern theology and jurisprudence is thin at best” leading him to not recognize the reformative goal of punishment in institutions like bridewells (Griffiths, 10). While Griffiths’ critique is at times scathing, and perhaps unfair to Foucault who was focused on modern France not early modern England, it does lay out Griffiths’ position quite clearly. It is a gradual, change over time approach which is focused on the complex coexistence of different punishments and authority instantiations, not a stark comparison like seen in Foucault’s work.

Griffiths also sets himself in conversation with other scholars. In addition to Foucault, he challenges others who have worked on punishment such as Faramerz Dabhoiwala. Griffiths claims historians of criminal justice in the long eighteenth-century “pay too little attention to events before 1675” and therefore fail to recognize this later time period as a continuation not a turning point (Griffiths, 148). In addition to these interventions, he builds on the work of historians Keith Wrightson, Norman Jones, Mike Braddick, and Steve Hindle whose research elucidates the “two-way process of delegation” between Whitehall and local government that facilitated state formation (Griffiths, 2). This places Griffiths in line with other modern historians; such as Mark Stoyle, Christopher Dyer, Lucy Kaufman, and Lloyd Bowen; who have tried to move early modern English history away from London and into other regions of the country.

The vast body of primary sources Griffiths draws upon also aligns him with many contemporary scholars. Drawing on nearly three dozen archives, he uses local government records of all sorts: government officials’ accounts, meeting minutes and session books, corporation and town records, court proceedings, church wardens’ accounts, and published texts such as books and plays. In addition, he also draws on visual media of the period and state records in national archives. Impressive on its own, Griffiths’ primary source research also interweaves with his methodology. Like Kaufman, who also uses church wardens’ records, Stoyle, and Dyer, his approach is from the bottom up. It is social history.

Rather than examine this shifting phenomenon from the elite, state perspective in London, like historians of Elizabethan information collection, Griffiths focuses his lens on the ‘middling sort’ who made up local governments. He focuses on the concerns, needs, and challenges faced by England’s population at the immediate, local level to demonstrate how society as a whole made this transition. This supports his argument that “Nothing changed in a flash” (Griffiths, 287) as it shows that it was not mandates from the top which caused the ‘turn inside.’ Instead, it was the concerns and practical appeal of choices at the local level which so drastically changed governance.

Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700 is a dense monograph. Rich in primary source research and broad in scope, Griffiths’ approach can be overwhelming in its details. At times the main thrust of sections, or even the overall argument. is obfuscated by the complexity of Griffiths’ argument and the copious number of examples he provides. It is easy for the reader to lose sight of the larger picture as the author dives into the granular details of corporations and towns purchasing records of government decrees for x number of shillings or specific instances of whipping when the monograph’s scope is so large. However, while Griffiths’ ambition at times leads to the work being less approachable, the quality of research and historical thinking on display is par excellence. Paul Griffith’s Information, Institutions, and Local Government in England, 1550-1700 persuasively shows that shifts in governance in early modern England lay “Not in the plush offices, comfy corridors, and handily centralized archives of royal government, but in the chores of churchwardens, constables, overseers, and surveyors in their little part of England that through them have left records in archives everywhere” (Griffiths, 12).

Freedom Seekers by Simon Newman – CHall Review

Posted on by Chappy Hall

When faced with the silences of the archives and their reification of the hierarchical power dynamics of slavery, how does one recover the voices and lived experiences of the oppressed? In his 2022 monograph Freedom Seekers: Escaping from Slavery in Restoration London, Simon P. Newman provides an answer. Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Glasgow, Honorary Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, and a Brown 2026 Visiting Fellow Newman is a renowned historian of colonial America and the early modern British Atlantic. In addition to his expertise in the Americas, he leverages over a decade of research into the history of slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the British world to deliver a sagacious and methodologically striking monograph in Freedom Seekers.

At the heart of Newman’s work is the aim of bringing to light the agency, humanity, and lived experience of enslaved Africans seeking freedom in late seventeenth century London. While this is an approach fraught with challenges, Newman strives to encourage “readers to imagine real people who remembered, who suffered, who ate, who slept, who laughed, who sang and who danced” (Newman, xxv). In addition to recovering the voices of the enslaved, Newman also articulates a central polemic. He challenges existing historiography of the development of institutionalized racial slavery which is primarily occupied with Britain’s American colonies. These scholars “have assumed that White colonists enslaved West Africans and indigenous Americans beyond the oversight of an English government that was preoccupied with religious conflict, civil war and the Cromwellian Protectorate” (Newman, xxvi). Instead, Newman argues that English efforts on English soil were directly involved in forming this system of racialized oppression. In fact, he states that “Racial slavery was being created simultaneously in London and in the colonies, and the development of runaway slave advertisements as a response to this form of slave resistance [escape] was actually a London creation” (Newman, xxvii). Newman places print media and London at a critical juncture in the construction of the racial slavery so often attributed to the colonies.

Freedom Seekers is organized in three parts, each with a distinct purpose. Newman uses the first of these to provide a broader historical context of Restoration London. It is comprised of three chapters: one detailing the exponentially growing metropolis of London during the period, another exploring the Black community of London at the time, and the last an overview of freedom seekers in London as a group. These chapters not only provide the setting for the more personal and focused analysis Newman brings later, but also platform two of his sub-arguments. One of these is the rising influence of print and news media with newspapers, primarily the London Gazette, combining with the growing commercial communities of the Royal Exchange and coffee houses to create a ‘new public sphere’ (Newman, 22). This environment was a rich network for the dissemination of information. It was therefore ripe for the runaway advertisements which were a critical tool for the enforcement of racialized slavery and which serve as the core of Newman’s primary source base.

