Comments on: Freshers’ week… sort of http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/ A blog (mostly) about early modern culture Sat, 21 Nov 2009 14:53:56 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: lered141939980 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-24 lered141939980 Tue, 09 Oct 2007 09:39:16 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-24 Many thanks for your response. Russell's assault on the Whig interpretation of early Stuart Parliamentary history was essentially an attack on a straw man. It is no surprise that such a construct was easily demolished. Rather more surprising is the fact that this has only been pointed out by Christopher Thompson (whom you mention in your next post), the person responsible for interesting Conrad Russell in the subject of the Parliamentary history of the 1620s. If you look at Perez Zagorin's work on Court and Country, you can see from the apparatus that it appears to have been composed in the early-1960s and drew on material that had become available in the archives and theses in the 1950s. Some British historians like Carlton and Cressy did seek posts in the USA in the late-1960s and early to mid-1970s, partly because very few jobs were avalailable in the UK. My own view is that, if one wishes to play a significant role in the debates on early modern English or British history, it is better to live here: it is definitely much more difficult to play such a role from across the Atlantic or from the southern hemisphere. Many thanks for your response. Russell’s assault on the Whig interpretation of early Stuart Parliamentary history was essentially an attack on a straw man. It is no surprise that such a construct was easily demolished. Rather more surprising is the fact that this has only been pointed out by Christopher Thompson (whom you mention in your next post), the person responsible for interesting Conrad Russell in the subject of the Parliamentary history of the 1620s. If you look at Perez Zagorin’s work on Court and Country, you can see from the apparatus that it appears to have been composed in the early-1960s and drew on material that had become available in the archives and theses in the 1950s. Some British historians like Carlton and Cressy did seek posts in the USA in the late-1960s and early to mid-1970s, partly because very few jobs were avalailable in the UK. My own view is that, if one wishes to play a significant role in the debates on early modern English or British history, it is better to live here: it is definitely much more difficult to play such a role from across the Atlantic or from the southern hemisphere.

]]> By: mercuriuspoliticus http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-23 mercuriuspoliticus Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:38:25 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-23 Thank you so much for your comment. I will have to watch what I'm posting particularly carefully if you continue reading! It was interesting to get another perspective from someone who was involved. Funnily enough, I logged in and found your post just after I'd finished reading the Russell article where he talks about what "every schoolboy knows". I will have to dig out JN Ball's thesis if I get the chance. Incidentally on a second reading of Hutton I think I have misrepresented a couple of his points - as you say the increase in archive material happened earlier than the 1960s, but I think Hutton was arguing that it was by the 1960s that it really started to filter through into publications. And I think the point he makes about American historians is due to the lack of being forced to seek patronage from the older generation of "Whigs", unlike those in British universities, but like you I don't find this very convincing. I'll be reading through Tyacke and then the rest on the debates about puritanism soon so hopefully will be posting my thoughts on that at some point. Thank you so much for your comment. I will have to watch what I’m posting particularly carefully if you continue reading! It was interesting to get another perspective from someone who was involved. Funnily enough, I logged in and found your post just after I’d finished reading the Russell article where he talks about what “every schoolboy knows”. I will have to dig out JN Ball’s thesis if I get the chance.

Incidentally on a second reading of Hutton I think I have misrepresented a couple of his points – as you say the increase in archive material happened earlier than the 1960s, but I think Hutton was arguing that it was by the 1960s that it really started to filter through into publications. And I think the point he makes about American historians is due to the lack of being forced to seek patronage from the older generation of “Whigs”, unlike those in British universities, but like you I don’t find this very convincing.

I’ll be reading through Tyacke and then the rest on the debates about puritanism soon so hopefully will be posting my thoughts on that at some point.

