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Semester 2

Revelry and Riot: Popular Culture in Britain, c.1400-1800 (HIST10504)

Subject

History

College

CAHSS

Credits

20

Normal Year Taken

3

Delivery Session Year

2023/2024

Pre-requisites

Visiting students must have completed 3 History courses at grade B or above, and please note that we will only consider courses with a specific focus on History (not including History of Art) towards these pre-requisites. We will only consider University/College level courses. **Please see Additional Restrictions below**

Course Summary

This courses explores the beliefs, festivities, pastimes, and political cultures of everyday men, women and children in late medieval and early modern Britain. It investigates the impact of watershed movements like reformations, revolutions and industrialisation upon popular culture, and interrogates popular culture's influence upon the same.

Course Description

What were the attitudes, values and customs of ordinary people in Britain during the late medieval and early modern periods? How can we glimpse these 'popular cultures' of the past, and how did they relate to the broader political, economic and social structures and issues of the time? This course grapples with these questions, making a serious study of those people below the level of the wealthy and elite in pre-modern society: the alewives and artisans, husbandmen and servants, labourers and paupers who formed the vast majority of the population. The course focuses upon the cultural lives of everyday individuals and groups, exploring their belief systems and mental outlooks towards issues like religion, sex, leisure, and politics, as manifested through objects, utterances, rituals and customs. Multiple popular cultures will be considered, touching upon gender, age, and locality, and subjects will include festivities; sports, theatre, and other pastimes; belief and the supernatural; popular protest and riot. The course examines both the influence of popular culture and the changes it underwent in relation to significant movements of reformation, revolution and industrialisation over the course of four centuries. More broadly, it contends with historiographical debates over the legitimacy and value of 'popular culture' as a field of study: can we truly speak of one 'plebeian' culture separate from the elite during this period; and is it necessary or even possible to uncover the 'voices of the people'?

Assessment Information

Written Exam 40%, Coursework 40%, Practical Exam 20%

Additional Restrictions

Unless you are nominated on a History or HCA exchange agreement, visiting students are only permitted to enrol in two 3rd year History courses each, per semester, before the start of the relevant semester’s welcome period – and spaces on each course are limited so cannot be guaranteed for any student. This includes courses in Economic History and Scottish History. Enrolment in a third course from this group will depend on whether there are still spaces available in the January Welcome Period, and cannot be guaranteed. It is NOT appropriate for students to contact staff within this subject area to ask for an exception to be made; all enquiries to enrol in these courses must be made through the CAHSS Visiting Student Office. This is due to the limited number of spaces available in this very popular subject area.

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