These chapters also illuminate the growing urban and commercial community in the metropole which put out these runaway ads. As Newman argues, “An interconnected web of aristocrats, gentry, merchants, bankers, coffee shop owners, craftsmen, shipwrights, ship captains and their families in the capital emerge from these newspaper notices, revealing the connections between those who owned or directly benefitted from the traffic in and exploitation of enslaved people both in the colonies and in London (Newman, 67). It is this assemblage of Londoners who were engaged “in their own domestic process of defining slavery as they understood and practiced it” based on the concept of theft (in this case the enslaved person stealing their own body by escaping) that Newman attributes the development of racial slavery in London to. In addition, he begins here to articulate an argument which also features prominently is his third major section that the runaway slave advertisement, which “would become the most ubiquitous evidence of resistance by the enslaved” in the English-speaking Atlantic, originated in London and then matriculated to the colonies (Newman, 67).

The second part of the monograph is a collection of twelve chapters which each outline a category or characteristic of the freedom seekers. As the main body of the book, these chapters focus on the freedom seekers as a whole, using specific individuals as representative windows into larger groupings. For example, Newman examines particular demographic divisions such as boys or South Asians as well as common experiences such as escaping from a maritime context or branding. It is here where he especially focuses on giving voice to these people often overlooked in the historical narrative.

Following this, Newman concludes the book with a third part which extends his analysis and its ramifications to the colonies in three chapters. Of particular note here is his bolstering of the argument that the runaway advertisement system developed in London spread to the colonies. Rather than examine London in isolation, he connects it to the broader British Empire. The epilogue focused on the escape of John King, a person enslaved by Benjamin Franklin (whose printing business often published runaway advertisements), serves to thematically bring this argument full circle (Newman, 217-218).

The most impressive facet of Freedom Seekers is Newman’s methodology. He employs a large collection of runaway slave advertisements as his main body of primary sources. These advertisements published in London newspapers present both opportunities and challenges which Newman navigates with aplomb. They offer an important, if limited window, into the lives and humanity of enslaved persons as “by definition these advertisements reveal resistance to bondage and assertions of individuality and agency” (Newman, xxvii). These individuals rarely appear in the historical record outside of these advertisements and occasional parish records, another source used by Newman, but what can be understood about them is drawn out by the author.

While doing so, he also struggles against the danger of reifying the hierarchical power of the enslaver. Newman clearly explains that “the few dozen words of each advertisement were those of an enslaver… asserting legal control of the freedom seeker, defying his or her agency” (Newman, xxvii). These advertisements are a historical artifact of oppression, and he is clear eyed about the violence of the archive that must be combatted in their use. Like other social historians trying to extract the humanity and lived experience of common or oppressed people Newman reads against the grain of his sources. Lucy Kaufman’s A People’s Reformation: Building the English Church in the Elizabethan Parish is another example of this methodology where the author plies out of church records the common people’s religious experience. It can also be seen in Mark Stoyle’s A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 where, due to the destruction of documents, the author purposefully questions of the bias and power dynamic of sources to bring to light the rebel perspective of the Prayer Book Rebellion. Newman aptly describes the need for this approach as “the words, the experiences, the motivations, the hopes and dreams of the freedom seekers themselves are largely absent from the archival record, and it requires contextual research and more than a little imagination to see the freedom seekers as individuals rather than as objects” (Newman, xxvii).

He pursues this humanizing goal through other methodological approaches as well. One of these is a very intentional use of language. Newman avoids using terms, even appropriate period words, which reinforce the dehumanizing, racist power dynamic of slavery (Newman, xi). For example, rather than ‘slave’ he uses ‘enslaved,’ but also chooses to still use the term ‘master’ as during the Restoration period it lacked later racial connotations. Focused, but impactful choices like this play an important part in bolstering Newman’s efforts to recover the oppressed subjects of Freedom Seekers.

Another methodological technique which Newman employs for this effect is his use of anecdotes and creative narrative. Where the archival sources fail to provide rich stories of the freedom seekers’ experiences Newman looks to fill that gap. He begins the monograph’s prologue with a vivid, imagined narrative of the enslaved person Ben’s attempt to escape from the merchant Theodore Johnson (Newman, xxi n1). This use of fiction to impress upon the reader a historical subject’s experience is unusual but striking in its success at humanizing Ben. Although uncommon, another example of it can be found in Jim Downs’ Maladies of Empire: How Colonialism, Slavery, and War Transformed Medicine which employs this imaginative approach from the methodological lens of Black Feminist Critique. Similarly, each of the twelve chapters in part two begins with a particular runaway advertisement and Newman’s attempt to give life and detail to the freedom seeker in question as much as possible. Criticism could be leveled at Newman for potentially reaching beyond what can be concretely gleamed from his sources about these individuals. However, such a critique would undermine the robust research and scholarly imaginativeness used by Newman to lift these forgotten people out of obscurity. Freedom Seekers is a brilliant piece of modern scholarship on slavery in the early British Empire and the humanity of its victims.

Anatomy of a Duel by Lloyd Bowen – CHall Review

Posted on by Chappy Hall

            Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England: Gentry Honour, Violence and the Law by Lloyd Bowen is a microhistory which tells the story of an early seventeenth century duel between the English gentlemen John Egerton and Edward Morgan. It then expands the insights gained by studying this unique case to explore the world of gentry honor and the place of dueling within it during the Jacobethan era. Bowen is a Professor of History at Cardiff University and a prolific historian who specializes in early modern English and Welsh history. Bowen has published works on a wide variety of subjects, but has experience working on gentry, legal records, and the Welsh Marches region which all play an important role in Anatomy of a Duel. As a subject expert, Bowen deeply engages with relevant historiography to further refine understandings of dueling and honor culture.

