International Summer School

Full details of topics below, along with suggested reading.

 

1. A Collective Biography of Scotland in the First World War
2. Britains’ Toy Soldiers: Representations of War and Conflict
3. ‘A New System of Slavery’? Unfree Labour after Abolition in the British Empire
4. The Reports of the Protectors of Slaves: Enslaved Life in British Guiana, 1819-1834
5. A Person-centred Approach to Examining Slavery in the British Caribbean.
6. When Scots Returned from India: Wealth, Race and Cultural Strategies, 1757-1820
7. Russian Autocracy: Ideology and Praxis, 1682-1906
8. Golden Liberty: Polish Political Thought from 1385 to 1795, and Beyond
9. Human and Animal Relationships in Early Modern Scotland, c.1500-1700
10. Witch Trials and the Belief in Witchcraft in Early Modern England and Scotland
11. Echoes of Empire: Byzantine Culture and the Palaeologan Renaissance, 1261-1453
12. Gender and Politics in Medieval England: Three Generations of Political Turmoil
13. Medieval London and Queenship: The Cartulary of the Priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate

A Collective Biography of Scotland in the First World War

 

 

Euan Loarridge

This research project introduces students to the methodology known as collective biography which draws on the biographies of groups of individuals in order to explore wider historical networks and experiences. With the rise of digitisation and computerised analysis, there are increasing opportunities for the employment of this methodology, particularly using documents created between 1914-1921. Working with their supervisor, students will develop a small scale-scale study that draws on biographies collated during the 2014-18 Centenary. There is also potential to employ digitised genealogical and local history documents held in Glasgow’s Mitchell Library, the National Records of Scotland and the University of Glasgow Archives. Through this project students will relate individual experiences and connections to wider societal trends in Scotland during the First World War. Potential case studies could be based on local memorials, honour rolls, civilian businesses and institutions, social groups, military formations, and various other aspects of contemporary Scottish society.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

Methodology:

• K. Cowan, ‘Collective Biography’, in Research Methods for History, ed. S. Gunn and L. Faire, 2nd Edition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), pp. 85-103.
• K. Verboven, M. Carlier and J. Dumoyn, ‘A Short Manual to the Art of Prosopography’, in Prosopography Approaches and Applications: A Handbook, ed. K. Keats-Rohan (Oxford: Prosopograpy et Geneaologica, 2007), pp. 35-70.

Background Reading:

• E. Macfarland, ‘The Great War’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern Scottish History, ed. T. Devine and J. Wormald (Oxford: University Press, 2012), pp. 553-568.

Example Studies:

• P. Watt, ‘The Platoon: An Analysis of No.10 Platoon, 6th Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in the First Battle of the Scarpe, 1917’, Journal of Army Historical Research, 91:368 (2013), 299-319.
• M. Cornelis, ‘The Scottish Women’s Hospitals: The First World War and The Careers of Early Medical Women’, Medicine Conflict Survival, 36:2 (2020), 174-194.
• E. Loarridge, ‘The University of Glasgow’s Battle of the Somme: Tracing Individuals in the Landscape of the Leipzig Salient’ (University of Glasgow, Unpublished MLitt Thesis, 2016), Chapter 2: Individuals, Relationships and Communities.

Indicative Primary Sources:

• ‘A Street Near You’, astreetnearyou.org
• Friends of Glasgow Necropolis, Online First World War Roll of Honour Biographies https://www.glasgownecropolis.org/rollofhonour/.
• Roll of Honour of the Citizens of Glasgow Who Died in the First World War https://www.firstworldwarglasgow.co.uk/index.aspx?articleid=10950.

 

Britains’ Toy Soldiers: Representations of War and Conflict

Euan Loarridge

 In the first half of the twentieth century, William Britains of London was one of largest toy companies in the world. Their hand-painted sets of lead toy soldiers were the LEGO of their time. Instantly recognisable, with a global reach, they dominated shop windows and children’s playrooms across the Western World. This topic offers students the opportunity to conduct research within the growing fields of Games Studies and the History of Play. Working with their supervisor, students will devise their own unique project based on the artefacts produced by William Britains between 1893 and 1965. Projects could draw on documentary evidence found in contemporary catalogues and newspapers, or take a material culture approach to the rich body of surviving sets and figures.  Students may wish to focus on the clear link between toy soldiers and the military; or other aspects such as the implicit messages of empire, colonialism, racism, and gender inherent in these toys.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• K. Brown, ‘Modelling for War? Toy Soldiers in Late Victorian and Edwardian Britain’, Journal of Social History, 24:2 (1990), 237-254.
• G. Dawson, Soldier Heroes: British Adventure, Empire and the Imagining of Masculinities (London: Routledge, 1994).
• R. Duffet, ‘“Playing Soldiers?”: War, Boys, and the British Toy Industry’, in Children’s Literature and Culture of the First World War, ed. L. Paul, R. Johnston and E. Short (Abingdon: Routledge, 2016), pp. 239-252.
• E. Loarridge, ‘War through the eyes of the toy soldier: a material study of the legacy and impact of conflict 1880-1945’, Critical Military Studies, 7:4 (2021), 367-383.

