This is the early modern newsletter, bringing you monthly updates on research, publications, podcasts, videos, samplers, stained glass-windows - anything! This issue, for March 2025, is later than usual as a result of technical issues.

Pauline Blistène's review of Spycraft: Tricks and Tools of the Dangerous Trade from Elizabeth I to the Restoration, by Nadine Akkerman & Peter Langman.

"By placing the actual practice of espionage at the heart of history, Spycraft is also rooted in very ordinary considerations, completely overlooked, yet central. As such, it is one of the most important contributions to the ordinary history of intelligence that has begun to emerge in recent scholarship."

An Instagram post recreating in dramatic and musical form the romance between the musician Arabella Hunt and Amy (aka James) Poulter.

She-Intelligencers – Women and espionage in the British Civil Wars

Jackie Eales, Emeritus Professor of Early Modern History at Canterbury Christ Church University, explores the role of women in the civil wars – a topic largely ignored in earlier studies of the period.

Melvyn Bragg and guests: Catherine of Aragon in our time. A Radio 4 podcast.

The Collected Works of Thomas Kyd, edited by Brian Vickers; associate editor, the indefatigable Darren Freebury-Jones.

"Uniting accepted methods with modern electronic data processing, Brian Vickers has endorsed Kyd's authorship of Arden and added two other plays: King Leir, Shakespeare's main source, and Fair Em, a comedy - justifying Jonson's reference to "sporting Kyd". His research has also identified Kyd as co-author with Nashe of 'harey the vi', which became 1 Henry VI after Shakespeare adapted it to his "Wars of the Roses" sequence. The evidence suggests that Kyd and Shakespeare co-authored Edward III."

Shakespeare’s birthplace to be 'decolonised' over concerns playwright  promotes 'white supremacy'

Yes, you read that right. Cancel culture is making ward on the Bard. Susanna Siddell reports on trigger warnings for racism, sexism and violence in Shakespeare and what Shakespeare's Birthplace Trust plans to do about it.

The execution of Marie Antoinette. 

These AI voices are lifeless and dreary. Would it have been so hard to have a real-life narrator?

The changing climate of the Little Ice Age. An article from the History Today magazine.

Catholic Nobles and the Elizabethan State, 1558–1588

"A vivid exploration of how Catholicism endured far longer into the Elizabethan era and continued to shape the very identity of early modern England."

This is very much up my street! If the topic of Catholicism in Post-Reformation England interests you, take a look at my early modern Discourses of Suffering blog, which has a number of posts on the topic.

BBC article: Museum hopes to see Henry VIII portrait restored

Medical Education in Europe

A hybrid two-day conference organised by the Centre for the study of medicine and the body in the Renaissance. Deadline for submissions, July 15.

Not just the Tudors: Murderous women

"Gruesome murders carried out by women captivated the public imagination in Early Modern Britain. Pamphlets, ballads, and woodcuts spread the stories of traitorous wives, cunning poisoners, child killers, and alleged witches. Professor Suzannah Lipscomb is joined by historian and former police officer Dr. Blessin Adams on a journey through the shocking stories of women who defied societal norms with acts of violence that both horrified and fascinated society."

Bear-baiting in early modern England. A report on a study by researchers at the Universities of York and Nottingham, bringing together zooarchaeological, stable isotope and archival evidence from nine archaeological sites in Bankside, London, to define features specific to bear baiting.

Why Should Historians of Early Modernity, and Early Modern Religion Specifically, Blog? – Jacob M. Baum

Your comments, suggestions and contributions are welcome! Email me at [email protected].