In Anatomy of a Duel, Bowen argues that early modern English gentry honor was mutable in nature and that dueling was an important, if controversial, part of this complex social construct. Bowen makes a large number of claims or sub-arguments which fit within or adjoin this position, although how clearly Bowen articulates them and their hierarchy of importance leaves something to be desired. Of these, one which is central to his thesis is the formation of gentry honor. He takes a position which supports and expands on the arguments of Richard Cust and Courtney Thomas in which gentry honor is viewed “as a multi-faceted and flexible social construct which was both an interior and exterior quality through which individuals constructed their own public personalities and were, in turn, judged by their peers” (Bowen, 4-5). Throughout Anatomy of a Duel Bowen returns to this, examining how individuals’ sense of honor, slights against honor, and attempts to present oneself as an honorable gentleman drove decision making and action. For example, he points out that in the immediate exchanges the day before Egerton and Morgan’s duel, “Morgan was highly sensitive to any suggestion that he was anything less than a perfectly honourable gentleman” which likely influenced his decision to accept the proffered challenge (Bowen, 89). At times it was restraint which marked gentlemanly conduct, and in cases like this Bowen argues that for Morgan to stand his ground was critical to preserving his claim to honorable behavior. This articulation of honor as circumstantially malleable and, critically, as an outward presentation is central to Bowen’s monograph.

The other key aspect of Bowen’s thesis is a three-pronged historiographical intervention. The first of these is that his work “challenges and problematises the historiographical tendency to render the provincial gentry of this period as ‘tamed’” (Bowen, 9). Bowen situates himself in opposition to historians like Mervyn James and their ‘pacification of the elite’ narrative of gentry honor and violence. As part of this refutation of that concept’s lack of nuance, he also challenges the propensity of that argument “to analyse the feud and the duel as wholly separate categories of elite violence” (Bowen, 9). Bowen, using the Morgan-Egerton feud as a case study, demonstrates how the allegedly discarded and purely Medieval practice of familial feuds and extended conflict not only persisted and, in some circumstances, motivated duels of honor. Both of these prongs contest the whiggish pacification argument which portrays a less violent elite falling under the control of a centralized government.

Bowen’s third intervention does so as well. Anatomy of a Duel “also serves to question our tendency to distinguish law and violence by their relationship to a supposedly unbelligerent ‘modernity’” (Bowen, 9). Historians who align their arguments or even take unconscious inspiration from James often present violent resolutions like the duel as an alternative solution to the law. However, Bowen argues that they in fact coexisted and were often engaged in simultaneously in the search for a satisfactory resolution to feuds and similar conflicts. This further undercuts the pacification argument which traditionally presents the increasing use of law courts, especially centralized state or royal courts, as a replacement for violent recourse and a method for the crown to assert its central authority.

In addition to these interventions, Anatomy of a Duel also sits in concert with certain other corners of the historiography. One contemporary trend in particular is to draw extended links between the late Medieval world and early modern England, or within the latter period as well, rather than creating stark divisions between eras. For example, in A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 Mark Stoyle reframes the Prayer Book Rebellion as an uprising rooted in an extended history of discontent rather than a spontaneous blip. Susan Doran’s From Tudor to Stuart: The Regime Change from Elizabeth I to James I breaks down the sharp divide historians create in 1603 between the two monarchs’ reigns to point out the extended continuity of the Jacobethan era. This trend is evident in Bowen’s push back against the idea that dueling was a purely spontaneous and Italian Renaissance import, instead connecting it to the tradition of dynastic feuds.

Bowen also aligns in certain respects with Markku Peltonen and his influential scholarship on early modern dueling. However, where they critically differ is that unlike Peltonen’s overview scale intellectual history, Bowen’s work is built on the zoomed in methodology of microhistory. This naturally provides a different perspective, and Bowen uses it to draw some of his larger conclusions about the period, both through what ways the duel between Morgan and Egerton is typical and in what ways it is exceptional. This approach is possible due to the significant number of primary sources which were created and survived on the specific duel and its surrounding legal case. They are legal records which concern the inheritance struggle preceding the incident and those which surround the later prosecutions against Morgan on charges of murder. These sources are a great boon for Bowen, but also offer a significant challenge as they “are slippery, ambiguous and often difficult to work with” and many were collected for the purposes of a private prosecution of Morgan by the Egerton family, which further complicates their reliability (Bowen, 13). As a result, Bowen is very measured in his arguments and narrative, always careful to outline what simply is unknown or uncertain in the record.

Structured as a narrative, Anatomy of a Duel begins by outlining the history of the families involved in the feud and the Talacre inheritance dispute which was at the root of their conflict. The core of the book then outlines the lead-up to the duel with challenges evaded and the eventual London encounter where Egerton and Morgan agreed to their deadly contest. In these early chapters in particular Bowen emphasizes the coexistence of attempts at legal and violent recourse. He then proceeds to the duel itself, being careful to articulate what little is certain about the event from the many contradictory accounts, and the contentious legal case which followed. It is here that many of Bowen’s sub-arguments and themes take shape including the complex public opinion on dueling on display in the debate between murder and manslaughter, the rarely visible but essential legal impact of coroner’s depositions, and the makeup of gentry honor. He then concludes the book by briefly outlining how the involved parties’ lives proceeded following Edward Morgan’s pardon.

The shining success of Bowen’s work is this microhistory, narrative format which delves deeply into a dramatic and gripping tale of feud and violence. Even despite his refusal to, and inability due to sources, provide a final, incontrovertible account of the duel, he succeeds in weaving a compelling narrative across this complexity and simultaneously draws many exciting historical conclusions. Where Bowen’s writing is at times lacking is, as previously alluded to, in cogently articulating these many claims. It is not always clear which arguments he situates as the most important or sound, nor are all immediately apparent. There are times where the reader is told that the source material allows unusual insight into a topic, but what that insight is must be carefully teased out of the center of the text rather than clearly stated by Bowen. This shortcoming may make the text less approachable, especially for those foreign to the subject material, but it does not detract from the quality of the author’s research. Anatomy of a Duel is still a robust and engaging microhistory of gentry honor and dueling in the early Jacobean period.

“Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England” Review — Matthew Zilic

Posted on by Matt Zilic

Just north of London on April 21, 1610, two men of the English-Welsh gentry, John Egerton and Edward Morgan, fought a duel that lead to the death of Egerton and a protracted legal battle which ultimately saw Morgan receiving clemency by James I. In what serves as an impressively written microhistory and case study of this single duel, Lloyd Bowen’s 2021 Anatomy of a Duel in Jacobean England analyzes what he calls “the most fully documented duel in early modern England,” (1). Despite the wealth of primary sources that center around the duel and its aftermath, he also writes that it is largely ignored by historians (195), which can perhaps be indicative of how understudied the field of duelling in early modern England has been. 

Through the use of primarily court documents, Bowen is able to argue that the duel was almost certainly not a spontaneous event, but instead the result of a feud that stretched back years, beginning in 1606 during an inheritance dispute over the estate of Talacre. In a carefully written narrative fashion, Bowen interweaves the duel itself with the messy legal aftermath; the coroner’s inquest and the King’s Bench and Star Chamber hearings. He also ties the context of the families’ dispute to the duel in 1610. Bowen’s main aim is to challenge and dismiss the notion that violence had disappeared among the social elite by the seventeenth century. The book is part of a broader historiographic trend that eschews the Whiggish notions of violence declining in the early modern period due to an increase in civility and government control. Bowen additionally argues to a lesser degree that the culture of the northern Marches of Wales were more accepting of duels to a martial culture. As he states: “Indeed, an argument can be made that there was something of a provincial culture of duelling to be found here [in northern Wales] in this period,” (73). Widening the scope as well, Anatomy places the Highgate Duel in a European context that saw a general rise in elite violence influenced by French and Italian models. 

Anatomy is constructed both thematically and chronologically. Bowen first introduces the two kin-groups: the Egertons of Cheshire and the Morgans of Flintshire, with their shared Mostyn family connections. He then reconstructs the Talacre inheritance quarral of 1606–08 (chapters 2–3), showing how each side raised legal actions and exchanged challenge letters. This section is full of colorful depictions of legal back-and-forths and highlight the legal scope of the book. An example can be found in Bowen’s description of a common strategy to flood the courts with litigations in order to “exhaust the money, patience, and resources of one’s opponent by delay, manipulation and a multiplicity of suits,” (42). Chapter 4 surveys duelling in Elizabethan and Jacobean Britain to provide context (noting, for example, that duels occurred throughout society). Chapters 5–7 zoom in on the Highgate encounter and its immediate aftermath. Finally, chapters 8–9 cover the King’s Bench trial and political intrigue, including the Morgans’ alliances at court. Chapter 8 sees Edward receive his conviction for murder and also his pardon from the king. The text is supplemented by very helpful appendices (a timeline of the conflict, jury lists).

The social class that these families belong to is something that Bowen thinks is worth examination. One might think that as members of the landed gentry, they would have an ample amount of secondary material written on them, which is not the case. In his introduction, Bowen identifies a gap in the historiography, in which both the older and newer trends in history have forgotten the “lesser gentry,” particularly those who lived further from London. As residents of Cheshire and Flintshire, the Egertons and Morgans have fallen into that gap forgotten by historians. Religion additionally plays a role, albeit not one as large as one may think. During the Talacre trial and in previous trials, the Protestant Egertons lobbied that the Catholic Morgans had failed to maintain peace in the region, despite the family patriarch Edward Morgan I being a JP. However, Bowen interestingly points out that religion had little to do with the duel itself, if anything. The Catholic Morgan family were able to ally themselves with a Protestant family at court in the Howards, meanwhile the Protestant Egertons “gained little traction with the reform-minded Lord Chancellor Ellesmere,” (196).

The critiques for the book are few and hard to find due to the limited scope and overall fluid structure. Starting small, a personal nitpick I had with the book was Bowen’s apparent refusal to use Oxford commas. Delving to a deeper level, however, there are some assumptions about the character of these men that are made which are perhaps too grandiose or general. This is true particularly when it concerns the victor of the duel, Edward Morgan. By all accounts he appears to be a violent and insecure individual. One only needs to read the challenge letter that he sent to John Egerton in 1608 (54). However, Bowen does seem quick to dismiss him as a one-sided villain, when he was likely a complex individual who we will never know the full character of. Bowen himself admits that one of the unfortunate downsides of chasing these sources is the inability to know all. He states that “On the other hand, these legal sources are slippery, ambiguous and often difficult to work with. In dealing with the civil courts, for example, the record is inherently adversarial and partisan and was, in some senses, designed to produce contradictory narratives,” (13).  In the end, Edward Morgan removed himself from his inheritance as eldest son and instead became a coal entrepreneur, a sign that the duel and the trial had likely greatly changed him one way or the other. 

Anatomy is a highly intelligent work that I would recommend to anyone interested in early modern English social history. Bowen’s meticullous use of court records and its vivid reconstruction of a single duel combine to illuminate larger themes of gentry honor, violence, and a broader European movement.

Free Review: Elizabeth’s French Wars by William Heap

Posted on by Chappy Hall

Elizabeth’s French Wars, 1562-1598: English Intervention in the French Wars of Religion by William Heap is an extensive, albeit meandering, exploration of Elizabethan England’s military and diplomatic engagements in France. Heap, who earned his Bachelor of Arts in History at the University College of North Wales and his Maîtrise and Diplôme d’études approfondies at the Sorbonne in Paris, is a military historian experienced with research in both English and French archives. This background is critical to Elizabeth’s French Wars which dives deeply into the intersection of Anglo-French military and diplomatic relations. Inspired originally by finding diagrams of French fortifications in English archives, Heap’s monograph adds a great deal to an often-overlooked subject.

