Northern Early Modern Network

The second conference I attended in the week commencing 17 January was organised by the Northern Early Modern Network. It was delivered in a blended format, which allowed for the best of both worlds. Participants commented on the pleasure of speaking to a live audience after so long in isolation. Yet, including an online presence meant that speakers based in Austria, Spain, Poland, and Malta could participate without having to travel long distances. Most of the speakers were current postgraduates (and I have focused on what they had to say) so the conference provided a snapshot of the future of early modern studies. The excellent papers I heard led me to reflect on a number of themes.

Several papers focused on lesser-known figures or those who challenge conventional narratives. Daniel Johnson explored how Isaac Watts sought to reconcile his religious views with Enlightenment rationalism. Leanne Smith's paper centred on the Fifth Monarchist John Canne and examined his interweaving of religious and republican ideas. She emphasised his commitment to the republican understanding of liberty as freedom of the will and to popular sovereignty. Maddie Reynolds presented her research on the scientific work of Mary Sidney Herbert, showing the subtle strategies that she had to employ as a woman operating in a male setting. Subtlety and careful manoeuvring were also required of the Elizabethan diplomat William Davison, who was the subject of Rosalyn Cousins' paper. Rosalyn showed how Davison saw himself not simply as a servant of the Queen but as a servant of the commonwealth, meaning that he was willing to challenge orders that he thought threatened the country.

Davison's manoeuvring primarily concerned his relations with others, but some early modern individuals and groups, like Herbert, had to manipulate their own identity and self-presentation in order to succeed. Two very different examples of self-fashioning were offered in the papers by Livia Bernardes Roberge and Marlo Avidon. Livia discussed the construction of identity by the Leveller and Digger movements, showing how both groups adopted labels initially intended as terms of abuse, but also highlighting the differences in the process by which they did so. Marlo's paper centred on the women celebrated in Peter Lely's series of portraits 'Windsor Beauties'. She argued that beauty could operate as a form of power for women at that time and that the portraits provided them with some agency within the boundaries of objectification.

Frontispiece to Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (London, 1651). Robinson Library, Newcastle University. BAI 1651 HOB. Reproduced with kind permission from the Library.

This notion of self-fashioning points towards a second theme highlighted in various papers, namely the importance of active engagement as part of early modern religious, cultural, or political processes. This theme was first drawn to my attention in Joshua Rushton's paper on the shifting landscape of sanctity in early modern Venice. Joshua's account of the promotion of the cults of St Mark and St Antony in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries served to emphasise the importance of the spiritual engagement of the laity through the consumption of hagiographical writings and participation in processions. Participation in the politics of the state could also come through enrolment in the army, which is why many republican authors celebrated the idea of citizen soldiers. Nicolau Lutz alluded to this tradition in his paper, but his main focus was on Thomas Hobbes's rather different treatment of the army in Leviathan. Hobbes denied that the army had a corporate nature; rejected its right (or the right of any individual soldier) to act as a representative of the state; and, in complete opposition to the republicans, sought to separate the soldier from the citizen or subject. His ultimate aim, Nicolau explained, was to depoliticise the army.

A lack of political agency can also arise as a result of poverty or disability. Genna Kirkpatrick explored this idea in her examination of the treatment of these themes in the play The Honest Man's Fortune (1613). Genna emphasised the complex interrelationship between poverty, disability, status, and social structures, arguing that the play explores the ways in which the obstacles faced by those who are poor or disabled are not inherent in nature but the result of social structures that favour the rich and able-bodied.

Margaret Cavendish (née Lucas), Duchess of Newcastle upon Tyne by Pieter Louis van Schuppen, after Abraham Diepenbeeck, c.1655-1658. National Portrait Gallery, NPG D11111. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Engagement in the private sphere was explored in two papers. Harriet Palin's account of the practice of catechising in early modern England showed how catechesis was used as a process of self-reflection and how for many the aim was to bring a shift from rote learning towards deeper engagement with religious understanding. Lauren Kilbane's paper on the theme of mourning in Margaret Cavendish's play Bell in Campo presented the play's war widow Madame Jantil as a living monument to her grief and emphasised the performative dimension of her role. Her creation of a funeral monument to her husband reflected one opportunity for self-fashioning that was open to women at the time.

