The Ashgate Research Companion To Popular Culture In Early Modern England

The Ashgate Research Companion to Popular Culture in Early Modern England is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary examination of current research on popular culture in the early modern era. For the first time a detailed yet wide-ranging consideration of the breadth and scope of early modern popular culture in England is collected in one volume, highlighting the interplay of 'low' and 'high' modes of cultural production (while also questioning the validity of such terminology). The authors examine how popular culture impacted upon people's everyday lives during the period, helping to define how individuals and groups experienced the world. Issues as disparate as popular reading cultures, games, food and drink, time, textiles, religious belief and superstition, and the function of festivals and rituals are discussed. This research companion will be an essential resource for scholars and students of early modern history and culture.

Now in its third edition, Peter Burke's 1978 book Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe has for thirty years set the benchmark for cultural historians with its wide ranging and imaginative exploration of early modern European popular culture. In order to celebrate this achievement, and to explore the ways in which perceptions of popular culture have changed in the intervening years a group of leading scholars are brought together in this new volume to examine Burke's thesis in relation to England. Adopting an appropriately interdisciplinary approach, the collection offers an unprecedented survey of the field of popular culture in early modern England as it currently stands, bringing together scholars at the forefront of developments in an expanding area. Concluded by an Afterword by Peter Burke, the volume provides a vivid sense of the range and significance of early modern popular culture and the difficulties involved in defining and studying it.

1978 witnessed the publication of Peter Burke's groundbreaking study Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe. Now in its third edition this remarkable book has for thirty years set the benchmark for cultural historians with its wide ranging and imaginative exploration of early modern European popular culture. In order to celebrate this achievement, and to explore the ways in which perceptions of popular culture have changed in the intervening years a group of leading scholars are brought together in this new volume to examine Burke's thesis in relation to England. Adopting an appropriately interdisciplinary approach, the collection offers an unprecedented survey of the field of popular culture in early modern England as it currently stands, bringing together scholars at the forefront of developments in an expanding area. Taking as its starting point Burke's argument that popular culture was everyone's culture, distinguishing it from high culture, which only a restricted social group could access, it explores an intriguing variety of sources to discover whether this was in fact the case in early modern England. It further explores the meaning and significance of the term 'popular culture' when applied to the early modern period: how did people distinguish between high and low culture - could they in fact do so? Concluded by an Afterword by Peter Burke, the volume provides a vivid sense of the range and significance of early modern popular culture and the difficulties involved in defining and studying it.

The concept of cultural history has in the last few decades come to the fore of historical research into early modern Europe. Due in no small part to the pioneering work of Peter Burke, the tools of the cultural historian are now routinely brought to bear on every aspect of history, and have transformed our understanding of the past. First published in 1978 and now in its third edition, this study examines the broad sweep of pre-industrial Europe's popular culture. This new edition features a new introduction reflecting the growth of cultural history and an extensive supplementary bibliography which further adds to the information about new research in the area.

Over the past three decades scholars have transformed the study of women and gender in early modern Europe. This Ashgate Research Companion presents an authoritative review of the current research on women and gender in early modern Europe from a multi-disciplinary perspective. The authors examine women’s lives, ideologies of gender, and the differences between ideology and reality through the recent research across many disciplines, including history, literary studies, art history, musicology, history of science and medicine, and religious studies. The book is intended as a resource for scholars and students of Europe in the early modern period, for those who are just beginning to explore these issues and this time period, as well as for scholars learning about aspects of the field in which they are not yet an expert. The companion offers not only a comprehensive examination of the current research on women in early modern Europe, but will act as a spark for new research in the field.

The author examines the world of popular culture in pre-industrial Europe including the role of minstrels, fools, jugglers, strolling players, and singers of tales. Popular songs, stories, and plays are also discussed.

Explores the important aspects of popular cultures during the period 1550 to 1750. Barry Reay investigates the dominant beliefs and attitudes across all levels of society as well as looking at different age, gender and religious groups.

Society and Culture in Early Modern England contains articles published over the last twenty-five years. The common theme of this selection is the linkage of elite and popular culture and the participation of ordinary people in the central events of their age. The collection also traces a development in historical style and method, from quantitative applications using statistics to qualitative telling of tales. Seven essays under the heading 'Opportunities' explore problems of education, literacy and cultural attainment within the gendered and hierarchically ordered society of Elizabethan and Stuart England. Eight more under the heading 'Passages' examine social and cultural interactions, kinship, migration, community celebrations, and rituals in the life-cycle. Society and Culture in Early Modern England brings together a coherent body of research that is much cited in current scholarship and continues to shape the agenda for the social and cultural history of early modern England.