Indicative Primary Sources:

• J. Opie, The Great Book of Britains: 100 Years of Britains Toy Soldiers 1893-1993 (London: New Cavendish, 1993).
• Gamage Ltd, Gamage’s Christmas Bazaar, 1913 (Newton Abbot: David & Charles, 1974).
• Also have a look for ‘Britains’ in the ‘archived’ auction catalogues of Vectis Auctions themselves an unusual historical source. Vectis Auctions | Search

 

A New System of Slavery’? Unfree Labour After Abolition in the British Empire

 

Bethan Holt

Although slavery was abolished in the British empire in 1834, many forms of coercive and unfree labour persisted through the nineteenth century and beyond.  In this topic, students will complete a research project which examines forms of plantation labour after the abolition of slavery, focusing on a particular region, case study, or theme.  Projects may consider the gradual process of abolition through the apprenticeship system which lasted until 1838.  Students may choose to focus on other forms of unfree labour such as the apprenticeship of liberated Africans or indentured labour migration from India and China to the Caribbean. Students might choose to focus on themes such as gender, crime and punishment, or meanings of ‘freedom’.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• Richard Anderson, ‘Abolition’s Adolescence: Apprenticeship as “Liberation” in Sierra Leone, 1808–1848’, The English Historical Review, 137.586 (2022), 763–93, doi:10.1093/ehr/ceac117.
• Gaiutra Bahadur, Coolie Woman: The Odyssey of Indenture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013), doi:10.7208/chicago/9780226043388.001.0001.
• Jonathan Connolly, Worthy of Freedom: Indenture and Free Labor in the Era of Emancipation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2024).
• Najnin Islam, ‘Life Unadministered: Colonial Care and the Indian Coolie’, Small Axe: A Caribbean Journal of Criticism, 27.1 (70) (2023), 1–18, doi:10.1215/07990537-10461770.
• Saurabh Mishra, ‘Violence, Resilience and the “Coolie” Identity: Life and Survival on Ships to the Caribbean, 1834–1917’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 50.2 (2022), 241–63, doi:10.1080/03086534.2021.1985336.
• Diana Paton, No Bond but the Law: Punishment, Race, and Gender in Jamaican State Formation, 1780-1870 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2004). - especially chapter 2, 'Planters, Magistrates, and Apprentices'
• Maeve Ryan, ‘‘A Moral Millstone’?: British Humanitarian Governance and the Policy of Liberated African Apprenticeship, 1808–1848’, Slavery & Abolition, 37.2 (2016), 399–422, doi:10.1080/0144039X.2015.1130323.
• Colleen A. Vasconcellos, ‘“To Fit You All for Freedom”: Jamaican Planters, Afro-Jamaican Mothers and the Struggle to Control Afro-Jamaican Children during Apprenticeship, 1833–40’, Citizenship Studies, 10.1 (2006), 55–75, doi:10.1080/13621020500525936.

Indicative Primary Sources

• Edolphus Swinton, ‘Journal of a Voyage with Coolie Emigrants, from Calcutta to Trinidad’, ed. by James Carlile, 1859 < https://jstor.org/stable/60225519>.
• James Williams, ‘A Narrative of Events since the 1st of August, 1834.’, 1838 < https://jstor.org/stable/60238900>.