]]> By: lered141939980 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-22 lered141939980 Sat, 06 Oct 2007 08:50:07 +0000 http://mercuriuspoliticus.wordpress.com/2007/10/06/freshers-week-sort-of/#comment-22 I was and am one of those early modern historians present at the birth of what has been denominated as 'revisionism', a term first employed by Ted Rabb. It is important to be clear about what is being discussed. The old 'Whig' interpretation of early Stuart Parliamentary history had, in fact, already been overturned and repudiated in John Ball's Cambridge Ph.D. of 1954 on the career of Sir John Elliot between 1624 and 1629 and much more significantly in J.H.Hexter's essay, Storm over the Gentry, first published in Encounter in 1956 and then reproduced with apparatus in his 1961 collection of essays, Reappraisals in History. If you look at Pages 134-138 of that book, you will see there a denial of the claim that there was a struggle for sovereignty between Stuart monarchs and the House of Commons: instead, he argued that the gentry of England tried to define the conditions and terms upon which the existing supreme authority might be exercised. He also maintained that the House of Commons tried to defend the rights and liberties not of a privileged section of the population but of English people as a whole. If that was 'Whiggery, then Hexter pleaded guilty. I personally pointed out to Conrad Russell that the Whig framework for Parliamentary history had been dissolved before he published his essay on Parliamentary history in perspective. His assault on what every school boy or master allegedly knew was superfluous: academic history had moved on a considerable distance before 1975. Where the revision of early Stuart history began was in a reaction against the assumptions of R.H.Tawney and of Lawrence Stone, particularly in his book, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641, that economic and social history of the kind they had written offered an explanation for the political history of the period, which was, according to them, already well understood. Even a cursory inspection of the sources for Parliamentary history, showed that the works of S.R.Gardiner, Wallace Notestein, D.H.Willson, Harold Hulme and others were hopelessly inadequate. Nicholas Tyacke's work on Arminianism offered a wholly new approach to the religious quarrels of the period. What is clear is that the early 'revisionists' were, with the exception of Derek Hirst, historians trained at Oxford. It was there that the revolt against figures like Hill, Tawney and Stone had been nurtured. The school of 'localist' history inspired by Alan Everitt was a slightly earlier phenomenon. It had arisen from the debates over the fortunes of the gentry and concentrated upon county studies because such administrative units offered the opportunity to evaluate the role of the gentry in the period up to the Civil Wars of the 1640s, through those conflicts and beyond. It was from Everitt's work that Russell borrowed his main explanatory device to account for the quarrels between successive Kings and their Parliaments. The development of 'revisionism', if that is a permissible term, began before the contraction in the employment market for university teachers in the late-1960s but only appeared in print in the early to mid-1970s. American scholars were notable for their absence before that time. Some English scholars like Derek Hirst did find jobs in the United States but became detached from the main stream of discussions amongst early modern historians. Kishlansky too was a later figure, more concerned with the 1640s than with the origins of the conflicts in the pre-1640 period. By and large, Americans were peripheral to the debate rather than being central to it. May I add that there was no dramatic increase in the availability of relevant archive material in the 1960s: that had already happened after 1945 and before 1960. I was and am one of those early modern historians present at the birth of what has been denominated as ‘revisionism’, a term first employed by Ted Rabb. It is important to be clear about what is being discussed. The old ‘Whig’ interpretation of early Stuart Parliamentary history had, in fact, already been overturned and repudiated in John Ball’s Cambridge Ph.D. of 1954 on the career of Sir John Elliot between 1624 and 1629 and much more significantly in J.H.Hexter’s essay, Storm over the Gentry, first published in Encounter in 1956 and then reproduced with apparatus in his 1961 collection of essays, Reappraisals in History. If you look at Pages 134-138 of that book, you will see there a denial of the claim that there was a struggle for sovereignty between Stuart monarchs and the House of Commons: instead, he argued that the gentry of England tried to define the conditions and terms upon which the existing supreme authority might be exercised. He also maintained that the House of Commons tried to defend the rights and liberties not of a privileged section of the population but of English people as a whole. If that was ‘Whiggery, then Hexter pleaded guilty. I personally pointed out to Conrad Russell that the Whig framework for Parliamentary history had been dissolved before he published his essay on Parliamentary history in perspective. His assault on what every school boy or master allegedly knew was superfluous: academic history had moved on a considerable distance before 1975.
Where the revision of early Stuart history began was in a reaction against the assumptions of R.H.Tawney and of Lawrence Stone, particularly in his book, The Crisis of the Aristocracy, 1558-1641, that economic and social history of the kind they had written offered an explanation for the political history of the period, which was, according to them, already well understood. Even a cursory inspection of the sources for Parliamentary history, showed that the works of S.R.Gardiner, Wallace Notestein, D.H.Willson, Harold Hulme and others were hopelessly inadequate. Nicholas Tyacke’s work on Arminianism offered a wholly new approach to the religious quarrels of the period. What is clear is that the early ‘revisionists’ were, with the exception of Derek Hirst, historians trained at Oxford. It was there that the revolt against figures like Hill, Tawney and Stone had been nurtured.
The school of ‘localist’ history inspired by Alan Everitt was a slightly earlier phenomenon. It had arisen from the debates over the fortunes of the gentry and concentrated upon county studies because such administrative units offered the opportunity to evaluate the role of the gentry in the period up to the Civil Wars of the 1640s, through those conflicts and beyond. It was from Everitt’s work that Russell borrowed his main explanatory device to account for the quarrels between successive Kings and their Parliaments.
The development of ‘revisionism’, if that is a permissible term, began before the contraction in the employment market for university teachers in the late-1960s but only appeared in print in the early to mid-1970s. American scholars were notable for their absence before that time. Some English scholars like Derek Hirst did find jobs in the United States but became detached from the main stream of discussions amongst early modern historians. Kishlansky too was a later figure, more concerned with the 1640s than with the origins of the conflicts in the pre-1640 period. By and large, Americans were peripheral to the debate rather than being central to it.
May I add that there was no dramatic increase in the availability of relevant archive material in the 1960s: that had already happened after 1945 and before 1960.

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