Early Modern Wales

This work is intended to examine the main trends in Wales during the century following the Tudor settlement of Wales. Emphasis is placed on the social structure, the framework of government and administration, and the Reformation Settlement. The Stuart accession and its repercussions are also considered in relation to political, economic and cultural affairs, as well as the attitudes of the Welsh gentry to a new environment on the eve of the Civil War. The work makes ample use of contemporary sources to examine each aspect of the political, governmental and religious life of Wales.

Traditionally, the narratives of Welsh history have been masculine in their emphasis. Women and Gender in Early Modern Wales helps to redress the balance as it examines the material, social and cultural experiences of women in Wales and explores how those experiences were defined alongside or against those of men. It is the first book devoted to the lives of women in Wales during the period from the alter middle ages to the eve of the industrial revolution, and the first study to deal with the history of shifting gender identities in Wales in any period. Michael Roberts and Simone Clarke have brought together an exciting team of authors to examine the character and evolution of male and female identities in the early modern period. Issues addressed include female contributions to the poetic tradition, attitudes towards witchcraft and female abduction, the role of women in the emerging Nonconformist movements, the changing political and social responsibilities of men following the Acts of Union, and an exploration of women's experiences as presented in a range of sources from the records of the law courts to the work of the embroiderer. Women and Gender in Early Modern Wales is a pioneering yet accessible volume which not only has wide-ranging and important implications for early modern Welsh historiography, but also provides the basis for the comparative study of gendered experience in this period, both in the British Isles and beyond.

This is a general textbook organised around ideas of identity and nationhood rather than the usual high political narrative. It incorporates cutting-edge scholarship and new evidential sources to provide novel perspectives. Early Modern Wales considers neglected topics such as gender and women's experiences and examines history beyond the ruling elite.

The late sixteenth century saw a redrawing of the borders of north-west Europe. Wales and Brittany entered into unions with neighboring countries England and France. This book uses Brittany and Wales' responses to unification to describe a comparative history of national identity during the early modern period.

After outlining conventional accounts of Wales in the High Middle Ages, this book moves to more radical approaches to its subject. Rather than discussing the emergence of the March of Wales from the usual perspective of the ‘intrusive’ marcher lords, for instance, it is considered from a Welsh standpoint explaining the lure of the March to Welsh princes and its contribution to the fall of the native principality of Wales. Analysis of the achievements of the princes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries focuses on the paradoxical process by which increasingly sophisticated political structures and a changing political culture supported an autonomous native principality, but also facilitated eventual assimilation of much of Wales into an English ‘empire’. The Edwardian conquest is examined and it is argued that, alongside the resultant hardship and oppression suffered by many, the rising class of Welsh administrators and community leaders who were essential to the governance of Wales enjoyed an age of opportunity. This is a book that introduces the reader to the celebrated and the less well-known men and women who shaped medieval Wales.

Quakerism has long fascinated historians and religious scholars, and Richard Allen s examination of the community s rise and fall in Wales holds a wealth of new insights. The prominent role played by women, the resilience of Quakers in the face of a variety of forms of official persecution, the ways that education, careers, and marriage were determined by a strict code of conduct, and the reasons for Quakerism s decline all come under consideration here. As the first scholarly analysis of Welsh Quakers, this book represents an important new contribution to our knowledge of the movement."

Welsh national consciousness was at this time deeply affected by 'anglicising' forces, and an increasing number among the gentry gradually withdrew from their traditional duties and obligations in rural communities. It was also the age of Welsh adventurers and professional men, of commercial families, governors, lawyers and politicians in courts of law and parliament, and of pious Puritan fathers.

Demonstrates that there was ... a significant Welsh involvement in Ireland between 1558 and 1641. It explores how the Welsh established themselves as soldiers, government officials and planters in Ireland. It also discusses how the Welsh, although participating in the 'English' colonisation of Ireland, nevertheless remained a distinct community, settling together and maintaining strong kinship and social and economic networks to fellow countrymen, including in Wales.