‘”The Voylence of this my Fall: Falling and the Elderly in Early Modern England”, European Social Science History Conference, Glasgow, Scotland, 11-14 April 2012.
by Lynn Botelho
‘A Respectful Challenge to the Nineteenth-Century’s View of Itself: An Argument for the Early Modern Medicalization of Old Age’, The Cultural Politics of Ageing in the Nineteenth Century Conference, University of Regensburg, Germany, 24-26 November 2011.
by Lynn Botelho
“Dance References in the Records of Early English Drama: Alternative Sources for Non-Courtly Dancing, 1500-1650.”
SDHS 2005 Proceedings: Twenty-eighth Annual Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. Focus: Dancing From the Center.
http://sdhs.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=80
“The Italian Protestant Church of London in the Seventeenth Century,” in BARBARA SCHAFF (ed.), Exiles, Emigrés and Intermediaries Anglo-Italian Cultural Transactions, Internationale Forschungen zur Allgemeinen und Vergleichenden Literaturwissenschaft, no. 139 (Amsterdam/New York, NY, Rodopi, 2010), 217-236.
Sixteenth century London played host to the formation of a small but lively Italian Protestant Community, which... more
Sixteenth century London played host to the formation of a small but lively Italian Protestant Community, which worshiped at Mercers’ Chapel at Cheapside. By 1598 as the major influx of religious exiles progressively ceased, the Italian reformed Church ceased to exist. After some ten years, the Church reopened in 1609. The sixteenth-century vicissitudes of the Italian Church of London have previously been studied by Luigi Firpo and, more recently, by Owe Boersma and Auke J. Jelsma. The essay discusses the difficult life of this community during the seventeenth century and reconstructs, on the basis of the existing scant evidence, who the ministers of the Church were, what their links with the Church of England were, and attempts to understand who identified themselves as members of this little Protestant Community.
“Gli Incogniti e l’Inghilterra,” in Davide Conrieri (ed.), Gli incogniti e l’Europa (Bologna: Casa editrice Emil di Odoya, 2011), 233-276.
[The Incogniti and England]. This essay investigates the relationship between the Academy of the Incogniti and England... more [The Incogniti and England]. This essay investigates the relationship between the Academy of the Incogniti and England and discusses the numerous works written by Incogniti about Great Britain. The intellectuals of the Academy of the Incogniti paid extraordinary attention to contemporary English events in comparison to seventeenth-century Italian writers and historians working in other cultural environments. This attention lent itself to a certain sympathy for the British monarchy, to which the heritage of Paolo Sarpi’s season, of intense Anglo-Venetian relations, decisively contributed. In their estimation the English monarchy, with its mixture of republican and aristocratic elements, and the Church of England, optimistically regarded as a counterpoint to the religious extremism that tore Europe, were considered as possible political and religious models. This sympathy towards the Stuart monarchy and its religious policies in the 1640s and 1650s led to perception of the civil war as a tragedy and evoked a deep sympathy towards Charles I. Thus the evaluation of civil war and Interregnum failed to bring forth a pro-Republican vision from any of the authors. Even in the works in which there is no overt hostility toward Cromwells’s government this is due to foreign policy reasons and to the contingent international position of Britain in the conflict between the Spanish and French crowns. The dominant note of the Incogniti interest to British history in this span of forty years is therefore not only this focus on its history, but especially a strong criticism of the Republican experience of the Interregnum. Villani points out that along with historical works there are two ‘novels’ and a tragedy set against a British backdrop published between 1650 and 1677, the Rosalinda by Morando (1650), the Cromuele by Graziani (1671) and the Marchesa d’Hunsleij (‘Marchioness of Huntley’) by the Sicilian Antonio Lupis (1677), written by members of the Academy of the Incogniti, again indicating the particular interest that the English revolutionary years elicited in that milieu. The latter work – a fictionalized biography – was published twenty years after the Academy of the Incogniti’s dissolution but its author was a protégé of Loredano, the founder and ruler of the Academy, and his biographer. The publication of Lupis’ Marchesa d’Hunsleij in 1677 can perhaps be regarded as the final outcome of interest towards England by Loredano intellectual circle. Britain was considered exotic enough for the complicated and fictional events of the Rosalinda and to deal with unrestrained freedom with its history, as in the case of the Cromuele. The story of Mary Queen of Scots, told in a myriad of Italian works, and Rinuccini’s Cappuccino Scozzese of 1644 contributed in particular to make Scotland symbolic of the struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism; it is in this vein that the Marchesa d’Hunsleij of Lupis is placed. The last part of the essay discusses the translations into English published in the seventeenth century of works written by the Incogniti. It is very significant that the interest paid in England towards the works of the Incogniti typically came from Royalist milieus.
