by Prof. Karin Sennefelt (Stockholm University) One evening in 1695, the retired non-commissioned officer Lars Ekroth sat down in his home in Stockholm to smoke a pipe. While he was smoking, he received a vision he was sure came from the Holy Spirit. What was revealed to him was that the whole city, including the royal palace, would be destroyed in a great fire, and that the Swedish king Charles XI would die from poisoning (this is related to research I have recently published – Open Access – in Past & Present No. 253 through the article “A Pathology of Sacral Kingship: Putrefaction in the Body of Charles XI of Sweden”) God’s wrath would come upon the country because there was so much sinfulness, ostentation, mistreatment of the poor, and people trying to rise above their station. In particular, it was the sins perpetrated by the Royal Council that had awoken God’s wrath, Ekroth came to understand. When he later related his experience, he said that he was unsure whether he had been awake or asleep during the episode, only that it was when he took his pipe of tobacco that the vision came to him.   Tobacco smoke had […]

by Dr. Samuel Foster (University of East Anglia/University College, London – School of Slavonic and Eastern European Studies) Being a Minority in Times of Catastrophe served as the BASEES Study Group for Minority History’s inaugural event. Although our original intention had been to host it in hybrid format, with those outside the UK taking part via videoconference link, the ongoing uncertainties surrounding the public health restrictions led to us deciding to divide the event into two parts. The first involved a two-day remote symposium comprising a keynote and five research panels, which took place on 25-26/06/2021. The second, was an authors’ workshop for participants who had expressed interest in having their paper feature as part of a post-symposium publication. This subsequently took place at the Wiener Holocaust Library in central London on 22/10/2021. Given the symposium’s theme, it now feels somewhat fitting that the process of setting up and registering the Study Group mostly took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in May 2020. Indeed, our decision to explore the consequences of historical crisis and natural disasters, stemmed in part from the tragic implications that have unfolded over the last two years. Surveys by the British Medical Association […]

by Théo Rivière (Cardiff University) This year marks the 50th anniversary of the publication of Sir Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic. In recognition of this momentous milestone, the Past & Present Society generously supported “50 Years of Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic,” an event jointly organized by Michelle Pfeffer, Jan Machielsen, and Robin Briggs. The event was held in the Old Library of All Souls College, University of Oxford, and was also livestreamed via Microsoft Teams. Attendees were able to live react to the celebrations using the Twitter hashtag #SirKeithFest. Originally published in 1971, Religion and the Decline of Magic offers an incredibly vast and detailed overview of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century English supernatural. While some early reviewers critiqued the book for making use of “out of date” anthropological approaches, Thomas’s book has since been heralded as a landmark of socio-historical research and has become a classic point of reference for scholars and students of early modern religion and culture. The event was a resounding success, with more than 300 people joining in both virtually and in-person to celebrate the rich legacy of Religion and the Decline of Magic. It was divided into three […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Past & Present was delighted to hear that Dr. Michael Martoccio (University of Oxford) has won the 2021 Society for Italian Historical Studies Article Prize for Medieval and Early Modern Italian History. The award has been made for his article “The Art of Mercato: Buying City-States in Renaissance Tuscany” which appeared in Past & Present No. 252 (August 2021). The prize’s Award Committee citation runs as follows: “The committee unanimously and enthusiastically agrees to award the SIHS prize for Medieval and Early Modern History to Michael Martoccio for his article ‘The Art of the Mercato: Buying City-States in Renaissance Tuscany’ (Past & Present, 2021). Carefully positioned in the existing scholarship and supported by a meticulous and insightful analysis of a variety of primary sources, Martoccio’s essay reveals the logistics and meanings of the early modern Italian financial and political practice of buying city states. Uncovering an important aspect of Renaissance political life and exploring the links between the money-market economy and the language of empire, this article stirs us to consider the overlapping valences of Italian imperial projects that were at once commercial, territorial, and moral.” A full news story about the prize […]