Another kind of cultural performance was explored by Nicole Maceira Cumming in her paper on James VI's passion for hunting. As Nicole noted, hunting was not merely an enjoyable pastime but a means of preparing young aristocratic men for their duties - especially in times of war. Nicole insisted that James understood the role of the hunt as a display of power and argued that this was why in Basilikon Doron, he favoured the 'noble' pursuit of hunting with hounds - which reinforced hierarchical distinctions - as against the form of hunting that was more typical in Scotland at the time.

James VI of Scotland and I of England by Daniel Mytens 1621. National Portrait Gallery. NPG 109. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

It is not just in hunting that entertainment is combined with pedagogy, several papers explored the role of playacting and games as educational tools. Maria Maciejewska's paper on Jesuit plays about Japan noted that plays were crucial to education within Jesuit schools. Not only were they a means of practising Latin and rhetorical skills, but they also provided an opportunity for the exploration of emotions. In her paper Nuna Kümin emphasised the importance of play not just to education but to research and set out her methodology of using games as a means of exploring early modern musical improvisation - an area that is lacking in source material. Nuna ended her paper by picking up her violin and playing one of her games, offering a wonderful audio feast of early modern style improvisation.

Another common theme was the circulation of ideas and the different methods deployed for promoting this. The dissemination of ideas via texts was explored in Alex Plane's paper on the library of James VI and I. Alex argued that James's library functioned as a reference resource not just for his work as an author but also in his role as monarch, with key texts that dealt with specific contemporary issues often being bound together. Information could also be held and carried by people. This idea was explored in Sergio Moreta Pedraz's paper on the role of the governors of the "Estado do Brasil" and "Estado do Maranhao"; in Maciej Polak's exploration of the correspondence of the Royal Commissioners Marcin Kromer and Jan Dymitr Solikowski; and in Rosalyn Cousins's account of William Davison. These figures were all valuable because of their considerable understanding of politics and international affairs, which often far exceeded that of the rulers for whom they worked. In his paper Carlo Scapecchi explored the transmission of a different kind of knowledge, showing how Flemish weaving techniques were imported into Renaissance Italy through the migration of a group of Netherlandish weavers to Florence. Finally, Thom Pritchard's paper focused on the transmission of news around Europe and its disruption due to meteorological events. Employing the analogy of the acoustic shadow, whereby the sound of guns can be distorted by disruptions to sound waves caused by phenomena such as wind currents, Pritchard presented the idea of an informatic shadow where storms and other features of the little ice age impacted on the movement of news across the continent.

John Milton by unknown artist, c. 1629. National Portrait Gallery. NPG 4222. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Given that I am preparing to launch the Experiencing Political Texts network, I took particular note when contributors spoke about genre or the materiality of texts. Victoria Downey presented John Milton's use of the epic in Paradise Lost as a deliberate nod to classical authors such as Virgil, which allowed him to explore surprising elements or silences within the Biblical account. Focusing on his treatment of the serpent, Victoria showed how Milton made use of intertextual readings and allusions to present his theological convictions within the Biblical narrative. Shifts of genre within texts could also have powerful meaning, for example Lauren Kilbane showed how Cavendish switched from prose to verse to indicate that her characters were memorialising. Emily Hay's paper on the sonnets of Mary Queen of Scots showed that the genre of a work could even be twisted - or misrepresented - by later editors and printers for their own ends. She made a convincing case that the poems that were presented as love sonnets to Erle Bothwell - so as to implicate Mary in the murder Lord Darnley - may originally have been written as religious devotional works.