“Il matrimonio di una principessa. Le trattative per le nozze di Caterina di Ferdinando Medici con il principe Enrico d’Inghilterra,” in MARCELLA AGLIETTI (edited by), Nobildonne, monache e cavaliere dell’Ordine di Santo Stefano. Modelli e strategie femminili nella vita pubblica della Toscana granducale, Atti del convegno (Pisa, 22-23 maggio 2009) (Pisa: ETS, 2009), 215-234.
[The Marriage of a Princess: the Negotiations for the Wedding of Caterina of Ferdinando Medici with the Prince Henry... more [The Marriage of a Princess: the Negotiations for the Wedding of Caterina of Ferdinando Medici with the Prince Henry of England]. This essay has been published among the proceedings of the international conference on Noblewomen, nuns and female knights of the Order of Saint Stephen. Female models and strategies in the public life of Grand-Ducal Tuscany held at Pisa in May 2009. In 1601, James VI of Scotland proposed the marriage of his son Henry, who was only seven years, to one of the princesses of the Medici family. The choice fell on Ferdinand’s third daughter, Catherine a year older than the Scottish prince. This project came to nought and new negotiations began in December 1610. If in 1601 the project was proposed by Scotland because the king, in weaving his web of alliances with the Catholic countries, was eagerly seeking some political support, this time the initiative came from Tuscany that now had an interest in marrying into the British royal family (James VI was by now James I, King of England). The negotiations for the marriage of a Catholic princess and a Protestant prince gave rise to an intense debate in Italy. In the summer of 1612 a text appeared that even in manuscript form had a very wide circulation and is scrutenized by Villani. The Risolutioni d’un Politico-Cattholico sopra il corrente dubbio se nostro Signore Paolo Quinto… debba… ammettere il Matrimonio tra la Sorella del Gran Duca di Toscana, cattholica, et il figliuolo del Re d’Inghilterra, heretico by Tarquinio Pinaoro (‘Risolutions of a Catholic-Politician on the current doubt whether Our Lordship Paul V… should… admit the marriage between the Catholic sister of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and the heretic son of the King of England’). After the death of Prince Henry Stuart Catherine married Ferdinando Gonzaga, Duke of Mantua and Monferrato in 1617. However, had Henry lived it is unlikely the marriage transaction with the Catholic princess would have been completed.
“Una quacchera a Lisbona. I viaggi e gli scritti di Ann Gargill,” Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa – Classe di Lettere e Filosofia, serie IV, IV, 1 (1999): 247-281.