 

The Reports of the Protectors of Slaves: Enslaved Life in British Guiana, 1819-1834

Linsey McMillan

The Reports of the Protectors of Slaves of British Guiana, created as part of Britain’s attempts to prevent the abolition of slavery in its Caribbean colonies, form an extraordinary set of legal records that are unique among the archive of Atlantic Slavery.  Together they contain the first-hand testimony of nearly 2,500 enslaved complainants who lived in the colonies of Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice and reveal unparallelled evidence about enslaved people’s experiences of all aspects of life including labour, illness, punishment, culture, knowledge and kinship.  This course will introduce students to key topics in the study of Atlantic slavery such as gender, resistance, abolition, and healthcare, and will encourage engagement in wider research methods that centre the voices of enslaved people.  Projects may opt to take a micro-historical approach by focusing on a particular complainant as a case study or may take a macro-historical approach that includes both quantitative and qualitative analysis of a larger body of source material.  Students will be encouraged to engage with a range of related primary sources, for example census records and shipping records, to answer empirical questions about the system of slavery and the colonial archive.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• Randy Browne, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017).
• Emilia Viotti da Costa, Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
• Trevor Burnard, Hearing Slaves Speak (Guyana: The Caribbean Press, 2010).
• Saidiya Hartman, ‘Venus in Two Acts’, Small Axe 12, no. 2 (2008), 1-14. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/241115.
• Jennifer L. Morgan, Labouring Women: Reproduction and Gender in New World Slavery (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
• Londa Schiebinger, Secret Cures of Slaves: People, Plants, and Medicine in the Eighteenth- Century Atlantic World (Redwood City CA: University of Stanford Press, 2018).
• Philip D. Morgan, ‘Ending the Slave Trade: A Caribbean and Atlantic Context’, in Abolitionism and Imperialism in Britain, Africa, and the Atlantic, edited by Derek R. Peterson (Cincinnati, Ohio University Press, 2010).

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Select complaints from CO 116/139-164, Reports of the Protector of Slaves, British Guiana, digitised by The National Archives as part of the Colonial Caribbean project.
• Select excerpts from the House of Commons Papers series (1819- 1831), “Papers in Explanation of Measures for the Melioration of the Condition of Slave Populations in the West Indies and South America.”
• Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave Ownership, UCL, database: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/
• Slave Voyages, database: https://www.slavevoyages.org/
• Former British Colonial Dependencies, Slave Registers, 1813-1834, Ancestry in partnership with The National Archives, database: https://www.ancestry.co.uk/search/collections/1129/

 

A Person-centred Approach to Examining Slavery in the British Caribbean.

 

Taylar Carty

This topic invites students to take a person-centred approach to examining slavery in the British Caribbean.  As more universities and institutes reckon with their financial connection to the transatlantic slave trade, this topic aims to look at the slave trade from a different perspective.  Students will therefore formulate a suitable project that centres ‘the person’ within an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Caribbean context.  For example, projects may consider an intersectional approach to the slave trade, examining the role of women or children within the Caribbean, utilising fugitive ads in newspapers.  They could also study printed images to explore the role of animals, most notably dogs, within slave societies.  Additionally, students may consider the topic of humanising the slave trade in general, examining the various methodologies used and applied by historians to tackle the violence of colonial archival sources in a sensitive and considerate manner.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• Randy M. Browne, Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2017).
• Marisa Fuentes, Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence and the Archive (Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2016).
• Stefanie Hunt-Kennedy, Between Fitness and Death: Disability and Slavery in the Caribbean (Edinburgh: University of Illinois Press, 2020).
• Cecily Jones, Engendering Whiteness: White Women and Colonialism in Barbados and North Carolina, 1627-1865 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007).
• Colleen Vasconcellos, Slavery Childhood, and Abolition in Jamaica 1788-1838 (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2015).
• Tyler Parry and Charlton Yingling, ‘Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas,’ Past & Present 246, no. 1(2020), 69–108.
• Richard Rath, ‘African Music in Seventeenth-century Jamaica: Cultural Transit and Transition,’ The William and Mary Quarterly 50, no.4 (1993), 700–26.
• Sara E. Johnson ‘“You should Give them Blacks to Eat”: Waging Inter-American Wars of Torture and Terror’, American Quarterly 61, no. 1(2009), 65-92.

Indicative Primary Sources

Databases

• The Digital Library of the Caribbean: https://dloc.com/
• The British Library, The Endangered Archives Project: https://eap.bl.uk
• Slavery Images: https://www.slaveryimages.org/public/index.php

Published Primary Sources

• Olaudah Equiano, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano Written by Himself (Auckland: The Floating Press, 2009).
• Mary Prince. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017).
• William Dickson, Letters on Slavery (London: Printed and sold by J. Phillips and sold by J. Johnson, 1789).

