His 3100, Fall 2006

Sources and Debates, 1450-1603, Essay (5 pages, 15% of your grade) Due Oct. 19

Analyze your group’s sources on an aspect of Tudor history and how such material supports or critiques one side of a historiographical debate on that subject. Using at least five of the documents (a couple can be the short ones in the Discussion section) and two of the articles or chapters noted in the Historiography section of your assigned chapter from Key and Bucholz, Sources and Debates, write a paper presenting both sides of a debate about Yorkists and Tudors, or Tudor Revolution, or Reformations, or Elizabethan Worlds, or Disorder, or Early Stuart divisions, and then suggesting which side you think helps explain the documents and sources you select. Be sure to spend the body of the essay analyzing the documents (showing how they do or do not fit one of the arguments historians have made about the period which you introduce in the introduction).

[Note articles may be ordered from Interlibrary Loan (ILL; see ILL article request form), but Booth Library contains many of the books and journals noted. And Booth’s “History” article databases <http://www.library.eiu.edu/eresources/databases/websites.asp?subcode=AHI> includes Historical Abstracts (European and British history), and “JSTOR” (complete runs of journals–search with “History” clicked to focus on 59 core history journals). Comprehensive is Royal History Society Bibliography of British and Irish History <http://www.rhs.ac.uk/bibl/>, but some journals noted there except through ILL.]

1.       Suggestions (from previous papers):

          a.       Sources and Debates, ch. 2

                     i.         Cromwell and Henry VIII: G. Elton, “Thomas Cromwell” HJ vs. G.W. Bernard “Elton’s Cromwell” History (good essay)

                     ii.        Struggles of Power: R. Tarr, “The Rise and Fall of Wolsey,” vs. D. MacCulloch, “Cranmer’s Ambiguous Legacy,” vs. G. Bernard, “Elton’s Cromwell” latter two HJ

                     iii.       Revolution in Govt.: Linda Peck, Court Patronage, vs. Conrad Russell, Unrevolutionary England (a bit too ambitious on historiography)

                     iv.       Yorkist or Tudor Revolution in Govt.: Eric Ives, “Marrying for Love,” HJ, vs. A. Weir, Henry’s Queens

                     v.        Tudor Revolution or Persons: G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation, vs. J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (among many others)

                     vi.       Henry VIII’s role in centralized government: G.R. Elton, “King or Minister?,” History, vs. G.W. Bernard in History

                     vii.      Control of England: G. Walker, “Henry VIII and the Royal court,” HJ, vs. S. Ellis, “Frontiers and Power,” HJ, vs. A. McKee, “Henry VIII as Military Commander,” HJ

          b.       Sources and Debates, ch. 3

                     i.         Attack on Church: Dickens, Reformation and Society, vs. Eamon Duffy (no source given)

                     ii.        Reformation: D. MacCulloch, “Myth of the English Reformation,” HJ, vs. G. Redworth, “Whatever Happened to the English Reformation?,” HJ (ditto another on same, which is a good paper)

                     iii.       English Reformation: A.G. Dickens, English Reformation (source is Haigh, “A.G. Dickens and his Reformation,” HJ), vs. C. Haigh, “Success and Failure in the English Reformation,” P & P (Also Muldoon, “recusants, church-papists)

                     iv.       Reformation above or below?: Dickens vs. Scarisbrick (from R. O’Day, The Debate on the English Reformation; ditto another paper on same)

                     v.        Reformation: A.G. Dickens (no source given), vs. C. Haigh, English Reformation

          c.        Sources and Debates, ch. 4

                     i.         Elizabethan England: Catholic or Protestant: D. MacCulloch, “The Impact of the English Reformation” HJ, vs. Christopher Haigh, “Conformity and Orthodoxy in the English Church,” EHR

                     ii.        Armada: G. Parker, “Why the Armada Failed,” vs. Simon Adam, “A Lurch into War” both History Today (ditto another paper on same)

                     iii.       Elizabethan Settlement: Protestant or Political?: Bernard, “Church of England,” History, vs. C. Haigh, Elizabeth (fairly good paper)

                     iv.       Good Queen Elizabeth?: A. Briscoe, Elizabeth I: an Overview, vs. P. Williams (both websites, not journal articles)

          d.       Sources and Debates, ch. 5

                     i.         Was England violent: Stone “Interpersonal Violence,” P & P, vs. A. Macfarlane (no source given; another Stone vs. Macfarlane with no sources given; another with sources given; latter is very good paper)

                     ii.        Was England violent: A. Macfarlane vs. J. Sharpe (citations?)

                     iii.       Women and Witchcraft: J. Sharpe, “Women, witchcraft, and the legal process,” in Women, Crime, and the Courts, ed. Kermode and Walker, vs. A. Laurence, Women in England.