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'What News?' People & Politics in Early Modern Britain - HIS00114I

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  • Department: History
  • Module co-ordinator: Dr. Hannah Jeans
  • Credit value: 30 credits
  • Credit level: I
  • Academic year of delivery: 2021-22
    • See module specification for other years: 2022-23

Module summary

What did people know about politics in early modern Britain and how did they find out? Much of the British male population – and, with rare exceptions, almost all women - were excluded from formal structures of governance and representation. Governing elites broadly agreed that ‘the people’ could not be trusted either with the responsibility of governing or knowledge of policy-making. Yet this does not mean that people were uninterested in politics. It has often been argued that this period saw a ‘print revolution’ that enabled people to engage with politics in new ways. Print has been seen as a key means by which ‘public opinion’ could begin to emerge as a political force. A growing market for print publications enabled the development of new genres, such as the serialised newsbook, which further stimulated demand. Using a wide range of accessible primary source material – libels, ballads, petitions, newsbooks – this course will investigate the ways in which politics was constructed and debate stimulated, not only through the circulation of print alone, but also through its creative interactions with existing oral and scribal forms of communication. In what ways did the expansion of cheap print affect how people thought about the Stuart monarchs, the Protestant church, the royal Court, and the role of parliament? To what extent did governing regimes engage with, rather than try to shut down, public debate? What was the role of print in shaping contemporary understanding of major political events, such as the civil wars and the 1689 Revolution?

Module will run

Occurrence Teaching period
A Spring Term 2021-22 to Summer Term 2021-22

Module aims

The aims of this module are:
• To provide students with the opportunity to study particular historical topics in depth;
• To develop students’ ability to examine a topic from a range of perspectives and to strengthen their ability to work critically and reflectively with secondary and primary material; and
• To combine seminar preparation and discussion of the topic being studied with extended independent work on a project devised by the student.

Module learning outcomes

Students who complete this module successfully will:
• Have acquired a deep knowledge of the specific topic studied
• Have developed their ability to use and synthesise a range of primary and secondary sources
• Be able to evaluate the arguments that historians have made about the topic studied
• Have developed their ability to study independently through seminar-based teaching
• Gain experience of working collaboratively through an assessed group project

Module content

This 30-credit module is taught through a weekly two-hour seminar run from weeks 2-10 in the spring term and a four week period of project work undertaken in weeks 1-4 of the summer term. Students will complete their group project work within that period and tutors should arrange to be available for consultation with students twice during that time. There will be no formal seminar teaching during this period.

Seminar subjects could include:

  • Introduction: sources and historiography
  • Literacy and orality
  • Protestants and print
  • Libeling and satire
  • Print starts a war: pamphlets and petitions
  • The newsbook
  • Print, popery, and plot in the reign of Charles II
  • Conclusions: a print revolution?

Assessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
24-Hour Open Exam		 8 hours 67

Special assessment rules

None

Additional assessment information

Formative assessment will be a group presentation between weeks 5 and 7 of the spring term.

For summative assessment, students take a 24-hour open exam in the summer term assessment period. Single subject students, who take two Explorations modules, will take two 24-hour open exams to be held on consecutive days. Students also submit a piece of written work for their group project of no more than 3,000 words in week 5 of the summer term. 

The exam carries 67% of assessment and the project element 33% for this module.

Students who need to be reassessed in the project component of this module (for example due to Exceptional Circumstance) will be required to submit in the summer reassessment period a shorter individual project (2,000 words) which should include a short reflection (500 words max) on group work, considering how this project could be expanded if a team of three to four people were working on it. Students should consider how they would divide up the research tasks, and reflect briefly on problems which might arise and how they would manage them. Module tutors will advise on the content and design of this project.

Reassessment

Task Length % of module mark
Groupwork
Project		 N/A 33
Online Exam - 24 hrs (Centrally scheduled)
24-Hour Open Exam		 8 hours 67

Module feedback

Following their formative assessment task, students will typically receive written feedback that will include comments and a mark within 10 working days of submission.
Work will be returned to students in their seminars and may be supplemented by the tutor giving some oral feedback to the whole group. All students are encouraged, if they wish, to discuss the feedback on their procedural work during their tutor’s student hours. For more information, see the Statement on Feedback.

For the summative assessment task, students will receive their provisional mark and written feedback within 20 working days of the submission deadline unless submitted in week 5 of the summer term, in which case these are available within 25 working days. The tutor will then be available during student hours for follow-up guidance if required. For more information, see the Statement of Assessment.

Indicative reading

For term time reading, please refer to the module VLE site. Before the course starts, we encourage you to look at the following items of preliminary reading:

Eisenstein, Elizabeth. The Printing Revolution in Early Modern Europe. 2nd edn, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Raymond, Joad, ed., The Oxford History of Poplar Print Culture: Volume 1. Cheap Print in Britain and Ireland to 1660. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2011.

Watt, Tessa. Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.


The information on this page is indicative of the module that is currently on offer. The University is constantly exploring ways to enhance and improve its degree programmes and therefore reserves the right to make variations to the content and method of delivery of modules, and to discontinue modules, if such action is reasonably considered to be necessary by the University. Where appropriate, the University will notify and consult with affected students in advance about any changes that are required in line with the University's policy on the Approval of Modifications to Existing Taught Programmes of Study.