In Elizabeth’s French Wars, Heap’s primary argument is that while English involvement in the French Wars of Religion is both understudied by historians and often dismissed as insignificant, it was in fact highly impactful over the course of the conflict and a successful policy for Elizabeth I’s government. He defines this success in the context of the Queen’s principle foreign policy concern: preventing major foreign invasion. Heap argues that thanks to the wars “France was effectively neutralised” (Heap, 255). Furthermore, he claims that “Intervention prevented the unification of France and Spain in an [Catholic] alliance against England” and that it “ended French designs both in Scotland the Low Countries” (Heap, 255). Through military, financial, and diplomatic intervention, France, rather than England, was maintained as a central battlefield of European religious conflict and consequently this foreign policy “helped to preserve Elizabeth” despite her powerful enemies (Heap, 255). Heap connects this success to the influence of English investment, which was not insignificant. Rather, he argues that without said aid “the Huguenot resistance would soon have collapsed under Royalist pressure” and therefore the effect of English aid, and its success in keeping England’s enemies fighting elsewhere, is evident in the protracted nature of the conflict (Heap, 252). In his own words, he makes the bold claim that “England effectively kick-started and perpetuated the wars” (Heap, 14).

Heap spends a significant portion of his introduction addressing the historiographical angle of his thesis. He explains that the lack of attention this topic has received from other scholars is in part due to English military history in this time period being overshadowed by an interest in maritime history and Elizabeth as an individual character (Heap, 16). He also argues that within the military histories written on this period, English intervention is often sidelined because it manifested in skirmishes and sieges, not the pitched battles and decisive campaigns which grab attention. He points to historian John Hale as one example of this who claimed that it was not worth investigating “in depth” due to its lack of large scale engagements (Heap, 16). In addition, Heap notes that English military ventures in the Netherlands against Spain have also diverted attention away from the French conflicts, a trend he dates back to late nineteenth century historians such as John Motley and Clements Markham. He then situates his study and its subject in the long history and study of Anglo-French relations, noting that the peculiarity of the alliance between Elizabeth I and Henri IV also contributes to the topic’s estrangement.

While they are not numerous, Heap does also address the other historiographies which engage with English intervention in the French Wars of Religion. He groups both stalwarts of the field of English military history and more recent contributors; including John Fortescue, Alfred Rowse, Albert Pollard, and Henri Zuber; together into a single camp of critics who all label these Elizabethan campaigns in France as futile, insignificant, or even disastrous. This is a sentiment which Heap strongly opposes and throughout the monograph he demonstrates time and again that it is at best a simplistic mischaracterization. Heap shows both the depth of worthwhile material hitherto under explored and that those who have approached the subject before failed to appreciate the significance of English involvement.

Following his extensive historiographical overview, Heap spends Chapter One outlining Elizabeth’s motivations for intervention and how the English became and stayed involved through each part of the conflict up to the Treaty of Vervins in 1598. Although there are further entanglements in the seventeenth century, they are beyond the reign of Elizabeth and therefore only briefly alluded to by Heap. He dedicates his second chapter to explaining the many ways in which the English intervened and the nature of the deployed forces, with a particular emphasis on material and logistics. This is followed by a traditional, blow by blow narrative of the various campaigns and operations English forces were involved in in Chapter Three. Heap then turns to the lived experience of English soldiers, politicians, and diplomats engaged in France during the period in Chapter Four and Elizabeth’s hostile reaction to the Treaty of Vervins which led to the cessation of fighting in France in Chapter Five. Finally, he turns to exploring English reactions to the conflict in Chapter Six.

While Heap frames his work as one of military history, and it indeed is, his methodology is diverse and he incorporates a great deal of diplomatic history as well. His source base is mainly documents and records found in state archives in both France and England. He takes full advantage of his proficiency in multiple languages. Chapter Six is dominated by literary and cultural analysis of various publications, political pamphlets, and other media created at the time which reflect the English reaction to the conflict. In constructing this picture, Heap compares various period translations of French publications to show that the titles were often altered in English translations to convey a shock and animosity towards England’s Catholic French enemies (Heap, 233).

In addition to qualitative analysis to reconstruct the course of events, Heap specifically employs quantitative analysis focusing on the logistical and financial records of intervention. This is especially prevalent in his second chapter where he provides a detailed account of the foreign subsidies paid to French allies and German Princes. He also puts forward extensive data collected on English weapons, armor, and ammunition exports sent to France (Heap, 84). Other examples of Heap’s extensive quantitative work can be found in his discussions and provided tables on manpower (110-111) and the cost of clothing soldiers (122). This quantitative analysis is critical in supporting his argument that English intervention was substantial as he demonstrates that while the number of soldiers provided was not always massive in scale, the overall investment was.

Finally, Heap also uses visual sources to great effect throughout his book. For example, he examines illustrations of various engagements and sieges like that at Gournay-en Bray to show the shift in equipment and approach of English soldiers towards pike and shot. He emphasizes the rising prominence of English Pikemen, and harquebusiers, over halberdiers and longbowmen (Heap, 116-117). He even draws upon modern images in Roger Agache’s aerial photography to corroborate the scale of the earthworks and fortifications depicted in period military plans (Heap, 186). Heap’s use of visual sources adds a welcome diversity and robustness to his arguments, and many are reproduced in color for the reader which further elevates the work.

While Elizabeth’s French Wars is impressive in its breadth and depth, it also suffers from a lack of focus at times. Heap often detours from his main argument into adjacent topics or various minutia. The previously mentioned discussion of English pikemen and the shift from longbow to arquebus is one example. While interesting and well thought out, Heap does not adequately make its relevance to his key arguments clear. This critique can also be leveraged at his sixth chapter. While interesting, how his analysis of public reactions to the conflicts demonstrates the impact of English involvement is unclear. Another facet of this diffuse quality is an additional argument, not yet touched on, which Heap makes. He provides a “re-evaluation” of Henri IV as a military leader, qualifying others’ critiques with the inhibiting circumstances he faced (Heap, 16). English troops were often used by Henri, and a variety of his operations are covered in the book, but this argument is out of place and disconnected from Heap’s others and would perhaps be better suited to a separate piece where it can stand on its own.

At the heart of this meandering quality is Heap’s organization. The monograph is structured thematically, with sections often moving internally in chronological order with a narrow focus. This organizational structure can be very effective but requires writing which clearly unites different themes back to one another and the main argument which is where Heap falls short. A chronological approach which weaves various themes and arguments together when relevant perhaps would have suited his style and topic better. Mark Stoyle’s A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549, another monograph which examines Tudor military operations (albeit internal), is an excellent example of chronological organization which addresses sub arguments and themes as they arise and as a result remains focused and cohesive.