St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valetta, Malta. Image from Wikimedia Commons

The materiality of texts and objects was addressed directly in several papers. Alex Plane reminded us that a library is not just a collection of texts, but an assemblage of physical objects and that material features such as bindings, inscriptions, and marginalia can be as revealing as the printed words. Maddie Reynolds provided an illustration of this in her paper on Mary Sidney Herbert, pointing out that the frontispiece to The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia used emblematic and iconographical images not just to provide details of the plot, but to represent in visual form the alchemical idea of transformation. Nor is it just the materiality of texts that can be revealing. In her paper on the tryptich The Deposition of Christ from St. John's Co-Cathedral in Valetta, Lydia Pavia Dimech argued that gouge marks in the frame which holds the painting can help make sense of its history. Understanding texts and images as physical objects also means thinking about their dissemination. Roslyn Potter's paper on John Forbes's Songs and Fancies addressed this issue, noting the strategy that was employed of sending it direct to music schools to encourage its use.

I am posting this blog in the immediate aftermath of a period of industrial action that has highlighted the immense pressures that academics are under today with pay and pensions squeezed while working conditions deteriorate. Postgraduate students are at the sharp end of this crisis, often doing hourly-paid teaching on precarious contracts to develop essential skills and to make ends meet, while facing an uncertain future. For those of us working in the humanities these worries are increased by concerns about the future of our disciplines, and especially of early modern research. In this context, the conference was heartening. The scholarship on display was strong and the papers reflected new and exciting avenues of research, many of which have direct relevance for the world in which we live today.

With this in mind it seems appropriate to end with Claire Turner's paper on the smellscape of the seventeenth-century plague outbreaks. This is part of her wider PhD project that explores how the plague impacted on the five senses, thereby adopting a new approach to an old topic. The history of the plague has, of course, gained fresh relevance in the last two years, and Claire's reference to techniques such as airing rooms and segregating households sounded all too familiar. The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries may seem a long time ago - and much has changed in the intervening period - but Claire's paper reminded us not only that we continue to face similar problems but also that our common humanity means that we often approach them in similar ways.

Myths Concerning Republicanism 2: Republican Government has always been Aristocratic

January's blogpost explored the myth that republican government is necessarily anti-monarchical. This month I want to consider another myth: that republican government is inherently aristocratic or élitist in character and therefore unsuited to the democratic nature of twenty-first-century states.

Print of Geneva in 1630. Image by Rachel Hammersley.

There is some justification for this characterisation. In the ancient world republican government was associated with slavery, the exclusion of women from the political sphere, and the restriction of political participation to certain groups. Indeed, the exercise of citizenship depended on the work carried out by non-citizens (including slaves, women, servants, and foreigners), which made it possible for citizens to devote their attention to political matters. Moreover, later republican governments were criticised for descending into oligarchy. Venice's Grand Council was initially composed of all male inhabitants but due to citizenship being restricted to the descendants of those original citizens, by 1581 it was accorded to just over 1% of the population. In the Genevan republic the cost of claiming citizenship became more expensive over time, restricting who could take it up. In addition, power was increasingly moved away from the General Council - comprising all citizens - and towards smaller bodies that were dominated by a few families.

Frontispiece to The Federalist Papers. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The rise of the modern representative republic proved a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it undercut the need for citizens to be supported by non-citizens by making citizenship a less onerous activity. Yet, at the same time, it created a political élite distinct from the wider citizen body whose role it was to govern. For some thinkers this was a positive move. They saw representation not simply as a necessary evil in the large states of the modern world, but as a good in itself. In The Federalist Papers James Madison insisted that in a representative government 'public views' would be 'refined' and 'enlarge[d]' by being passed through 'the medium of a chosen body of citizens' who would be wiser than the rest and therefore better able to determine the true interest of the nation. He went on: 'Under such a regulation, it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.' (Publius, The Federalist Papers, X).

Yet, as debates at the time make clear, this was not the only way of organising representative government. Anti-Federalists in America, and various individuals and groups in Europe, proposed representative systems that maintained a closer connection between elected delegates and those they represented. The mechanisms they advocated included short terms and regular rotation of office, powerful local assemblies, binding mandates, and even the popular ratification of laws. The way in which the modern representative republic was organised did serve to create a narrow political élite, but that was a deliberate choice rather than the only option available.

Where the Federalists chose to build on the aristocratic tendency within republican thought, an alternative more democratic strand also existed

Portrait of James Harrington from The Oceana and Other Works of James Harrington… ed. John Toland (London, 1737). Image by Rachel Hammersley.