 

When Scots Returned from India: Wealth, Race and Cultural Strategies, 1757-1820

Thomas Archambaud 

This research project explores Scotland’s participation in Britain’s expansion in India, from the battle of Plassey (1757) to the early nineteenth century.  At a time of revolutions, global competition and endemic corruption, the involvement of Scots in the business of the East India Company, particularly prominent in commercial and military operations, was also visible in the transformations of Scottish society, landscape, architecture and culture. After years of service, during which they often adopted an Anglo-Indian lifestyle, most Scots returned permanently to their home country.  Students are invited to evaluate the extent to which these returnees – known as ‘Nabobs’ – shaped ideas of race, family and social status at home.  Working with their supervisor, students may choose a case study to explore the impact of Scottish involvement in India, drawing from a range of potential primary material (notebooks, wills, correspondence, official records).  Students may also engage with material culture and visual sources to uncover the consequences of company service on the private lives of Scottish individuals (including perceptions of gender, class and race).  Students are encouraged to use material from Scottish museums and archives to reflect on the much-neglected importance of colonial India in the early-modern period, and its legacies in contemporary Scotland. 

Suggested Reading: 

Secondary Sources: 

• George K. McGilvary, ‘The Scottish connection with India, 1725-1833’, Etudes Ecossaises, 14 (2011), 13-31. 
• Margot Finn and Kate Smith, eds, The East India Company at Home, 1757-1857 (London: UCL Press, 2018), 1-20. 
• Andrew Mackillop, Human Capital and Empire: Scotland, Ireland, Wales and British imperialism in Asia, c.1690–c.1820 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2021), chap. 7 ‘Returns: Realising the Human Capital Economy’, pp. 220-253. 
• Durba Ghosh, Sex and the Family in Colonial India: the Making of Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), introduction, pp. 1-34.  
• Stephen Mullen, Andrew Mackillop, Stephen Driscoll, Surveying and Analysing Connections between Properties in Care and the British Empire, c.1600–1997, report for Historic Environment Scotland (February 2024) available at : https://www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and-research/publications/publication/?publicationId=e192ea9f-0d7e-4745-b499-b0fb010a167a

Indicative Primary Sources: 

• The Old and New Statistical Account of Scotland (1791-1799 and 1834-1845). Fully accessible at https://stataccscot.ed.ac.uk/static/statacc/dist/home
• Letter from John Homespun [Henry Mackenzie] to the Author, The Lounge, on the India-derived fortune of a Scottish lady, 28 May 1785. 
• Will of Sir Hector Munro, General in His Majesty’s Forces of Novar, Ross and Cromarty, 24 March 1786, The National Archives.
• Sir Henry Raeburn, Portrait of Mr George Paterson of Huntly Castle (1734-1817), Perthshire, oil on canvas, Dundee art gallery and museum.
• Johann Zoffany, Claud and Boyd Alexander with an Indian Servant, early 1780s, collections of the Richard Green Gallery, London.
• East Asian basket with decorated dragon panels, owned by William Fullerton Elphinstone, director of the EIC, early 19th century, National Museums Scotland.
• Ivory vase representing the Buddha (Sri Lanka), arrived in Scotland via Ceylon, isle of Arran, Brodick Castle. 

 

Russian Autocracy: Ideology and Praxis, 1682-1906

Neil O’Docherty

This research project will examine the ideology and practice of Russian Imperial government from the accession of Peter the Great to the 1906 Constitution.  Historians have debated the nature of the Imperial political system, with some depicting the Tsars as despotic and the Russian people as servile and oppressed, and others insisting on how autocracy was tempered by commitment to religious morality, concepts of honour, and a practical need to build consensus.  Working with their supervisor, students will engage with primary sources (in translation) ranging from government documents to private correspondence, literature, and art, in order to explore how the Tsarist autocracy was conceptualised, and how these ideas related to the reality of the Russian people’s experience of it.  Students may focus on a specific case study, such as the reign of a particular ruler, or a political/philosophical movement, such as the Slavophiles or Narodniki, and their relationship to Tsarist power.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• J. Burbank, ‘A Question of Dignity: Peasant Legal Culture in Late Imperial Russia’, Continuity and Change, 10:3 (1995), 391-404.
• Paul Bushkovitch, A Concise History of Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011), chapters 3 / 4 / 5, pp. 37-58 / 59-78 / 79-100.
• S. Klimova, Russian Intelligentsia in Search of an Identity: Between Dostoevsky’s Oppositions and Tolstoy’s Holism (Leiden: Brill, 2020), chapter 1, pp. 7–62.
• D. Lieven, ed., The Cambridge History of Russia, Volume II: Imperial Russia, 1689-1917 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), chapter 20, pp. 429-448.
• B. Maslov, ‘Why Republics Always Fail: Pondering Feofan Prokopovich’s Poetics of Absolutism’, Вивлioѳика: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies, 2 (2014), 24-46.
• M.T. Poe, “A People Born to Slavery”: Russia in Early Modern European Ethnography, 1476-1748 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2002), chapter 7, pp. 196-226.
• E. Van Der Zweerde, Russian Political Philosophy: Anarchy, Authority, Autocracy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022), chapter 2, pp. 18-36.