[A Quaker in Lisbon: the Travels and the Writings of Ann Gargill]. Anne Gargill was born in Swine (East Riding) in... more [A Quaker in Lisbon: the Travels and the Writings of Ann Gargill]. Anne Gargill was born in Swine (East Riding) in 1625. In January 1656 she published the short pamphlet A Warning to all the World. Shortly afterwards she went to Plymouth with the intention of going to Spain to evangelise, writing a letter to Fox prior to her departure from London. Her ship Lisbon at the end of April and upon landing Gargill directed herself to the King’s palace, but when she discovered that he wasn’t there she returned to the ship. On 2 May, two Inquisition officials went aboard the ship and spoke with her. Three days later she was brought to the Inquisition palace in Lisbon and interrogated. The Inquisition decided to release her, fearing that her detention would cause diplomatic problems with England, but ordered her to set out for England with the first ship. In September 1656 Ann Gargill published A brief discovery of that which is called the Popish Religion. In 1659, Katherine Evans and Sarah Cheevers told the Maltese Inquisitor that Anne Gargill had founded Quaker congregations in Spain. In the spring of 1657 Anne Gargill was in Holland where she caused discord and dissent in the Quaker community of Amsterdam, and for this reason was disowned by the Quaker leaders. In the following months a small group formed around her in Amsterdam. A woman of strong spirituality and keen intelligence she probably opposed the process of organisation of Quakerism that followed Nayler’s entry into Bristol. The story of Gargill is extremely interesting because it symbolizes some of the contradictions of early Quakerism. A movement that emerged as the supreme instance of freedom of the Spirit, original Quakerism experienced in the protagonism of women as Gargill one of its characteristics. The organizational process, a direct result of increasing repression, forced the more reasonable leaders of the movement to abandon some of the characteristics of its early early days and to define a Quaker theology that would not limit itself to the enthusiastic action of the Spirit within every man and every woman. Some people of more intense spirituality opposed this development, and were marginalized or expelled by the movement; this was the case of Anne Gargill. It is significant that among those who opposed the hierarchicalization of the movement a significant number were those, like Gargill, had excelled in the missionary activity (Villani also cites Perrot who, after having been a prisoner of the Roman Inquisition would lead a schism among the Quakers on the issue of the freedom of the Spirit). For those who had risked their lives to preach the free gospel of Inner Light it was intolerable to think that their movement would progressively structure along the lines of other churches with a hierarchy, a Church discipline, and a defined credo. Gargill’s prudent and cautious responses to the Portuguese inquisitors – examined by Villani in the article – would suffice to prove that not everyone who can be considered part of this extreme wing of Quakerism were frantics, led by their intransigence to risky headlong rush. However, it is highly probable that if they had taken over the movement leadership and not the more prosaic common sence of George Fox and his supporters, the movement would hardly have escaped unscathed the storm of the Restoration. The price that Quakerism paid to the marginalizing and expulsion of these restless spirits, however, was undoubtedly that of a radical transformation. If at the beginning of the movement the only article of belief was that you had to listen to “that something of God” present in every man and woman, Quakerism gradually became a true Church to which members must conform, not to risk excommunication and expulsion. And so, it is not coincidental that among those who most vigorously opposed to this outcome there were people like Gargill who had risked their lives to assert the freedom of conscience in Catholic countries.
“Un’identità mascherata nell’Inghilterra del Seicento: la vicenda dell’ebraista Alessandro Amidei,” Quaderni Storici, XLIII (2008): 455-470.
[A Masked Identity in Seventeenth-century England: the Vicissitudes of the Hebraist Alessandro Amidei]. Reconstructs... more [A Masked Identity in Seventeenth-century England: the Vicissitudes of the Hebraist Alessandro Amidei]. Reconstructs the strange vicissitudes of Alessandro Amidei, a Florentine, possibly Jewish, who moved to England in 1656. He apparently taught Hebrew at Oxford and Cambridge Universities in the 1650s, and it is certain that he was professor on the same topic in Edinburgh in the 1670s. A singular figure with a shifting and elusive identity, Amidei presented himself as a Catholic ecclesiastic converted to Protestantism on his arrival in England but in following years professed to be a Jew converted to Christianity. In 1684 he was involved in what seems to have been a case of attempted murder to the damage of the sons of Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Cleveland. The duchess’s sons accused Amidei of having poisoned their wine, although this presumed conspiracy was probably their own invention, a strategy to put an end to the union between their mother and a most embarrassing lover, an actor, who was also accused but released. In spite of the reputation he gained in the affair, in the following years Amidei – a character of endless resources – maintained relations with the English intellectual milieu. In the 1690s he was again at Cambridge, where he wrote at least two letters in Italian to John Covel, prominent vice-chancellor of the university. Amidei was also the author of an unpublished Italian translation of the Book of Common Prayer, dated 1661. Amidei’s story is interesting for various reasons. Whatever his real religious identity, his case shows how in the philo-Semite England of those years he found it more convenient to present himself as a Jew than as a convert from Catholicism. His story is also paradigmatic of the bizarre world of destitute wretches, often unfrocked friars and priests, who moved about the Italian Protestant church of London, passing from one confession to the other in search of financial support.
