This module examines the most powerful and influential group in early modern society: the gentry. Focusing on the provincial gentry of England and Wales, it explores the cultures of rule which helped them dominate political, cultural and social life for more than two centuries. The module draws extensively on a diverse range of sources to examine the gentry’s social, political and cultural worlds, including their voluminous correspondence; manuscript and printed autobiographies; portraiture and political pamphlets. Such sources are available in abundance and are easily accessible to students, meaning there is lots of scope for students considering a dissertation project in this area. Topics examined include honour and the culture of duelling; conspicuous consumption; Reformation, religion and rule; feuds and faction; literature and letters.

• Demonstrate a critical and systematic knowledge of the history of the gentry of Tudor and Stuart England, and a critical understanding of the relevant historical and historiographical ideas, contexts and frameworks.
• Contextualize and analyse critically selected primary sources.
• Use primary evidence to construct and evaluate historical arguments.

Knowledge and Understanding:

• Demonstrate a critical understanding of the nature of early modern gentry society.
• Engage critically with debates over the nature and exercise of rule in the early modern period.
• Demonstrate an understanding of issues of honour, cultural display and social cohesion as they relate to the early modern gentry order.
• Identify and analyse a broad range of primary source materials relating to the early modern gentleman.

Intellectual Skills:

• Formulate a critical and source-based argument relating to the early modern gentry culture.
• Articulate and present (whether orally or in writing) complex arguments in accordance with the scholarly conventions of the University and historical study more broadly.
• Identity problems in the study of the gentry order, both in the employment of primary sources and the use of secondary literature.
• Display a critical understanding of the historiographies relating to social relations and the political, religious and social developments of the early modern period.
• Examine critically the historiographical approaches to issues such as class, power and kinship.

Discipline Specific (including practical) Skills:

• Use and critique a wide range of primary and secondary source material
• Complicate ideas of ‘bias’ in early-modern sources by assessing materials such as diaries, autobiographies, legal records and correspondence.
• Apply these critical skills to the construction and presentation of coherent and articulate work (whether written or oral).
• Compare and contrast source material and place it within a robust historical framework.
• Identify the strengths and weaknesses of different theoretical approaches to authority, social display and social relations.
• Express their ideas clearly, confidently, and in a spirit of historical discussion and participation.    

A range of teaching methods will be used in each of the sessions of the course, comprising a combination of lectures, seminar discussion of major issues and workshops for the study of primary source material. The syllabus is divided into a series of major course themes, then sub-divided into principal topics for the study of each theme.

Lectures:

The aim of the lectures is to provide a brief introduction to a particular topic, establishing the salient features of major course themes, identifying key issues and providing historiographical guidance. The lectures aim to provide a basic framework for understanding and should be thought of as useful starting points for further discussion and individual study. Where appropriate, handouts and other materials may be distributed to reinforce the material discussed.

Seminar and Source Workshops:

The primary aim of the sessions will be to generate debate and discussion amongst course participants, focused in particular on primary source material. Seminars and source workshops for each of the course topics will provide an opportunity for students:

(a) to discuss topics or issues introduced by the lectures,

or (b) to discuss related themes, perhaps not directly addressed by the lectures, but drawing on ideas culled from those lectures.

and (c) to analyse different types of primary sources available, discussing the principal ways in which they can be used by historians.

Seminars and source workshops will provide the student with guidance on how to critically approach the various types of primary source material. Preparation for seminars and workshops will focus on specific items from the sources and related background reading, with students preparing answers to questions provided for each session. Both seminars and source workshops will provide an opportunity to discuss and debate the issues with fellow students. Classes will be divided into smaller groups for discussion purposes, with the results presented as part of an overall class debate at the end of the session.

• communicate ideas and arguments effectively, whether in class discussion or in written form, in an accurate, succinct and lucid manner.
• formulate and justify arguments and conclusions about a range of issues, and present appropriate supporting evidence
• an ability to modify as well as to defend their own position.
• an  ability to think critically and challenge assumptions
• an ability to use a range of information technology resources to assist with information retrieval and assignment presentation.
• time management skills and an ability to independently organise their own study methods and workload.
• work effectively with others as part of a team or group in seminar or tutorial discussions.   

Students will be assessed by means of a combination of an assessed essay relating to primary sources [20%], an assessed essay [30%] and an examination paper [50%].

Course assignments:

1. The Assessed Essay relating to primary sources will contribute 20% of the final mark for the module and must be no longer than 1,000 words.
2. The Assessed Essay will contribute 30% of the final mark for the module. It is designed to give students the opportunity to demonstrate their ability to review evidence, draw appropriate conclusions from it and employ the formal conventions of scholarly presentation. It must be no longer than 2,000 words.
3. The Examination will take place during the second assessment period [May/June] and will consist of an unseen two hour paper that will contribute the remaining 50% of the final mark for this module. Students must write 2 answers in total.

Who were the gentry?

Power and social relations in early modern Britain.

Policing the boundaries: social mobility and the limits of gentility.

The structures of rule: theory and practice

The honour code

Duelling and disgrace

Images of rule: portraits and power

Wealth and display: gentry houses

Piety and the godly magistrate

“But half a gentleman”? Catholicism and identity.

Cultures of communication: gentry correspondence.

Making the gentle self: diaries and autobiography

• Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500-1700 (Stanford, 1994).

• Richard Cust, ‘Honour and Politics in early Stuart England: the case of Beaumont v. Hastings’, Past & Present 149 (1995), pp. 57-94.
• J.P. Copper, ‘Ideas of Gentility in Early Modern England’, in his Land, Men and Beliefs; Studies in Early Modern History, ed. J.S. Morrill and G.E. Aylmer (London, 1983)
• Richard Cust, ‘Catholicism, Antiquarianism and Gentry Honour: The Writings of Sir Thomas Shirley’, Midland History, 23 (1998), pp. 40-70.
• M. E. James, ‘English Politics and the Concept of Honour, 1585-1642’, in his Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986)
• Jan Broadway, ‘No History So Meete’: Gentry Culture and the Development of Local History in Elizabethan and Early Stuart England (Manchester, 2006)
• Philip Jenkins, The Making of a Ruling Class: The Glamorgan Gentry, 1640-1790 (Cambridge, 1983).
• Ian Warren, ‘London's Cultural Impact on the English Gentry: The Case of Worcestershire, c.1580-1680’, Midland History, 33 (2008), pp. 156-78.
• Andy Wood, ‘Subordination, Solidarity and the Limits of Popular Agency in a Yorkshire Valley c.1596-1615’, Past & Present, 193 (2006), pp. 41-72.
• High Court of Chivalry Database: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/schools/historycultures/departments/history/research/projects/court-of-chivalry/index.aspx/