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Catherine II, Catherine the Great: Selected Letters, trans. A. Kahn, K. Rubin-Detlev (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018).
• Konstantin P. Pobedononostsev, Reflections of a Russian Statesman, trans. R.C. Long (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1965).

 

Golden Liberty: Polish Political Thought from 1385 to 1795, and Beyond

Neil O’Docherty

“For our freedom and yours”, or some variation of this phrase, was a defining slogan for Polish patriots throughout the periods where Poland disappeared from the world map (1795-1918 and 1939-1945).  By implication, it proposes that the Poles were not merely fighting for their own freedom, but for the very idea of freedom itself, conceptualising Poland’s struggle as epitomising, in the minds of Polish people, a universal human struggle for liberation.  Students pursing this project will be encouraged to explore the origins of these ideas in the birth of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, in 1385, how they affected Poland’s political development, and how they influenced Polish intellectuals after the Commonwealth’s destruction.  Further avenues for research might include how other events influenced, or were influenced by, this (such as the French Revolution), or how, paradoxically, the Polish elite’s obsession with freedom undermined the cohesion of the state, costing them the very liberty they claimed to cherish.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• R. Butterwick, ‘What is Enlightenment (Oświecenie)? Some Polish Answers’, Central Europe, 3:1 (2005), 19-37.
• N. Davies, God’s Playground, Volume II: 1795 to Present (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005) chapter 1, pp. 3-59.
• J. Filonik, ‘The Polish Nobility’s “Golden Freedom”: On the Ancient Roots of a Political Idea’, The European Legacy, Oct. 2015.
• R. Frost, The Oxford History of Poland-Lithuania, Volume 1: The Making of the Polish Lithuanian Union, 1385 – 1669 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), part VI, 327-404.
• J. Lukowski, ‘Political Ideas among the Polish Nobility in the Eighteenth Century (to 1788)’, The Slavonic and East European Review, 82:1 (2004), 1-26.
• J. Lukowski, A Concise History of Poland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), chapter 3, pp. 107-170.
• A. Waśko, ‘Sarmatism or the Enlightenment: The Dilemma of Polish Culture’, The Sarmatian Review, 17 (1997).

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Jan Chryzostom Pasek, Memoirs of the Polish Baroque, trans. C.S. Leach (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976).
• Andzej Frycz Modzewski, O Poprawie Rzeczypospolitej [on the improvement of the republic], tłumaczenie [translation] Cyprian Bazylik (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Ktoczyta, 2016), selections in translation will be provided.

 