In spite of these critiques, the quality of Heap’s extensive research shines through. If meandering, Heap’s exploration of a variety of minutia is interesting and brings the period to life. Elizabeth’s French Wars is an excellent demonstration of broad and deep research within Tudor military history. It is a much-needed addition to an underdeveloped historiography.

‘Female Servants in Early Modern England’ Book Review — Matthew Zilic

Posted on by Matt Zilic

Making a splash with her first book, Charmian Mansell’s 2024 study Female Servants in Early Modern England sets out with a clear objective in mind: to explore the experiences of female service workers during the period. In doing so, she asks questions about their identities, their roles, and how they fit into their communities at large. In order to accomplish her goal, Mansell makes use of a sizeable body of primary sources in what she calls a “‘needle in a haystack’ method of research” (297), which almost exclusively originate from the church records of five dioceses — Bath & Wells, Exeter, Gloucester, Hereford, and Winchester. These locations were chosen due to a higher volume of surviving records compared to much of England. When speaking on the body of her sources, Mansell writes that “Church court depositions are links of a broken chain” (29); while male deponents’ biographical information can often be reliably found in court records, few, if any, comparable records exist for women. In her research, she pored over nearly 9,000 cases from 1532–1649, involving over 15,000 litigants and 27,000 witnesses. Critically for this book, she draws on the testimonies of over a thousand female servants who were identified, some more than once (14).

As a scholar who identifies with social and economic history, Mansell’s findings deal heavily with these two aspects. Using the aforementioned sources, her chief argument is that the industry of female servitude (and servitude more generally) was neither static nor stable. Instead, it was a fluid and flexible system in which female autonomy was perhaps greater than scholars in the field have given women credit for. While still acknowledging the patriarchal structures of society, she states that “The world in which these women lived was undoubtedly one in which men ruled, just not in the way that we thought” (297). Her arguments, backed by a blending of qualitative and quantitative analyses, are both persuasive and thoughtfully developed. The data takes the forms of tables that record things such as female movement around towns and the distribution of ages among servants. Chapter 5 for instance, features a table detailing the length of residence in parishes, and from this chapter, she is able to discern mobility as it correlates to age amongst servants. 

The book, perhaps more than any other that we have read this semester, interacts heavily with the historiography (or sometimes the lack thereof). Her arguments directly challenge long-held notions of family and servitude during the early modern period. For instance, as this is a gender study, the concept of patriarchy features prominently throughout. Mansell notes that female servants are scarcely studied outside the context of their masters’ households. She argues that while women’s history has stretched far and wide in search of female autonomy, the history of service has lagged behind. Just as service itself was flexible, there appears to have been flexibility within the household patriarchal order. She notes that some households indeed had no patriarchal figure; houses headed by a father or husband were but one type of household (10).

Female Servants is organized into three parts and nine chapters. Part I discusses who female servants were and how they were recorded in church records. As she claims, it offers “a more detailed reconstruction of female servant lives for this period than has been attempted before, showing service to be contingent, fluid, and flexible,” (19). Part II focuses on patterns of labor by examining female servants’ mobility, employment conditions, contractual freedom, and the types of work they performed. It shows how mobility shaped their integration and belonging, questions how freely women entered service contracts, and challenges the idea that female service was simply domestic labor. Finally, Part III examines female service spatially, socially, and temporally. It shows how itinerant women built community ties beyond the household, maintained connections across distance and time, and remained shaped by service long after it ended. Overall, it argues that early modern service was not static or purely domestic, but “finely graded, fluid, and often contingent,” (19).

Mansell also comments on the economic influence that female servants had on early modern England. According to the Statute of Artificers of 1563, servants were expected to enter into annual contracts with their masters. However, Mansell demonstrates that this was not the case in many instances. Chapter 5 opens with a discussion of the servant Philippa Hooper, who stood as a witness to the affair of her mistress. Despite heavy regulation of service, it would seem that Philippa, and many others like her, were making agreements to serve in short-term daily or weekly contracts. This aligns with Mansell’s broader argument about the greater degree of autonomy female servants experienced. However, it is also important to note that service being flexible did not always equate to total freedom; servants were still legally at the whim of their masters or mistresses. Another way in which the working lives of women are framed by Mansell is through her discussion of mobility. According to Chapter 4, women were the more mobile sex, and of this number of migrant women, over half were servants (128). This analysis aligns with the work women sought in towns and cities. It is in this chapter that perhaps one of her most compelling interventions takes place. While London attracts much of the historiographical attention for migrant laborers (deservedly so), she notes that “other urban centres offered labour opportunities for young people” (130).

Overall, Mansell’s arguments hold up well and offer another example of crafting bottom-up history from primary sources. Rather than portraying women as purely defined by their service, Mansell humanizes female servants, much as Dyer in Peasants or Kaufman in A People’s Reformation did in their respective studies. That said, one shortcoming I identified (unless I missed it) was a general lack of placement of the book within a broader political context. The last seven years covered in this study, for example, encompass the tumultuous period of the English Civil War, yet it receives only one mention in the entire book. This may almost certainly be due to political events not appearing prominently in the trial testimonies; still, I could not help but feel there was an opportunity for Mansell to further her argument by situating female servants within these broader upheavals. This aside, Female Servants is compelling and well written in its detective-like research approach and leaves the door open for further scholarship on both female and male servitude during the period. 

 

Stoyle A Murderous Midsummer Review – CHall

Posted on by Chappy Hall

Mark Stoyle’s A Murderous Midsummer: The Western Rising of 1549 is a compelling retelling of the Tudor uprising commonly known as ‘The Prayer Book Rebellion’ which also makes precise, but salient interventions into the relevant historiography. Stoyle, a Professor of history at the University of South Hampton, is an expert in the early modern West Country and Exeter among other subjects. He brings this background to bear to provide an authority and nuanced understanding of the region and the ‘Western Rising’ (Stoyle prefers this term over ‘Prayer Book Rebellion’ as the participants would not have considered themselves rebels).