Some republicans insisted that popular participation (rather than anti-monarchism) was the defining feature of republican government. William Walker argues that the ancient historian Sallust saw the establishment of the tribunate as more important to the Roman Republic than the displacement of the monarch by consuls (William Walker, 'Sallust and Skinner on Civil Liberty', European Journal of Political Theory, 5:3, 2006). Likewise, for James Harrington it was not the presence or absence of a single figurehead at the apex of the system that determined whether or not a regime was a commonwealth, but rather whether or not the people (via their popular assembly) had the final say over which legislation was passed and enacted (Rachel Hammersley, James Harrington: An Intellectual Biography, Oxford, 2019). Similarly, John P. McCormick has argued that Niccolò Machiavelli offered an anti-élitist critique of republican practice. In contrast to Francesco Guicciardini's "senatorial" model of politics, he favoured a "tribunate" model which embraced popular deliberation and employed extra-electoral methods to secure the accountability of those in power (John P. McCormick, 'Machiavelli Against Republicanism On the Cambridge School's "Guicciardinian Moments", Political Theory, 31:5, 2003, 615-43).

Both Machiavelli and Harrington were also advocates of the idea that extremes of wealth and poverty would pose a direct threat to the survival of the republic. Machiavelli famously argued that if the system was well-constituted the public should be rich, but the citizens poor (Machiavelli, The Discourses, ed. Bernard Crick. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970, p. 475). This idea has a modern echo in the notion that we must choose between public luxury for all or private luxury for some. Other thinkers called for balance and moderation. Harrington claimed that: 'There is a mean in things: as exorbitant riches overthrow the balance of a commonwealth, so extreme poverty cannot hold it nor is by any means to be trusted with it.' (James Harrington, The Commonwealth of Oceana, ed. J. G. A. Pocock. Cambridge, 1992, p. 77). A similar view was endorsed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau who insisted that in order to secure civil freedom: 'no citizen [can] be so very rich that he can buy another, and none so poor that he is compelled to sell himself.' (Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Social Contract, ed. Victor Gourevitch. Cambridge, 1997, p. 78). The problem with wealth and luxury, Rousseau insisted, was that they exerted a corrupting influence, encouraging the citizens to put their own private interests above those of the republic.

The Leaders of the Knights of Labour with Terence Powderly in the centre. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

It is also evident that even after the emergence of representative republics, the language of republicanism could be used by marginalised or excluded groups against their oppressors. As Alex Gourevitch has demonstrated, this tactic was deployed to great effect by 'The Noble and Holy Order of the Knights of Labor', the first labour organisation in the United States of America to admit both white and black workers (Alex Gourevitch, From Slavery to the Cooperative Commonwealth. Cambridge, 2015). Its leaders deliberately used republican arguments to criticise wage labour. George McNeill spoke of the 'inevitable and irresistible conflict' between the system of wage labour and republican governance (p. 100). The reason for this, as Terence Powderly explained, was that the wage labour system generated economic inequalities that were translated into political inequalities. Drawing directly on the understanding of liberty as non-dependence, and on arguments that had been used in the seventeenth century to insist that subjects were unfree even under a mild and gentle monarch, the Knights insisted that a worker would be a slave even if employed by 'the gentlest man in the world' 'if he must obey his commands and depend upon his will' (pp. 14-15). The solution, they argued, was to establish cooperatives so that workers could collectively own and manage the factories in which they worked. By applying the conception of liberty as non-dependence to the economic as well as the political sphere, these labour republicans succeeded in making republican arguments applicable not just to independent property owners, but to all workers - white and black, male and female.

While republicanism has taken an aristocratic form in both theory and practice in the past this was often a deliberate strategy rather than a necessity. The history of the republican tradition can provide arguments in favour of popular participation in government, warnings against excessive inequalities among citizens, and evidence of the importance of economic as well as political inequalities (and of the relationship between the two). Rather than dismissing republicanism as inherently aristocratic, then, it might be more profitable to draw on these resources to create a version of republicanism suited to the democratic states of the twenty-first century.