Human and Animal Relationships in Early Modern Scotland, c.1500-1700

Nicole Cumming

This research project will examine the relationship between human and animal in early modern Scotland, introducing students to the discipline of historical animal studies.  In this period, animals were a central part of everyday life; all stratas of society, from members of the royal court to the pastoral farmers who made up the majority of the population, interacted with animals daily, and they played a central role in cultural belief systems.  Students will have the opportunity to explore themes such as religion and supernatural belief, hunting and violence, or dietary practices.  In doing so, students will be invited to engage with the wider scholarship and methodology, which emphasises the value of decentring the human within the historical narrative and encourages the employment of a radically interdisciplinary supporting literature.  Working with their supervisor, students will develop a research paper focusing on one aspect of human-animal interaction in early modern Scotland, utilising historical sources such as parliamentary acts and charters, church records, criminal trials, and account books.  Projects may opt to focus on a particular region or decade, or may take a broader approach, considering belief or cultural practice over time.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• Linda Kalof, ‘The Renaissance’ in Looking at Animals in Human History, ed. Linda Kalof (London: Reaktion Books, 2007), chapter 4.
• Sarah Cockram and Andrew Wells, ‘Introduction: Action, Reaction, Interaction in Historical Animal Studies’ in Interspecies Interactions: Animals And Humans Between The Middle Ages And Modernity, ed. Sarah Cockram and Andrew Wells (London: Routledge, 2018).
• Pia F. Cuneo, ‘Introduction’, in Animals and Early Modern Identity, ed. Pia F. Cuneo (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014).
• Alan Stewart, ‘Government by Beagle: The Impersonal Rule of James VI and I’ in Renaissance Beasts: Of Animals, Humans, And Other Wonderful Creatures, ed. Erica Fudge (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004).
• P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, ‘Wild, filthie, execrabill, detestabill, and unnatural sin’: Bestiality in Early Modern Scotland’ in Sodomy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Tom Betteridge (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).
• Lizanne Henderson, ‘The (super)natural worlds of Robert Kirk: fairies, beasts, landscapes and lychnobious liminalities’, The Bottle Imp, 20 (2016).
• Helen Smith, ‘Animal Families’ in Family Politics in Early Modern Literature, ed. S. Lewis and H. Crawforth (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin et. al., ‘The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft’, http://www.shca.ed.ac.uk/witches/
• Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1833).
• David Beveridge, Culross and Tulliallan or Perthshire on Forth its History and Antiquities, vols 1-2 (William Blackwood and Sons: Edinburgh, 1885).
• The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, ed. and abridged by John Hill Burton and Dsavid Masson, vols I-V (H M General Register House; Edinburgh, 1877-80)
• The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707, ed. K. M. Brown et al (St Andrews, 2007-2023), https://www.rps.ac.uk

 

Witch Trials and the Belief in Witchcraft in Early Modern England and Scotland

Nicole Cumming

This research project will centre on the witch trials which took place in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England and Scotland.  Acts against witchcraft were passed in both nations in the early 1560s and were not repealed until 1736.  Over a period of c.200 years, there are thought to have been around 500 individuals executed in England and as many as 1500 (or perhaps more) in Scotland.  The proliferation of trials, and the widespread evidence of belief, raises a number of questions about the cultural, political, and religious circumstances which led to a heightened fear of witchcraft in this period.  Working with their supervisor, students will develop a research paper on one aspect of witchcraft in early modern Britain, utilising historical sources such as trial records, elite demonological writings, and witchcraft pamphlets.  There are important similarities and differences between England and Scotland in this period that could be explored through comparative research, or one nation could be looked at independently.  Overall, the project will enable students to familiarise themselves with the existing historiography and to engage with a variety of themes, such as the relationship between elite and popular beliefs, the role of animals in trial evidence, and gender.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• Brian P. Levack, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (Oxford: Oxford Academic, 2013). Chapter 16 (England) and chapter 17 (Scotland).
• Brian P. Levack, Witch-Hunting in Scotland: Law, Politics and Religion (New York: Routledge, 2008). Chapter 1 ‘Witch hunting in Scotland and England’ and chapter 2 ‘Witchcraft and the law in early modern Scotland.’
• Julian Goodare, ‘Women and the Witch-Hunt in Scotland’, Social History, 23:3 (1998)
• Allan Kennedy, ‘The Trial of Isobel Duff for Witchcraft, Inverness, 1662’. Scottish Historical Review, 101:1 (2022).
• James Sharpe, ‘In Search of the English Sabbat: Popular Conceptions of Witches’ Meetings in Early Modern England’, Journal of early modern studies. 2.2 (2013).
• Philippa Carter, ‘Work, Gender and Witchcraft in Early Modern England’, Gender & History, (2023).

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin et. al., 'The Survey of Scottish Witchcraft', http://witches.hca.ed.ac.uk and ‘Map of Scottish Witchcraft’ https://witches.is.ed.ac.uk
• James VI and I, Daemonologie in Forme of a Dialogue, Diuided into Three Bookes, (Edinburgh: Robert Waldegraue, 1597)
• Robert Pitcairn, Ancient Criminal Trials in Scotland, (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1833)
• John Phillips, The Examination and Confession of certaine Wytches at Chensforde in the Countie of Essex, (London, 1566)
• The Examination, Confession, Triall, and Execution, of Joane Williford, Joan Cariden, and Jane Hott: Who Were Executed at Feversham in Kent, for Being Witches, (London: Printed for J.G., 1645).
• James Sharpe, Witchcraft in early Modern England, (London, 2001), selected trial extracts and other primary sources.