Stoyle’s principal argument is that the Western Rising was a significant political event motivated by religious discontent which came far closer to directly toppling the Duke of Somerset’s regency and the English Reformation than many scholars have previously acknowledged. These historians often depict the Western Rising as a “quixotic enterprise that was bound to end in failure,” a proposition which Stoyle firmly rejects (Stoyle, 290). Instead, Stoyle makes a series of arguments, the others beyond those discussed below can be found in his conclusion, which illuminate the severity of the crisis for the regime in London, the potency of the uprising and its participants, and embed the Western Rising in a broader historical context. One of these arguments is that the rebellion in Cornwall broke out on July 6 not June 6 (Stoyle, 126). Stoyle uses a variety of evidence to show that the indictment drawn up against Humphrey Arundell and John Winslade, which lists the date as June 6, is false. For example, he points to the accounts of John Killigrew which list a transfer of garrison forces to the Isles of Scilly in June of that year, an event that would suggest no uprising had occurred yet in Cornwall (Stoyle, 127-128). This sub argument is significant to Stoyle’s overall thesis as it places the raising of and march east of the Cornish host to within a shorter three-week period. Such a condensed time frame demonstrates that “Somerset was by no means as hopelessly out of touch with what was going on in the far South-West during the initial stages of the rising as has often been claimed” and that “from the regime’s point of view, the western rebels’ movements must have looked far more purposeful and menacing” (Stoyle, 293). This serves as one example of how Stoyle deftly demonstrates that the Tudor world was one “that the West Country insurgents of 1549 came much closer than is generally realised to turning upside down” (Stoyle, 7).

Another central element of Stoyle’s approach is that he situates the Western Uprising in a larger historical context, both geographically and temporally. He breaks A Murderous Midsummer into three main divisions: Part I The Background, Part II The Rising, and Part III The Aftermath. In Part I Stoyle provides an overview of the geography and society of the West Country, explaining its unique and defining qualities. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, he situates the region in the context of over a decade of religious upheaval preceding the uprising. For example, he recounts the friction and even open opposition which Henry VIII’s first set of royal injunctions in 1536 caused in Cornwall and Exeter describing how a mob of women attacked royal agents sent to enforce the injunctions in Exeter (Stoyle, 29).

In Chapter 2 Foreshocks Stoyle reconstructs another story of religious unrest, this time of a “short-lived uprising” in West Cornwall in 1548. He frames this uprising as “the product of popular outrage at Somerset’s religious polices” (Stoyle, 71). In addition to a general religious traditionalism in opposition to the Reformation and Act of Uniformity, Stoyle also highlights that most of the area’s population still spoke Cornish and therefore were unlikely to have taken kindly to “the message of the Reformation – preached as that message invariably was, in English” (Stoyle, 73). By illuminating these various tumultuous events in the West Country sparked by controversy around the English Reformation, Stoyle places the Western Rising in a lineage of religious unrest and unease. He energetically rejects the notion that the rising had started as a social protest claiming that such an argument “seems to fly in the face of the surviving evidence” (Stoyle, 295). Instead, he further substantiates the position of Frances Rose-Troup and Aubrey Greenwood that the Western Rising was first and foremost a religious matter.

While in Part II of A Murderous Midsummer Stoyle recounts and analyses the actual uprising itself, it is in Part III which he again expands his scope to significantly bolster his argument. In Chapter 8 Aftershocks, Stoyle portrays the complex political maneuvering in the aftermath of the uprising’s defeat in a new light. Rather than just an intrigue which toppled Somerset and decided the new dominant faction at the royal court, he argues that within this struggle “the prospect was at least fleetingly to arise that the cause of traditional religion… might still triumph” (Stoye, 256). Despite their military defeat, Stoyle emphasizes the near success and the seismic impact of the western rebels in this following London centered contest to “reinforce the argument that the insurgents should not be written off as hopeless reactionaries” (Stoyle, 294). Situating the Western Uprising both in a rich preceding context of religious unrest and local peculiarity and in its following reverberations in the center of state power is one of Stoyle’s strongest contributions.

Stoyle employs a variety of sources such as manuscripts, court and county rolls, and correspondence. While he attempts to use a mix of local and state sources, he is limited by a lack of surviving eyewitness accounts, particularly from the perspective of the insurgents. As a result, Stoyle methodologically relies on critical reading and reading against the grain of his many sources to try and overcome the potential biases and shortcomings of the materials which do exist. The most significant example of this are the various accounts of eyewitness John Hooker, a local Exeter man, Reformation evangelical, and one of the besieged in Exeter during the uprising. Hooker’s writings “remain, to this day, the chief primary sources on which all subsequent histories of the rebellion have been based” making them both a key source to Stoyle’s research and other historians he is in conversation with (Stoyle, 83). However, throughout A Murderous Midsummer Stoyle questions, cross references against, and attempts to contextualize Hooker’s accounts to guard against their “biases and distortions” and avoid retelling “his [Hooker’s] vision when reconstructing the story of the Western Rising” (Stoyle, 85). Stoyle applies this critical reading to other sources, such as the indictment drawn up against Arundell and Winslade, and although at times it necessitates ambiguity or speculation, the academic integrity and rigor of his analysis are clear.

Mark Stoyle’s A Murderous Midsummer is a robust monograph which recounts the Western Rising of 1549 in detail and adds valuable contributions to the subject’s historiography. While at times Stoyle’s writing can appear to harbor sympathies for the rebels, this potential bias does not overtake the work. It is also just as likely that the positive presentation of the insurgent cause is as much a product of his thesis and its attempts to refute the notion that they were foolish and doomed from the start. Like any work which seeks to give a greater voice to a less represented group in the historiography, such as Christopher Dyer’s Peasants Making History: Living In an English Region 1200-1540, this monograph emphasizes their importance. In doing so, Stoyle illustrates how unique contributions can be made even to already strong historiographies.

