Clerical Lives in Britain, c.1600-1800 is a 2-day conference on the social, cultural, intellectual, political, domestic, and literary lives of Protestant clergymen in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Bringing together an international cohort of historians, literary scholars, archivists, curators, and practicing clergy, the conference seeks out clergymen’s, and their families’, lives beyond politics and the pulpit. Specifically, the conference will shed new light on the rich archival source base associated with the early modern clergyman, which has traditionally centred on church records and sermons, but which has begun in recent years to encompass personal documents, correspondence, and material and visual culture. This methodological pivot towards the words, voices, and representations of the clergy forges an exciting and innovative new approach to church, ecclesiastical, and religious histories of the period. Moreover, a number of existing hegemonies will be challenged, including the rigid divide between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in histories of Protestant ministers; the important cultural contributions of clergymen to English culture which have hitherto achieved little recognition; and the crucial concerns of marginalised clergy in the period. This event will therefore appeal not only to social, cultural, and ecclesiastical historians, but also historians of emotion, gender historians, art historians, material culture scholars, literary scholars, and specialists in local history.
This event is sponsored by CIDRAL (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Arts and Languages).
Speakers
Keynotes: Jacquline Eales (CCCU) and Jon Stobart (MMU)
Personal lives: Rachael Harman (Aberystwyth), Lucy Rose Morgan (Sheffield), Colin Harris (Aix-Marseille), Mary Clare Martin (Greenwich)
Sickness and health: Paul R. Gillam III (Independent scholar), Emma Marshall (York), James Brown (Sheffield) and Tim Wales (Independent scholar).
Legacies and Networks: Chris Toole (Leeds), Gillian Williamson (Independent scholar), Lewis Allen (Independent scholar), Marcus Bateman (Oxford)
The Natural World: Benedetta Burgio, (Catholic University of Milan), Brycchan Carey (Northumbria), Grace Murray (York)
Political lives: Eleanor Hex (Kent), Marion Löffler (Cardiff), Jonathan Gibson (St. Andrews), Timothy Brain (independent scholar)
Literary Lives: Ted Simonds and Kristyna Spencer, (Lambeth Palace Archives), Claudine van Hensbergen, (Northumbria), Emma Major (York).
Historiographical Heresies: Daniel Reed, Nigel Aston, William Gibson (all Oxford Brookes)