 

Echoes of Empire: Byzantine Culture and the Palaeologan Renaissance, 1261-1453

Neil O’Docherty

This research project will examine the cultural power and influence of the Byzantine Empire during the so-called Palaeologan Renaissance, from 1261-1453.  During this period the temporal power of the Empire was diminishing, but it remained an extremely vibrant and influential cultural force across Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean world.  Students will be encouraged to engage with written primary sources (in translation) as well as images and objects to explore Byzantine influence within the Greek-speaking lands of the Rhomaioi, as the Byzantines called themselves, and the wider world.  They may wish to focus on a particular artistic or architectural style, or on religious/philosophical movements such as Hesychasm.  Other avenues for research might include how the Byzantine government exploited their cultural influence to offset their declining material resources using, for example, their status as the centre of Orthodox Christianity to manage their relationships with other Orthodox polities.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• T.E. Gregory, A History of Byzantium (Chichester: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), chapter 14, pp. 692-760.
• C.J. Hilsdale, Byzantine Art and Diplomacy in an Age of Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), introduction / chapter 5, pp. 1-27 / 268-332.
• D.M. Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), chapter 2, pp. 31-65.
• D. Obolensky, The Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe, 500-1453 (New York: Praeger, 1971), chapters 8 / 9, pp. 237-290.
• Petrou Elias, ‘Intellectual relationships between the Byzantine and Serbian elites during the Palaiologan era’, in Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 71-90.
• A. Vukovich, ‘How Byzantine Was the Moscow Inauguration of 1498?’, in Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages, ed. Maria Alessia Rossi and Alice Isabella Sullivan (Leiden: Brill, 2020), pp. 36-70.
• D.C. Winfield and E.J.W. Hawkins, ‘The Church of Our Lady at Asinou, Cyprus. A Report on the Seasons of 1965 and 1966’, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 21 (1967), 260-266.

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Manuel II Palaeologus, The letters of Manuel II Palaeologus, trans. G.T. Dennis (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1977).
• Saint Gregory Palamas, The Triads, trans. N. Gendle (Mahwah: Paulist Press, 1983).
• Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint Gregory Palamas: The One Hundred and Fifty Chapters, trans. R.E. Sinkewicz (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1988).

The project supervisor would also like to encourage the use of art and architecture as primary sources

 

Gender and Politics in Medieval England: Three Generations of Political Turmoil

Ashley Brown

The reigns of Henry I of England (1100-1135), Stephen (1135-1154), and Henry II (1154-1189) were characterised by political turmoil, rebellion, civil war and shifts in power, as the legacy of the Norman Conquest (1066) and the personalities of those ruling shaped England and Normandy in new – and often contested – ways.  This project invites students to analyse structures of power and the ways in which authority was demonstrated through a lens of gender.  Using primary materials such as coins, chronicles, and histories (all in translation), students will explore how noble (and royal) men and women had access to different tools and expressions of authority and how they did, or did not, succeed at achieving their goals, paying particular attention to how they were depicted in sources.  Students may wish to focus on one reign or take a comparative approach in their case study, which will be grounded in recently developed methodologies in gender studies.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• C. Anderson, ‘Narrating Matilda, ‘Lady of the English’ in the Historia novella, Gesta Stephani and Wace’s Roman de Rou: the desire for land and order’, Clio, 29 (1999), 47-67.
• Thomas V. Cohen, ‘Masculinity as Competence’ in Premodern masculinities in transition, ed. by Konrad Eisenbichler and Jacqueline Murray (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2024), pp.31-52.
• Mariah Cooper, ‘A Female King or a Good Wife and a Great Mother? Seals, Coins and the Epitaphic Legacy of the Empress Matilda’, The Haskins Society Journal, 32 (2020, published 2021), 149-61.
• David Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135-1154 (Milton Park: Taylor and Francis, 2000).
• RāGena C. DeAragon, ‘Power and Agency in Post-Conquest England: Elite Women and the Transformations of the Twelfth Century’ in Medieval Elite Women and the Exercise of Power, 1100–1400: Moving beyond the Exceptionalist Debate, ed. Heather J. Tanner (Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2019), pp.19-43.
• J. A. Green, ‘Henry I and the origins of the civil war’, in King Stephen’s Reign, ed. by Dalton and White (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2008), pp.11-26.
• Derek G.Neal, The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England (London: University of Chicago Press, 2008).
• H. Tanner, ‘Queenship: Office, Custom or Ad Hoc? The case of Matilda III of England (1135-1152), in Eleanor of Aquitaine, Lord and Lady, ed. B. Wheeler and J Carmi Parsons (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002), pp. 133-58.

