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 6: The Material Culture of Republican Rule or the Problem of the King's Head

The Seal of the Commonwealth. This is the version from 1651, the earlier 1649 version wore out.

The prospect of executing Charles I raised a problem for the English Parliament that, on the face of it, may look trivial but which was in fact very important: what was to be done about the royal seal? The seal was used to indicate royal approval on official documents and was therefore a crucial mark of legitimacy. Yet the royal seal (which depicted the King's head on one side and his coat of arms on the other) could not be used by a regicidal regime. Monarchies had a ready-made symbol in the image of the monarch, republics had to be more creative to find effective ways of representing the regime in material form. Another myth of republican government might then be that it is difficult to create a powerfully symbolic material culture for a republican regime. Yet various creative and innovative attempts have been made to do so.

The English regicides were certainly not deterred by the problem. Before Charles I had even been condemned to death plans were in train to produce a replacement seal. Four weeks before the regicide a new 'republican' seal had been designed and four days before Charles's death Thomas Simon was paid to produce it. As a result, the seal of the commonwealth was ready for use just a week after Charles had been executed. In place of the King's arms it depicted a map of England, Wales and Ireland (Scotland was not yet under the control of the English republic). In place of the King's head was an image of Parliament in session, reinforcing the point that that body (rather than a single individual) was now the sovereign.

Bust of a boy wearing a phrygian cap. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

One obvious source of inspiration for later republicans was the Roman Republic where inscriptions, images, material objects, architecture and rituals were all developed to reflect and reinforce the power of the state. The acronym SPQR (senatus populusque romanus, 'the senate and people of Rome') served as a reminder of where power lay in the Roman system and was used as an emblem of Rome's republican government, being emblazoned not just on official documents, but also on coins and buildings. The Roman legacy also furnished a number of motifs that were picked up by later republican states. One of these was the phrygian cap or liberty bonnet. Its origins lay in the practice of shaving the heads of slaves in ancient Rome. Freed slaves would, therefore, be given a hat to hide their shaved head while their hair grew back. On this basis the phrygian cap became a symbol of liberty.

Ambrogio Lorenzetti, ‘The Allegory of Good Government’ from the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena. Reproduced from Wikimedia Commons.

The frescoes that the artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti produced for the Sale dei Nove of the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena between 1337 and 1339 constitute a particularly lavish example of the way in which republican ideology can be reflected in visual form. The cycle of six paintings present good and bad government and the effects of each in the city and in the countryside. Like written texts, the frescoes have been subject to conflicting interpretations. Quentin Skinner has challenged the traditional Aristotelian or Thomist reading, arguing instead that the frescoes reflect the ideology of pre-humanist texts and, more especially, the particular account set out in Bruno Latini's Li Livres dou trésor (Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics, Volume II: Renaissance Virtues, Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 39-116). On this basis Skinner argues that the placing of the figure of peace in the middle section of the middle painting of the cycle reflects the pre-humanist view that the goal of good government is the preservation of peace and concord. He also claims that the regal figure, which had been seen as a symbolic representation of the Thomist doctrine of the common good, is in fact supposed to indicate the kind of magistrates the city should elect in order to secure the common good. Moreover, by simultaneously depicting this figure as representing the city of Siena and a supreme judge, Lorenzetti was emphasising Latini's point that the supreme ruler or judge of Siena must be the Sienese themselves. However we interpret these images, they constitute a powerful representation in visual form of republican political ideas.

Republican material culture could be used not simply to reinforce and disseminate the values of the ruling powers, but also as a tool of opposition. In eighteenth-century Britain Thomas Hollis and Thomas Spence both deployed images and artefacts alongside texts to mount extra-parliamentary republican campaigns.

The cover of the Hollis edition of Algernon Sidney’s Discourses Concerning Government, F *EC75.H7267.Zz751s Lobby IV.4.14, Houghton Library, Harvard University. I am grateful to the Houghton Library for giving me permission to include this here and to Dr Mark Somos for his assistance.

At the heart of Hollis's campaign were the texts of earlier republican authors that he republished. These included Algernon Sidney's Discourses Concerning Government, James Harrington's The Commonwealth of Oceana, Edmund Ludlow's Memoirs, Marchamont Nedham's The Excellencie of a Free State and works by John Milton. But it was not merely the words of these volumes that mattered to Hollis, their physicality or material form was also crucial to the messages that he wanted to convey. The volumes that Hollis republished, and then sent to furnish public and university libraries across Europe and North America, were lavishly produced and deliberately associated with each other by their appearance. They were bound in red leather and embossed with symbols - including a small liberty bonnet. Each volume also bore a portrait of the author designed by the Italian-born painter and engraver Giovanni Battista Cipriani. The portraits were enclosed within a wreath made by two laurel branches (alluding to the victory laurels of ancient Rome) underneath which the liberty cap was repeated. Copies of the portraits were also printed separately, perhaps as advertisements for the volume or to be displayed on a wall. Hollis also commissioned Cipriani to design medals to commemorate key victories, including one which depicted Britannia wearing a liberty cap that was designed to celebrate the victory of the British over the French at Louisbourg in 1758.

Thomas Spence's political programme was grounded in the 'Land Plan' that he first presented in a lecture to the Newcastle Philosophical Society in November 1775. Though the lecture caused controversy and resulted in Spence being expelled from the society, he continued to promote his plan in a variety of publications. These included, not just conventional political pamphlets, but also utopian, semi-fictional works such as Crusonia and Spensonia, and his cheap periodical Pig's Meat. Like Hollis, Spence also experimented with visual representations. In particular he produced tokens depicting images that reflected or served as short-hand reminders of his land plan. He also used the images, as Hollis did, to reflect his broader political views, though he was less reverential. Rather than celebrating military victories he tended to use his tokens to complain about present day injustices. Spence's tokens were subversive in their function as well as their appearance. They were produced in response to the shortage of low denomination coins in the eighteenth century. Spence's tokens could be used by the public as small change and then exchanged for legal tender at his shop. By this means his tokens could be seen as replacing or subverting government authority and royal power. This was particularly the case with those on which the head of the monarch was replaced by an image of a radical activist such as John Horne Tooke or John Thelwall. Spence also counter-stamped official regal coinage with his slogans.

Royal iconography has always been dominated by the image of the monarch. Finding an equivalent symbol to represent republican authority has been a matter of debate and experimentation for republican regimes and opposition republicans alike. Their endeavours have produced a rich repertoire of republican imagery which draws heavily on the Roman legacy, but also reflects different national and temporal contexts.

The concern of those involved in the redesign of the seal in 1649 was to ensure that it reflected the reality of the new situation. By contrast, the official iconography of the United Kingdom today misrepresents the form of government that now prevails. The state is officially a monarchy, as reflected in the fact that the Queen's head is depicted on the royal seal, coins and postage stamps. Yet sovereign power now lies not with the monarch, but in the Houses of Parliament. Perhaps it is time to return to the iconography of 1649? Contrary to the myth, there is plenty of scope for doing so.