“Seventeenth-Century Italy and English Radical Movements,” in ARIEL HESSAYON, DAVID FINNEGAN (eds.), Varieties of Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century English Radicalism in Context (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 145-159.
Villani’s essay examines some of the many seventeenth-century Italian accounts on the political activity and ideas of the contemporary English radical political movements to understand how these ideas and activity were perceived in such a different cultural, religious, and political context. The concept of “radical,” both in the theological and political sphere, has a very different meaning for Italian culture in the late 1600s than it did in England. For an Italian culture, where there was already uneasiness in defining the Church of England, the sectarian world of seventeenth-century English radicalism was substantially incomprehensible. Italy was astonished by the proliferation of the sects that emerged in England in the second half of 1640s. Notwithstanding, it is significant that this topic was very rarely treated in the many seventeenth-century historical narrations of the Civil War and Interregnum that were published in those years. It is significant to note that more or less reliable accounts on the religious debates of those years are found almost exclusively in travel reports and in monographs on England in which the historical aspects have only a secondary importance. Likewise it is interesting to note that these works deliberately emphasize the more outlandish aspects of the English sectarian world. The opinions of the English religious groups of the Seventeenth Century are taken as so manifestly bizarre in order to provoke astonishment rather than genuine interest and very often only described in order to provide an “exotic” accent to the travel narrations. From the theological point of view the sects represented more or less only the perverse effect of the separation from Rome and of freedom of conscience for the Italians who wrote about the religious debates in England.
Þe Herte þe Fote þe Eye to Accorde: Procedural Knowledge and Three Middle-English Manuscripts of Martial Instruction.
by Mark Geldof
MA Thesis, University of Saskatchewan, 2011
To Captivate the Senses: Sensory Governance in Heresy and Idolatry in Mid-Tudor England
in Religion and the Senses in Early Modern Europe, eds. Wietse de Boer, Christine Goettler, Herman Roodenburg (Leuven: Brill, forthcoming 2012).
Throughout mid-century England, c.1520-1558, heresy trials and polemics on idolatry used the language of captivation... more Throughout mid-century England, c.1520-1558, heresy trials and polemics on idolatry used the language of captivation to describe how heretics and idolaters had lost control of their senses. My paper will explore how reformers like John Lambert or Hugh Latimer were told by traditionalists at their trials to 'captivate’, 'rule', or 'keep' their senses, while evangelicals like William Tyndale and others cast idolatry as the sensory subservience of viewers to images. In tracing such language the paper will expose the extent to which mid-sixteenth-century religious upheaval in England was shaped by well-established facets of late medieval and renaissance sensory culture – one which stressed the need for sensory discipline for moral and religious correctitude. Time-honoured metaphors of the senses as rebellious servants, gates, or animals, helped articulate the dangers of religious upheaval and cast one’s opponents, whether evangelical or conservative, as sensual transgressors. Recounting this use of sensory language does much to undermine belief charges of sensuality were only employed by evangelical reformers; rather, accusations of sensory misgovernance were essential tools of religious polemic. Exploring the sensory language of captivation casts the reformation as a pyschomachia, a battle between virtue and vice, one in which sensory governance and metaphor had anything but a small role to play.
Family, faith and farming in early-modern Lancashire: The Stansfields of Inchfield, Walsden, c.1633-1763
Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 159 (2010), pp. 19-44.
ISSN 0140-332X.
The Relative Duties of a Man: Domestic Medicine in England and France, ca. 16851740
by Lisa Smith
Journal of Family History, 31, 3 (2006): 237-256.