Indicative Primary Sources

• Extracts from: Anonymous, Gesta Stephani: The Deeds of Stephen, ed. by K.R Potter and R.H.C Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976)
• Extracts from: William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, ed. by Edward King (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Coins from the Hunterian Collection
• Extracts from: Orderic Vitalis, The Ecclesiastical History of Orderic Vitalis, Vols 4-6, edited and translated by Marjorie Chibnall (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973, 1975, 1978).
• Extracts from: Benedict of Peterborough, Gesta regis Henrici Secundi Benedicti Abbatis, Vols 1 and 2, ed. by William Stubbs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

 

Medieval London and Queenship: The Cartulary of the Priory of Holy Trinity Aldgate                 

Callum Jamieson

The University of Glasgow Special Collections holds only one cartulary, that of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate, London. Cartularies, collections of documents gathered by religious institutions or families, are some of the most important primary sources for the study of local medieval societies before 1300.  Aldgate’s cartulary is a crucial source for medieval queenship, particularly as its narrative history claims it was founded in 1108 by Queen Matilda, wife of Henry I of England, the last Anglo-Saxon princess and daughter and sister to kings of Scotland.  The cartulary is also an important record of medieval London’s social and economic history.

Despite this significance, historians tend to rely on a published Calendar (a list of its contents) because the manuscript is in Glasgow.  This project is intended to determine whether the cartulary would be worth a longer-term investigation and a fully published edition.  Following engagement with the cartulary’s manuscript, students will formulate projects on the exercise of twelfth-century English queenship, medieval London, or the accuracy of the Calendar. Translations of the most important entries are available, but a willingness to engage with Latin with the supervisor’s assistance is desirable, irrespective of the student’s current ability.  This project offers students the chance to interact with medieval manuscripts, gender and urban studies, as well as the potential to contribute to a prospective full edition of the cartulary.

Suggested Reading:

Secondary Sources:

• C. N. L. Brooke and G. Keir, London 800-1216: the Shaping of a City (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975).
• Raymond Clemens and Timothy Graham, Introduction to Manuscript Studies (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007).
• J.C. Dickinson, The Origins of the Austin Canons and their Introduction into England (London: S.P.C.K., 1950).
• Theresa Earenfight, ‘Medieval Queenship’, History Compass, 15 (2017),  1-9.
• Judith A. Green, Forging the Kingdom: Power in English Society, 973-1189 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017).
• Lois L. Huneycutt, Matilda of Scotland: A Study in Medieval Queenship (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2003).
• Aidan Norrie et al., eds, Norman to Early Plantagenet Consorts: Power, Influence, and Dynasty (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023).
• Joanna Tucker, Reading and Shaping Medieval Cartularies: Multi-Scribe Manuscripts and their Patterns of Growth. A Study of the Earliest Cartularies of Glasgow Cathedral and Lindores Abbey (Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2020).

Indicative Primary Sources:

• Cartulary of Holy Trinity Aldgate: Glasgow, University Library, MS Hunter 215 (U.2.6) [digitised: https://www.gla.ac.uk/collections/#/details?irn=296586&catType=C&referrer=/results&q=aldgate].
• The Cartulary of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, ed. Gerald A.J. Hodgett (London: London Record Society Publications, 1971). vii.
• Regesta regum Anglo-Normannorum, vol. II, ed. C. Johnson and H.A. Cronne (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956); vol. III, ed. H.A. Cronne and R.H.C. Davis (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968).
• English Episcopal Acta, 15: London, 1076-1187, ed. Falko Neininger (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
• English Lawsuits from William I to Richard I, ed. and trans. R.C. van Caenegem, 2 vols (London: Selden Society, 1990-1991), II, no. 434.
• Monasticon Anglicanum ed. R. Dodsworth and W. Dugdale, rev. ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols in 8 (London 1817-30, repr., J. Bohn,  1846), VI, pp. 150-165 [contains translations of some of the charters included in the cartulary].

 

 

 

This course aims to:

• Provide students with an opportunity to undertake a historical research project.
• Develop familiarity with historical methods and transferable skills in critical analysis, argument and oral presentation.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

• Assess scholarly literature and available primary sources to formulate a viable research question in History
• Contextualise and critically analyse primary sources to produce a convincing historical argument
• Express historical analysis and argument in written and oral forms.