Christopher Dyer – ‘Peasants Making History’

Posted on by Matt Zilic

Peasants Making History: Living in an English Region, 1200-1540 (2022) is a highly detailed and excellently crafted book by English historian Christopher Dyer. Himself a historian of the Midlands and everyday English life, Dyer’s work is the culmination of years of research into a vast swath of documentary and archaeological evidence that originate from the West Midlands region of southwest England (Gloucestershire, Warwickshire, and Worcestershire). The author’s choice of geography stems largely from familiarity with the region and its varied landscape. In addition to his own studies, Dyer draws on the efforts from historians of other topics and also across disciplines into fields such as archives and archaeology. As his title suggests, he takes a peasant-centered approach to the analysis from the High to Late Middle Ages. His emphasis is on the ways in which peasants brought about, adapted to, and resisted changes in their worlds. Whilst he concedes that medieval peasants have not been wholly ignored by historians, he does claim that  “no one has attempted an overview of the importance of peasants over a wide range of themes, from agriculture to religion,” (Dyer, 1). Likewise, Dyer scrutinizes the perception of peasants viewed as a mass — a largely negative one — and instead breaks West Midland peasants into small groups and individuals. His findings lead him to argue that contrary to peasants being subject to the whims of lords and other superiors in society, they in fact had a large amount of agency and were “people with varied ambitions, concerns, knowledge, and the ability to make something of their lives,” (Dyer, 1). It is ultimately these advancements and and labors by peasants that enable England to undertake the role it assumes during the sixteenth century. This idea is not entirely new, as showcased in the 2021 article by Claridge and Gibbs “Waifs and Strays: Property Rights in Medieval England,” who make similar arguments in regards to the stray animal system in England; that it was run on the ground effectively by peasants. While not necessarily a novel idea, Peasants Making History is a deeply humanizing work that brings peasants to the forefront of their worlds. 

Dyer organized his book into nine main chapters, plus his introduction. Rather helpfully for readers, he begins each chapter with a brief abstract and summary of the chapter’s goals and questions, and each chapter’s conclusions are equally as concise and readable. Each chapter is organized more-or-less chronologically, with a divide in the chapters for studying the West Midland pre-Black Death and then post. Dyer notes that while the disease was undoubtedly a huge factor in West Midland society, many of the changes that he illuminates among peasants were in fact beginning well before the outbreak. He points to the commonly cited example of women seizing more responsibility for themselves after the Black Death, and notes that “records used for this book show women behaving decisively in the management of their inheritance in the early fourteenth century,” (Dyer, 7). Rather than being the sole driver for the death of serfdom, Dyer clarifies that it was but one factor. He states that “The rise and slow death of serfdom seems more straightforward, as it is essentially a story of peasants pressing for freedom,” (Dyer, 82). 

He employs a wide array of topics to cover in each of his chapters, all of which lend further credence to the notion of peasants being active agents in the West Midlands. His survey begins with the landscape and how peasants directly affected it before and during the period covered. Despite the landscape offering limited opportunities due to its varied makeup, Dyer argues it was still changed to fit the needs of its inhabitants. He states that the changing of landscape in the West Midlands was not purely peasant-driven or lord-driven, but a collaborative effort on both a conscious and an unconscious level. Surviving road networks from the Roman period were still used centuries later and seawalls were built by inhabitants along the Severn estuary (Dyer, 19). Peasant landholding continues to be a prevalent theme in his book as he discusses topics like tenure, agricultural and pastoral activities, and migration. A particular interest of his in this book is exploring how peasants exploited opportunities of their life chances, looking beyond the relationship between lords and peasants. Chapter 4, ‘Peasants Changing Society,’ talks about this in detail. He argues that even though social mobility was severely limited, and migration did not always work in a peasant’s favor, the choices they made had important consequences. New tenants in towns, marriages, and the spread of ideas from one settlement to another are all examples he names, (Dyer, 112). Dyer also provides an intervention in history’s understanding of the nature of a “pre-industrial” society. He argues that labelling the West Midlands (and possibly by extension, the rest of Medieval Europe), as pre-industrial, it ignores the labor of people done in manufacturing and non-agricultural activities, (Dyer, 271). These themes ultimately contribute to his concluding argument that the “brave new world” of sixteenth century England — oceanic voyages, the Protestant Reformation, new government reform, and much more — were made possible by the advances of peasants in the centuries prior (Dyer, 342-343).

The discussion of sources opens a question he asks in the introduction: “How can we write peasant­ centred history, emphasizing their contribution to change without any sources written by them?” (Dyer, 8). It is in finding this answer that Dyer’s methodology shines through brilliantly. Primary sources like court rolls, manorial surveys, clerk’s writing last wills, and also material culture discovered through fieldwork reveal the lives of peasants. He says that behind many of the sources, the voices of the peasants can be found. In Chapter 6, “Peasants and their crops,” Dyer draws on 383 documentary references and 250 finds from fieldwork (Dyer, 168). In another example during Chapter 8, “Peasants and towns,” he is able to draw a conclusion about coins that were owned specifically by peasants based on where they are dug up and cut. As coins were not plentiful, they would have been highly valued by peasant families and not typically lost in houses or villages, but instead in fields, where peasants may have misplaced them (Dyer, 261).

Peasants Making History delivers on what is promised as an examination of the West Midlands peasantry from 1200-1540. The one question I was left with at the end of the book was how may this be applied to other regions? By his own admission, the west midland region is atypical from its neighbors in that it does not have a powerful lord dominating it, nor was it heavily urbanized or as densely populated (Dyer, 7). With that in mind, was the experience of peasants in other regions of England vastly different to conflict with his argument that peasants enjoyed much more agency than is believed? These questions aside, the book is easily digestible, even for inexperienced readers of the field, and made even more so by helpful charts and maps of the region.