Module description
The modules offered in each academic year are subject to change in line with staff availability and student demand: there is no guarantee every module will run. Module descriptions and information may vary between years
This course examines the history of London on the cusp of the modern age. Between 1550 and 1750 the city was transformed from a packed square mile of workshops and churches, bounded by a city wall and intensively governed, to a metropolis of trade and empire, bustling shops, polluting industry, enticing leisure and low-level crime, stretching from Wapping to Westminster and Islington to Vauxhall, and with connections to the Atlantic and Caribbean. The city's population was young, disproportionally female, and increasingly diverse. This module focuses on London's people and the structures with which they lived, introducing a range of historiographical approaches to put individual lives and themes in historical context. It prioritises thinking historically about the city in which we live and its role in shaping modern Britain, and will ask you to make connections to that end.
Topics and themes include: order and crime; consumer life; sex in the city; Black Londoners; migration; youth; dirt and noise. We will read recent secondary material and contemporary primary sources such as diaries and legal records, and visit London sites.
The module is assessed by a 1,500 word summative essay.
A formative essay and a (non-assessed) presentation is also included.
Assessment details
Coursework (100%)
1 x 1,500-word formative essay; 1 x 3,000-word essay (100%)
Teaching pattern
10 x 2-hour seminars (weekly)
Suggested reading list
This is suggested reading and purchase of these books is not mandatory.
John Stow, A Survey of London, written in the year 1598 A 16th century history of the city and its parishes, widely available in cheap editions and with some great stories and details
Mark Jenner and Paul Griffiths, ed, Londinopolis Useful essays e.g. on water, women, marriage, crime
Lena Cowen Orlin Locating Privacy in Tudor London Wide-ranging, stimulating examination of the idea of private worlds in the early modern city
Eleanor Hubbard, City Women New study of women in the city, with lots of detail on work and social life
Karen Newman, Cultural Capitals: early modern London and Paris
Anna Bayman, Thomas Dekker and the Culture of Pamphleteering in early modern London Fascinating biography which recaptures the everyday life of the city
Joseph Monteyne, The Printed Image in early modern London Chapters on print, coffee houses etc
Paul Griffiths, Lost Londons Compendious tome on criminal London based on the records of Bridewell
Lena Cowen Orlin, ed., Material London ca. 1600 Literary in flavour, with some great essays
Charles Nicholl, The Lodger: Shakespeare on Silver Street Based on a recent archival discovery, a story of Shakespeare's life as a lodger in the city
Claire Tomalin, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self Great biography with excellent material on London – read his diaries too, all online
Online resources
The Map of Early Modern London – excellent website with gazetteer of the city
Old Bailey Online – criminal records of the city from 1667