Received from Dr. Victoria Leonard (Institute of Classical Studies, London), Elisa Manzo (University of Naples Federico II) and Cameron Wachowich (University of Toronto)  Orosius Through The Ages is due to take place 25th-27th May 2022 at the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London This conference explores how the Orosian reshaping of the classical past calibrated medieval and early modern conceptions of antiquity, and how far the formulation of fundamental Christian belief-systems such as sin, divine providence, and human salvation took place in the pages of the text. The conference asks how the field of Orosian studies has developed since the publication of the seminal critical Latin edition by Sigebert Havercamp in 1738. It questions how scholars can bring together the many intersections of the Historiae’s influence in different fields, such as paleography, book history, Anglo Saxon studies, ancient history, Celtic studies, medieval history, and early modern studies, into a coherent field. In particular, the conference aims to examine how the Historiae shaped ancient and medieval constructions of race and colonialism, and how the text represented women, gender, and sexuality. The conference is generously hosted by the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London. The event blends in-person and online participation, as far […]

by the Past & Present editorial team Recording of a roundtable marking the fiftieth anniversary of Sir Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic This roundtable marking the fiftieth anniversary of Sir Keith Thomas’s Religion and the Decline of Magic was held at All Souls College, Oxford on Friday 3 September 2021. It features Michael Hunter, Alan Macfarlane, Sophie Page, Alexandra Walsham, and Jan Machielsen and was chaired by Paul Slack. It concludes with a speech by Sir Keith reflecting on the work’s origins. The organizers of the event, Michelle Pfeffer, Robin Briggs, and Jan Machielsen, are grateful to the Society for Renaissance Studies for agreeing to host this video on their YouTube channel. Past & Present was pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

by the Past & Present editorial team Past & Present was pleased to support this event and supports other events like it. Applications for event funding are welcomed from scholars working in the field of historical studies at all stages in their careers.

Received from Hailey O’Harrow (University of St. Andrews) and Dr. Stephen Spencer (King’s College, London) Event Overview In 1941, Lucien Febvre called on scholars to place emotions at the very centre of their work; until they did so, he famously insisted, ‘there will be no real history possible’. Today, the ‘affective turn’ has seen the emergence of new methodologies and the destruction/adaptation of old ones; attempts to chart emotional continuities and changes over the longue durée; and a widening of geographic scope beyond western Europe. Nevertheless, the field finds itself at an important juncture, at least regarding the study of the Middle Ages: with the initial wave of scholarly interest having passed, scholars need to decide upon the most pressing research questions to be addressed, and thus the contours along which the field should develop. The history of emotions need not be only, or even primarily, about investigating past emotional experiences or standards: it can simultaneously serve as a framework to cast new light on much broader and traditional themes within medieval studies—religion, law, gender, politics, family—and thus play a far more diverse and prominent role in the historian’s toolkit by, for example, facilitating a deeper understanding of our sources. […]

Received from Michelle Pfeffer (University of Oxford) Event takes place online:  3rd September 2021, 14:00-17:45 (BST) This year sees the 50th anniversary of Sir Keith Thomas’s masterpiece, Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), one of the most significant British historical monographs of the last century. This short conference will celebrate and reflect on Thomas’s achievement as well as publicise new interdisciplinary work on the history of magic and religion. How to Register The event will be live streamed from All Souls College, Oxford. Due to a limit on numbers as a result of the pandemic, only a small audience will be invited to attend the conference in-person. Please register here to receive a link to the live stream. Registrations close 2 September 2021, 15:00 (BST). Organised by Michelle Pfeffer (Magdalen College, University of Oxford), Jan Machielsen (Cardiff University), and Robin Briggs (All Souls College, University of Oxford) Conference Schedule 14:00-15:30 Session 1: The Decline of Magic Today Chair: Sir Noel Malcolm Panellists: Robin Briggs, Chris Gosden, Michelle Pfeffer, Will Pooley, Laura Sangha, David Zeitlyn Registrants will be sent the written papers for this roundtable a week in advance of the conference. 16:00-17:30 Session 2: The Legacy of Religion and […]

by Hannah Lyons, Dr. Tomás Irish and Dr. Simon John (Swansea University) On 28 and 29 June, Swansea University hosted researchers from around the world at this online workshop. Attendees discussed the history of statues and memorials, but also posed questions about what the events of 2020 might tell us about the future. The workshop was originally scheduled for June 2020, but was postponed in light of the repercussions of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. It was in that month of June that protesters toppled the statue of the slavetrader Edward Colston from its plinth in Bristol. In the wake of that event, debates about controversial statues became front-page news around the world. Twelve months on, the debates uncovered by those developments in the summer of 2020 featured at the heart of this workshop. The two days of discussion and debate were informed by several linked questions. What socio-political motives underpin cultural responses to monuments? How have monuments shaped how people understand the past? How do monuments interact with the urban setting in which they stand? How do the meanings of monuments develop over time and how are they mediated? How have monuments been used to enforce political […]